Barcelona

I spent last week in Barcelona... I loved the city! I visited the infamous Sagrada Familia designed by Antonio Gaudi. It's still being constructed so when you walk inside the cathedral, you see construction workers and huge cranes--something not expected. There's supposed to be four facades but only two of them are complete right now. I got to see the Passion facade and the Nativity facade.

Passion facade -- was actually finished by another architect, so the style is a bit different than Gaudi. Gaudi died in an accident before he completely finished his plans, so no one really knows what the finished cathedral is supposed to look like exactly, only approximately. The statues are very different than the gothic style that i've been used to in Paris.
Here, you see the rooster (crowing) on the bottom left, and Peter on the right.
And this one, Satan (with the serpent tail) is tempting Jesus. And on the left, the rows of numbers will add up to 33 (the age of Jesus when he died) in anyway combination. Below are some of the combinations.... supposedly there's 310 combos. (I think that's so cool!)
On the Nativity facade, it's Gaudi.
So on each side (facade), there's four bell towers. When the cathedral is complete, there'll be sixteen bell towers plus one tallest in the middle.
On the inside of the cathedral. Nothing in the cathedral is straight because Gaudi liked to mimick nature. So you see the columns near the top branches (like tree trunks). His staircases are mostly spiral mimicking seashells... like this:
And his crosses are 3 dimensional. He says that the traditional crosses, if looked at from the front will look like a flat cross, but when looked at from the side will only look like a line. So 3 dimensional crosses will look like a cross from any angle, any side, any altitude. Thus his crosses look like this:
I walked up and down La Rambla (most famous street in the city) that leads to Placa Catalunya (the center of town that connects all major streets of the city) a few times during my stay. There's lots of the same stands you find in Paris that sells papers, postcards, books, etc. Instead of saying "Relay!", they say "Hola!" =D
Yea so behind me is La Rambla and a stand. I had really good foood in Barcelona.... went to Les Quinze Nitz, Origens 99.9%, Meson David, Colors, Restaurant Elche, and Trobador. I also had the BEST hot chocolate with Amy. It was soooo thick! you had to "drink" it with a spoon. Also had really gooooood gelato.
most amazing duck ever! it was made in a tangy sauce from oranges.
mmm... amy's rabit, you can see it's head! the dish was "1/4 of rabbit" and amy was thinking... i wonder which 1/4 it'll be...
baked apple dessert stuffed with nuts.... suuuuper warm and yummy
dinner at Alejandra's house.

hmmm so my visit to Barcelona was mostly Gaudi designs (Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Batllo), Montjuic, Tibidabo, La Rambla, Diagonal + Passeig de Gracia, Placa Catalunya, and FOOD. Today was only pictures from Sagrada Familia and Food. I'll add more tomorrow.