hello from Barcelona. I am currently typing away at my hostel in the center of Barcelona. its called habana home and i highly recommend it. its right off of Las Ramblas which is a very interesting street where the large median is filled with people at all hours, street vendors selling flowers and live pets????? and entertainers dressed up in fancy costumes, like an egyptian princess, a man dressed in plastic bottles, a roman king, posing for pictures, dancing, and standing still for hours. There are many cute cafes and tapas {spanish appetizers} bars and a huge outdoor market with a metal roof selling fruits, vegetable, seafood, fresh bread, meats and cheeses, candies, and anything else you could possibly want to eat. its beautiful, all the colors of the rainbow. At night there are prostitutes so its definitely interesting.
emma and I arrived in barcelona from her small town on the train saturday morning after a fun night in her town. She has wonderful friends, some of which are learning english, so we spent time at the pizza place teaching them swear words and learning spanish ones. I understand better now why all my greek friends die laughing when i swear in Greek. And trust me i can't teach greek people any bad english words, they know more than me.
Saturday morning was beautiful as we took the train up the coast, making our way through tunnels, each one revealing beautiful, isolated beaches between the rocks cliffs, the green water glistening in the morning sun. Train rides are so relaxing, especially when all you have to do it look out at the water. Once we got to the city and dropped our bags off we hit the ground walking. We went to three different antonio gaudi houses which are fascinating. His use of colors and patterns is really beautiful. I wish i knew more about architecture but even so i could appreciate his genius especially when we went to his still unfinished cathedral. I cannot do this place justice with words. Its just awesome. the cathedral itself is massive but the detail is such that you wonder how someone could even design such a project much less go about constructing it. Every millimeter of stone is something and there are scenes, mostly from the bible, all along the first half of the building. Its been under construction for 120 years and only like 4 of the 13 tours have been completed or something ridiculous like that.
From the cathedral we took the very easy to use metro to the Gaudi park and ate fresh bread, meat, and cheese and looked out over the hill to the city and the sea. The park contained one of his most famous pieces, a football length winding bench, every inch decorated in intricate designs made up of pieces of colored glass.Then there were two houses that looked like gingerbread houses and fountains and art everywhere. it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for walking through the palm tree lined walkways of a gorgeous park with a breathtaking view.
After making our way back to our hostel. Which by the way is painted purple inside with green doors. its so hippie i love it. we took a nap and then headed out to meet some English soccer players i met on the plane. They were hilarious on my flight, on the back of the plane shouting and drinking all their way to barcelona. I of course met them in the airport and then talked to them on my way back from the bathroom. We decided that we must meet up in city on the weekend. As we were landing they decided that it would be really fun to harass me and kept singing, "lindsey lindsey give us a wave" until i had to turn around and wave just to shut them up. I'm sure the whole flight hated us. I am quickly learning that english guys are crazy.
anyway emma and i made our way to a small bar to meet up with them. The Barcelona futbol game was on so we watched that. Barcelona won to clinch the spanish league championship. The whole city went berserk. At about 1 am we left the bar and made our way down to the center, every car on the busy street honking, yelling, and waving barcelona flags. Half naked men were running around cars at a red light and hanging out windows screaming, "barce, barce, baaaaarce." It was complete mayhem and so much fun.
We were still with the english futbol players who had been drinking their whole trip despite a match earlier in the day. they were partying like true barcelona fans exhibited by their behavior when we got to the fountain. There were fireworks going off in the square and people everywhere going crazy, including people in the fountain. Emma and I got convinced, i don't know how, to put our feet in. This was a bad idea since as soon as we did drunk guys in boxer shorts ran over to us while we fled the scene screaming and hoping our white skirts didn't get wet. From that point on we watched and laughed at people tackling each other in the water, fireworks exploding behind them in the dark night. Then we decided to convince our new friend, the crazy scot of the group to get in. " a once in a lifetime opportunity." we said. So he strips down to his knickers and joins in the fun. Next thing we know he is buck naked in the water, guys spanking him, all of them splashing around like two year old boys at the wading pool. We were dying laughing, emma was taking pictures. then he posed outside the water, in his birthday suit, one arm up in the air like John Travolta in Saturday night fever, cameras were flashing and my sides were hurting from laughing so hard.
more later
buenos
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