Barcelona Pictures

My dad and I spent our Saturday in Barcelona by going on Gaudí pilgrimages. We first went to the Street of Discord, a street where various architects built apartments based on their style, hence the discord. Gaudí's building is on the right and the roof is meant to look like a dragon.
From there we went to the Casa Milà. My friend Rebekka calls his work "undulating" which you can tell from this picture. It also had some goofy statues on it's roof.
In the middle of our Gaudí pilgrimage we found a nice church. It had really cool outer walls.
We made it to the Sagrada Familia--which is called officially in Catalan, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família--and were immediately blown away. People had said that it was smaller than they had expected it to be. I don't know what they were expecting, but I though it was huge, and it's only going to get bigger. They haven't even really begun the main spire.
The front façade covers the last few days of the Savior's life. These sculptures weren't done by Gaudí, but by another man whose name eludes me right now. The crucifixion is interesting because Christ's head is a book, symbolic of the word or book of life. There's a sculpture of Judas' kiss which has a 4 number by 4 number magic square that adds up in various ways to the number 33. The scenes are juxtaposed, like the burial of the Savior in the sepulcher as well His falling while carrying the cross. There is a statue of the Savior tied to the whipping post with words from the scripture behind him. Another angle shows the Savior at the post with the stylized Alpha and Omega behind His left shoulder. The words of scripture were also placed on the front doors.
The inside is really fascinating. Gaudí was interested in incorporating nature into his architecture. I sometimes felt like I was in a jungle inside, but not totally. But the ceiling was hard to figure out, in that I couldn't completely understand why he wanted to build it that way.
The outside back wall is called the Nativity because it covers the first few years of the Savior's life, before his ministry, like the flight to Egypt as well as the nativity scene, another view with angels watching over, the Magi,
We road the elevator up one of the towers and wandered around up there for a while and I was able to take better shots of the towers and spires, specifically the fruity ones. The picture that I linked to Barcelona was taken from one of the towers. I can't post all of my pictures, so you should just go online and try and find more. it was a great place.

That night we went walking thru the other half of the city's center. We stumbled onto the Catalunyan dancing. Notice their shoes; I think they might be specifically made for the dancing. One person in the group calls out what the next set of moves will be. I put a couple of videos up of the dancing and then embedded them to my blog. I really appreciated and enjoyed the love that these people had for their culture. There were lots of different dancing circles. It was nifty.
This is also the night that I bought my Waterman, mentioned in this entry, with pictures.
The next day we went to the Picasso museum which was meant to show his time in Barcelona and the work it produced as well as show his development as an artist. He was really amazing. Later we walked around trying to catch a cab to Parc Güell--which we never got to. Clark says that it was okay because now I have an excuse to go back. I was sad though because I wanted to see it. But instead we stumbled onto the Monument to Columbus. He returned to Barcelona from his first trip to America. The statue shows him pointing to the New World.
I really like Barcelona and would love to go back anytime.

Catalunyan Dancing

This first video is a panorama of the square where they do the dancing.




This second one is up closer and shows various groups dancing.

Barcelona

Sorry, I still don't have a way to put pictures on. But I will put some on, I promise.
We went on a Gaudí tour yesterday (meaning Saturday). We saw, among other things, the Casa Milà and La Sagrada Familia. I found Sagrada Familia awe inspiring. It was so amazing. His style is round. I'll put up a post about it when I get back. We spent a long time there.
Then I sent Dad on his way and I went to the Bookstore: La Casa del Llibre. I bought Harry Potter in Catalan, books 1-4, book 4 of HP but the british version, I got the little prince in Catalan, German and Italian, I got a catalan dictionary and a picture book of La Sagrada Familia. I was quite happy.
Later on we saw dancing by Catalans in the street. It's the native dance. It's really cool. I'll post a video about that two. It was hard to get a good video of the crowd because of the two naked men. They were icky. The old guy had tattoos everywhere. Bizarre.
I bought a Waterman fountain pen that's very sleek. I just can't get it to write. Hmmph.
Last night we had tapas. It was fun.
Today I had lots of yogurt because i didn't get any yesterday. Then I had yogurt gelato. Yum.
Today we went to the Picasso museum. It was interesting to see his progression as an artist. He was amazing as a young (14ish) painter.
Then we wandered around and saw the big Columbus statue then the Mediterranean. Today has been a little damp, so it was a real Mediterranean afternoon.
There's more, especially with pictures. But the computer's gonna kick me off.
Tomorrow in the early morning we're off to Madrid!!!
Here's to more yogurt!!!