Estoy escribiendo parte de mi blog en espanol. Hoy Eden y yo consultamos nuestra mapa y caminamos a la sagrada familia. Fue un gran caminata! It's late and I can barely think in English so maybe now is not the best time for Spanish practice, unless you want a lot of Spanglish.
From the beginning: We slept in til 11, missing the hostel bfast because our dorm mates were very loud all throughout the night until sometime before 6 am. I hope it will be better tonight. Eden was super great about it and only complained about the guy whose phone kept going off until he woke up about an hour later and cursed loudly before rushing out, probably to schedule another flight! He then rushed down the stairs banging his suitcase on every stair (we're on the fifth floor.)
We did finally roll out of bed though and grabbed desayuno at the restaurant next to our hostel. The owner was very nice and put up with my broken Spanish with lots of smiling until Eden grew exasperated and talked to him in her rapid spanish. When he complimented her on her Spanish she said, "it's terrible" (!?!)
After consulting the itinerary we realized that we needed to check in 24 hours in advance booking for our Pyrenees tour tomorrow. After trying and failing to call the number via Skype we decided to walk over there. Although not our first adventure with the map, it precipitated our greatest adventure yet when we set out for the magical fairy forest aka la sagrada familia.
Regardless of any person's religious or lack of it, this was the most awe-inspiring church on earth that I have seen as of yet in my short life.
Eden will go on record saying "it was pretty fucking incredible." Gaudi wasn't even the original designer of the project - he only signed on the year they began construction in 1882 - when he was in his early 30s (?). One of the coolest aspects was the lighting. I heard on my audio guide that Gaudi said one flaw of many architects was the belief that churches could never let in enough light. He believed the balance of light and dark was most important, thus he designed the ceiling to have little holes like the canopy of a forest, letting small bright spots of natural light in.
We stopped at a cute Peruvian place for dinner then got the most lost yet trying to find our way back. We left the restaurant at around 6:30 and made it back to our hostel by 9! So much walking, but we accidentally passed la casa Batillo (Gaudi's appt. houses) and got to see the after-hours drag-life of la rambla (a man dressed as a police officer wearing short shorts, a blonde curly wig and a belly shirt.) Buenas noches!
Here are some more pics from the day:
A plaza near La Rambla where people were milling and a band was playing on a large stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment