As promised, here is the full story of our last day in Barcelona:
We started out by heading to one of the mountains in Barcelona, which is supposed to have great views of the city. We took the metro tram halfway up and decided to walk the rest of the way instead of taking the cable cars. This is where the little teaser I gave you yesterday comes into play. As we were walking up the street a man approached us, flashed us, and offered a photo op for the low price of 3 euro. We declined. The walk took longer than I thought it would but when we finally got to the top we did have a good view even though it was a bit foggy.
After we got down from the mountain (without any more photo offers from creeps), we headed to Plaza Reial to meet a group for a free Gaudi walking tour. We met some nice people and saw some of Gaudi's works, starting with some lamp posts in Plaza Real and ending with la Sagrada Familiar. It was interesting to hear more about his life since he's such a big deal in Barcelona. Apparently he was really fanatically religious and also eccentric about people taking his pictures. He was really difficult to work with, always going over budget and running behind schedule, so we heard about some of his issues with clients as well.
Made it to Paris today, after a long day of train travel. Haven't had a chance to see much of the city but we did see Harry Potter 7.2!!!!! It was amazing! I might have cried. A lot. I would strongly suggest going out right now and purchasing tickets for a midnight showing. I also recommend bringing tissues and asprin because for a while there I thought my heart might implode and asprin is supposed to help with that.
Here are a few other things I discovered in my first 8 hours in France:
1. The bread here is fantastic. We had a baguette from the bakery next to the apartment we are staying in and it was the best baguette I've ever had. And I eat them a lot.
2. The people here are not the heartless meanies my dad made them out to be. People have been nice so far when we have asked them questions in our mangled French/English/Spanish. Also, when we were in the movie, everyone around us was laughing and sniffling together at the funny and sad moments like one big Potter-loving family. So that was nice.
3. Temperature-wise it is much cooler here than in Spain. I think ut is lovely. Michelle thinks it's cold.
4. I know more Spanish than I thought. This becomes clear whenever I try to figure out how to say in French what I could easily have said in Spanish. Also I keep using Spanish on accident.
We are taking a walking tour tomorrow and hopefully checking out an Impressionist museum, so I'm sure I'll have many more tales of France later!
We started out by heading to one of the mountains in Barcelona, which is supposed to have great views of the city. We took the metro tram halfway up and decided to walk the rest of the way instead of taking the cable cars. This is where the little teaser I gave you yesterday comes into play. As we were walking up the street a man approached us, flashed us, and offered a photo op for the low price of 3 euro. We declined. The walk took longer than I thought it would but when we finally got to the top we did have a good view even though it was a bit foggy.
After we got down from the mountain (without any more photo offers from creeps), we headed to Plaza Reial to meet a group for a free Gaudi walking tour. We met some nice people and saw some of Gaudi's works, starting with some lamp posts in Plaza Real and ending with la Sagrada Familiar. It was interesting to hear more about his life since he's such a big deal in Barcelona. Apparently he was really fanatically religious and also eccentric about people taking his pictures. He was really difficult to work with, always going over budget and running behind schedule, so we heard about some of his issues with clients as well.
Made it to Paris today, after a long day of train travel. Haven't had a chance to see much of the city but we did see Harry Potter 7.2!!!!! It was amazing! I might have cried. A lot. I would strongly suggest going out right now and purchasing tickets for a midnight showing. I also recommend bringing tissues and asprin because for a while there I thought my heart might implode and asprin is supposed to help with that.
Here are a few other things I discovered in my first 8 hours in France:
1. The bread here is fantastic. We had a baguette from the bakery next to the apartment we are staying in and it was the best baguette I've ever had. And I eat them a lot.
2. The people here are not the heartless meanies my dad made them out to be. People have been nice so far when we have asked them questions in our mangled French/English/Spanish. Also, when we were in the movie, everyone around us was laughing and sniffling together at the funny and sad moments like one big Potter-loving family. So that was nice.
3. Temperature-wise it is much cooler here than in Spain. I think ut is lovely. Michelle thinks it's cold.
4. I know more Spanish than I thought. This becomes clear whenever I try to figure out how to say in French what I could easily have said in Spanish. Also I keep using Spanish on accident.
We are taking a walking tour tomorrow and hopefully checking out an Impressionist museum, so I'm sure I'll have many more tales of France later!
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| A foggy view of Barcelona. You can kind of see la Sagrada Familia on the right. |
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| The tiling and the very cool roof on Casa Batlo, a house Gaudi remodeled for a client. |
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| The rest of Casa Batlo. |
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| Casa Mila la Pidrera. Gaudi got into so many fights with the owners of this house that he never finished it. It was completed by his apprentices. |
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| Pau Guell, one of the first houses Gaudi designed. |
ma cherie (that's about all the french i got) i miss you! reply to my msg damnnit and i promis to reply even tho i don't have internet at home so this is all done on my lunch break. your clog is wonderful. makes me feel like i'm with you! do you at least fit in a little better in paris?
ReplyDeleteciao,
enin