My Gaudi Day

There is this famous architect from Barcelona, his name is Gaudi, and I was told by a few different people before coming here that I just had to check out his stuff. In the city there are two houses that he did and a cathedral that is still being completed, plus a huge park.

I met up with Melissa again in the morning, of course after breakfast since we slept through it, but she said that her and another friend were going to the park today. I really wanted to see the cathedral and the houses, which were a bit far, but the park was even further so I thought I would tag along with them and hit the cathedral and the houses on the way back since they had already seen them.

So Melissa and I met up with Ryan, who is from San Francisco, for lunch. We went over by the Barcelona cathedral and found another menu of the day (you gotta love those, they are the best). We all tried different things so we could share, Melissa and I had cold tomato soup, which was very good, and Ryan had pasta, also good. Then I got a spinach and cod omelet, which wasn’t bad but I couldn’t eat the whole thing. They had veal and I think BBQ pork chops, which were of course good. Then we took the metro up to the park.

It was quite a hike, the park is at the top of a huge, very steep hill, but luckily they had escalators! When we finally got to the top, it was way better than I expected. One, you could see the entire city with the ocean behind, it was gorgeous. And the whole park was so cool. Melissa looked into it a bit before we left, and I guess it was designed to be a small neighborhood, but never really got finished and ended up being a beautiful park. There were tons of awesome buildings, walkways, steps, and a lot of plant life to walk through. It was so awesome, and what topped it off, is there was a air show going above the city, and we had the best view! That was definitely a pleasant surprise. We spent a while up there, took a ton of photos, did some shopping, and made our way back down.

They went back while I went to see the cathedral. Unfortunately It was already closed when I got there, since it was October now the hours had changed from 8:00 to 6:00. But even just looking at the outside was awesome. I did manage to sneak inside, but there was mass going on so I took one quick snap and left. Then I went to find his other houses, which weren’t too far and on the way back to the hostel. They were fantastic, of course, his whole design is just so unique, and kinda bazaar, but just awesome. Look at the pictures and let me know if you can tell which houses are his.

The wall back was kinda long, but I was fine with that because it was a new and exciting part of town for me. Also I passed a lot of really cool buildings to take pictures of. When i got back to the hostel, there was Ray and the Swiss eating dinner. I was planning on meeting up with Melissa and Ryan for dinner, but Angela made a Swiss meal that I couldn’t resist. It was pasta with potatoes and I think bacon, so good. Then we went and got more red wine and just sat and hung out for quite a while. More people joined the table and the conversations were flowing, it was great. I had a very early flight, so I couldn’t decide if I wanted to sleep or just stay up all night. They all wanted to go out, so I joined them for a bit but stopped drinking because I still had things to do. We went to a nearby bar and when it closed I tool that as my queue to go pack…. or so I thought…