Sonya Wilson's Blog

Upon arriving in Spain from Italy, I found that my Spanish had coalesced into a commingled compilation of confusion.  I’ll call it Spitalish.  I could still communicate in Spanish when people weren’t trying to learn English, but so often my brain kept wanting to speak Italian, which was hilarious because I hardly know any.  My last day in Madrid I couldn’t even ask for directions.  It went something like this: “Scuse,  I mean perdon, sa dov’e la stazzione…I mean, donde es el, el lugar donde el tren…um, do you speak English?  Great.  Can you tell me where the train station is?  Thanks.”

Anyway, once I found the high speed train, I was on my way to my last destination–Barcelona.  ¡Qué ciudad!

I arrived in the evening after an interesting chat (in English) with a Peruvian professor I met on the train, and by the time I found my B&B and settled in, I was starving.  It was about 9:30 and I set out to find a certain bar (a common place to buy meals).  As I was finding my way, I got the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, and realized that the streets were deserted.  “Strange,” I thought.  For Spain, it was dinnertime and the streets should have been awash with people.  I found out why as soon as I tried to enter the bar.

It was crammed with people; every seat was taken, and every seat was turned in the direction of the TV that was broadcasting a soccer game.  (Hello, it was the final game.)  I stood in the doorway for a few moments wondering how I was going to feed my gnawing stomach, as no one was paying any attention to the clueless redhead staring out at them.  I maneuvered my way through the chairs to the bar and presented myself to the girl behind the counter.

“Si?” she asked.

“Um…”  I knew what I was about to say was going to sound ridiculous, but I said it anyway.  “Como como?”  (How do I eat?)

After she finished cracking up, she handed me a menu with a smile.  I devoured my huge hamburger with the works (including a fried egg), with papas bravas, outside.  A car whizzed by and I could hear the game blasting on the radio.  After a few minutes, a roar of cheering came from inside the bar, complete with fireworks and shouts from the neighboring apartments–it was a score.  They lost the game, though, and soon the streets returned to a comfortable murmur.

The next day was gorgeous.  Barcelona is right on the Meditteranean Sea, about a half-hour stroll from where I was staying.  I love the water, so I meandered that direction.  I found that it’s pretty relaxing to just explore without an agenda.

Placa de Catalunya

Fountain in Placa de Catalunya

Dessert after a yummy lunch. The waiter was super friendly, and after talking with him for awhile I realized I hadn't forgetten all my Spanish after all.

Rambla de Mar, by the water

That's me in the top left square

I couldn't resist visiting the aquarium

and photographing the purple octopus.

Sigh.  Walking by the water’s edge on a breezy spring afternoon is my idea of a relaxing vacation.  Barcelona also has some beautiful parks.

"Cascada" in Parc de La Ciutadella

My new best friend in Parc de La Ciutadella

Parc Zoologic

Parlament de Catalunya, next to Parc de La Ciutatella

Speaking of parks, my favorite place in Barcelona is probably Parc Guell, designed by a very famous and very out-of-the-box architect named Antoni Gaudi, who is hard to not learn about if you spend any time in Barcelona–his eye-catching structures are an integral part of the city’s personality.  Parc Guell is a large expanse up in the foothills north of the city.  Aside from having a great view and a lot of walking paths and trails amongst native shrubs and pretty landscaping, it’s full of Gaudi’s work.  Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery after I took a few shots, but you can see from this link (or this one) some of the crazy and amazingly artistic structures he designed that are scattered throughout the park.

I actually had to climb a rock post to get this shot. It's not even a good shot, but it was fun. I think one lady in the photo is staring at the crazy girl climbing a rock post.

Park Guell

Gaudi’s most famous work is probably the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, began in 1882…and it’s slated for completion in 2026.

View from inside the Sagrada Familia

Spiral staircase inside one of the towers

Gaudi was a sickly child who spent a lot of time in the woods with his mom, examining nature instead of going to school.  This gave him the background for much of his later work as an architect; he employed many patterns found in nature into his structures.  This is just one example I snapped from a display:

(And I know this spiral staircase in one of the spires in Sagrada Familia may not be exactly a logarithmic spiral, but you probably could have fooled this English major.)

Below is the side of an apartment building, designed by Gaudi:

Here’s an aside: one benefit to exploring without much of an agenda is that you get to be surprised.  I was walking along a street called La Rambla on my way to the water, and noticed this interesting tent-like thing.

I follow the crowd inside and BAM!  There’s this huge bazaar with masses of beautiful displays of fruit, produce, chocolate, meats, etc…dozens of beautiful displays one after the other.  Pretty exciting.  Cheap, too.  Yum.

It’s actually a pretty famous place called Mercado de la Boqueria that tourists are supposed to visit–like so many other hot spots in the city–and I could have easily missed it.  You could argue that with this “discover as you go” style of traveling, I might miss some great sights.  Except that I didn’t go to argue, I went to explore and get a feel for the cities, which I got by wandering around, which I had a great time doing, for which reason I can now argue that by wandering around you can get a great feel for the cities and explore, which I did.  Huh?  Anyway, I did have a map.

I also have friends from Barcelona and a friend who’s been there, so I was actually well-equipped with a list of must-sees (gracias, amigos!).  On my last day, at the recommendation of Juan and Anna I stopped at this great restaurant, Sagardi, which was jam-packed with people and lots of delicious appetizers, which were enough to satisfy my bottomless pit.

With a full stomach, I stepped out into a courtyard and stumbled upon a grandiose, yet very pretty, church building.  I remember not wanting to bother taking my camera out to capture yet another fascinating structure.  You see, after 5 weeks of travel I was about “photoed” out.  There had been so many new and beautiful things around me that after 5 weeks of being shutter-happy, I had reached the point where I’d walk by an amazing building and think, “Oh, nice, a really cool building” and walk straight past it, NOT immediately whipping out my camera and shooting to high sky like a madwoman.  (This is probably why I unfortunately don’t have many photos of the Gaudian architecture.)  But this structure was striking enough that I could get my listless, weary hand to dutifully whip out my camera and snap a couple lazy shots, so here’s the last impressive building that actually made it onto my memory card:

I found out later that this church is called “Santa Maria del Mar” and that my Barcelonian friend Juan did his graduate thesis on this very building.  I only saw the west end but it’s actually a huge building and very beautiful on the inside, so I see from pictures on Wikipedia–an example of Catalan Gothic style.  Very cool!

Oh, I did take one more photo of a building, if this counts:

Lifeguard tower?  Art?  Whatever it is, it’s quite the anticlimactic end to my travel tales.  But anyway, after about five days in Barcelona, I spent my last couple hours here on the beach.  I wandered about a mile down the shoreline in the sand sans shoes, collecting shells, sea glass, some cool old pieces of washed-up colored tile, a cheap back massage from an old “indigena de latinoamerica” woman, and a really crummy pickup line from some guy that I’m not going to repeat here.  And finally, after five weeks of travel in three countries and over eight cities, I actually felt about ready to go home.  I flew to London, crashed a few hours at Newman and Gloria’s, and boarded my flight to Chicago, where I would visit family for a few days before heading to San Diego.  Whew!!

This entry was posted on May 30, 2010 at 4:31 am and is filed under Travel. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.