Barcelona

New #1 favorite city. New goal: live in Barcelona. First off, Spanish. Whether the language makes the culture or the culture makes the language, anything that is adorned with Spanish words seems to be simultaneously touched with passion and nonchalance. Although I do not speak Spanish, stumbling through the phrases I do know was a pleasure for my palat.

We had approximately 34 hours in Barcelona and two goals. One; see Gaudis architecture, two; get train reservations for our journey from Barcelona to Italy. Our first and only full day we got up and imbedded goal one inside goal two. We walked through the city going from one Gaudi building to the next on our way to the train station. Gaudis designs made my skin pucker up and form goose bumps all along the upper 1/4 of my body for half hours at a time at each site. The awe made me feel like my artists soul was enlarging too rapidly, like the grinches heart, to be contained anymore in my phyical shape and was going to explode out at any moment. It was quite overwhelmingly amazing. My heart was on fast forward for thw whole day.

In addition to the eye candy that Gaudi provided the city seemed to be burstung with art and design. I guess in a city that historically allowed someone so eccentric as Gaudi to create the base line for thier architectural designs must harbor many generations of artisitic souls. This is evident everywhere you turn. In the short time and distance of our days walk across the city to the far train station we were inidated with one unique building after another. We passed many sweet galleries and street musicians which were unusually talented. We passed a market stuffed full of amazing and artisitic antiques as if they were junk but the vendors and the price tags knew better. The gothic churches were everywhere and had a less stuffy aire about them with a barcelonian twist in their design. Being full of enthusiasm for all of the interesting things to take in we finally reached our destination to achieve goal number two. The station was right off the harbor and was a beautiful sight in and of its self. Although we did not achieve this goal of getting our tickets booked, a problem we seem unable to avoid despite all efforts, we were still in good spirits. A walk walk through the triumph arch and on to the most famous Gaudi cathedral and then to the UNESCO sight of the Gaudi Park filled our senses and distracted our irritation at the limitation of the Eurail pass.

Our 34 hours were well spent and thanks to Gaudi my goose bumps have been revitalized.

Barcelona, mucho gusto!!

Gaudi Apartments

Miscillanious Street Architercture

Antique Market

Train Station

Gaudi Cathedral

Guadi Park