Barcelona!

This past weekend we had an Emory trip to Barcelona and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite city of all the ones we've visited so far. We took our bus to Madrid and then took the AVE (the high speed train to Barcelona) which was nice because it reduced a trip across the country to only 4.5ish hours.

Our first day there we got there in the afternoon so we just went to see the Sagrada Familia which is the giant church dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was completely planned out by Gaudi down to the very last detail and he did the initial construction (1882), but it is still being worked on and is not expected to be finished for another 30 or 40 years. Gaudi expected the project to take so long that he included things in his design that the technology of his time could not possibly do with the expectation that someone would figure out how to do it eventually. It was cool to see the little museum, but because it's under construction it was kind of hard to get the whole picture and see the whole thing.

Sagrada Familia

The next day we visited Casa Mila which is an apartment building also designed by Gaudi. It was amazing and if I had a ton of money I would live there haha. Some people still live there, but parts of the building have been set up as they would have looked like in the early 1900s. Basically it looked like a giant fun house, it was awesome. After Casa Mila we walked down Las Ramblas where you can basically find any street performer you want and buy basically anything. They even have pet store stand things, it's very odd. We also visited the big market which was amazing. I don't think I've ever seen that much food in one place in my entire life. Oh P.S. next to the market was a Dunkin Donuts!! Too bad they don't know how to make real iced coffee in Spain...major bummer. After all of that we took a walk down to the beach (Playa Barceloneta) where we met a very enthusiastic 2 year old boy that fell in love with us all ("chica, chica, chica, chica, guapa, guapa, guapa, guapa").

Casa Mila

Market (all that seafood was alive and moving by the way)

Playa Barceloneta

On Saturday we saw the Picasso museum in the morning (who knew that Picasso actually painted like a normal artist for most of his life?!) Then we headed to Parc Guell, the gigantic park designed by Gaudi as well. It was really cool, there were great views of the city and lots of crazy benches, sculptures, and houses. After Parc Guell we headed to Plaza Espana to see the giant light up fountain show which was really pretty. Basically it was a very packed weekend, but I had a great time and I definitely want to go back to explore another time. Only complaint: the metro is not very well designed, but I can deal with that haha.

Parc Guell

Plaza Espana/Fountain