Barcelona Pictures Part 1: Sunny Barcelona

I have a lot of pictures from my trip, and they take awhile to load on here, so I'm going to post them in batches.

When Becca T and I arrived in Barcelona, it was pouring rain and I was hungry. We made it to our hotel, and ate seafood paella at the little restaurant downstairs. I have discovered that I really don't like prawns. They creep me out. Anyway, the rest of the dish was delicious.

We then went to see a Flamenco Opera at the Palau Musica de Catalana in the old part of town. I had forgotten to put the battery inside my camera, so I have no pictures of it. However, here are some pictures lifted from the internet so you can see.

Here's how the outside corner of the building looks:

Here's the inside of the building:

The performance was great... I was feeling pretty tired from my flight though, and had a hard time staying awake. But it was worth it.

Sunday was our only sunny day and we made the most of it but doing a thorough bus tour of the city. It worked out very well because we were able to get our bearings and do a lot without having to plan or think.

Here's the Arc de Triomf that was near our hotel. We walked through this structure countless times.

The amazing unfinished cathedral Sagrada Familia.

Views of the Olympic Port and the waterfront.

View of the city from the top of Montjuic.

Here's a bunch of shots of Park Guell. This park was designed by Antoni Gaudi and seems almost Seussical in many of its elements. Of course, it predates Dr. Seuss.

After our tour, we went to a friend of Becca's for dinner. We ate Spanish omelette, local meats and cheeses, and a traditional Catalan salad with tomatoes and tuna. It was delicious.

After dinner and chatting, our hostess suggested we take a walk by the Sagrada Familia at night. It was definitely worth seeing the cathedral again at night, especially from a spot where you could see its reflection in a pond.

Becca and I have decided that the Sagrada Familia is our favourite cathedral ever, and we plan to go back when (if) it's ever finished. I bought a postcard with how it is projected to look when it's done. I think it's kind of bad luck for the city to be printing these postcards, but we'll see. Our tour guide told us that a Japanese company offered to pay to finish the cathedral, and within 10 years, as long as they could place advertising on the cathedral. Thank goodness the city said no. Could you imagine?

Our tour guide was pretty funny. He kept making lame jokes. My favourite was when he referred to puddles in Park Guell as "modernist swimming pools". Everytime I saw puddles for the rest of the trip, and believe me, there were a lot of them, I cracked that joke too. Poor Becca T. However, my fondness of the joke became a joke in itself.

I had one transit snafu on Sunday. On our way home from Becca's friend's house, we took the subway. I have to say that Barcelona has a very nice transit system. Anyway, I bought a ticket and put it in the turnstile. It would not work. I tried again, and though, oh no, I have cancelled my ticket and it won't work. There was no employee at this part of the station, so I just bought another ticket. Same thing happened. Luckily, a group of dudes was walking by and saw my problem and gestured/told me in Catalan, that I was going through the wrong side of the turnstile. How was I to know? Oh yeah, the bright giant white arrow. Yeesh. I was tired, and so was Becca T, since she couldn't figure out the problem I was having either. Thankfully, I did not have to buy a third ticket.

Anyway, I post more pictures of rainy Barcelona soon!

PS I just realized that I missed my blog's sixth blogoversary yesterday! Happy belated blogoversary blog! We've been through good times and bad. I never thought we'd make it this long though.

And, today is David Suzuki's 75th birthday! Happy birthday to my favourite environmentalist/geneticist!