Sagrada Família and Bike

The Gaudí side of Sagrada Família. It looks kinda messy, but its just very very detailed.
The side of Sagrada Família with the Passion. you can see the modernist style.
Thats the outside of the Dalí museum behind me. One of the craziest buildings I've ever seen.

Day 49 – October 16th – Thursday
Today quite possibly was the best day I've had in Spain so far. I woke up in a good mood because I knew I had a short day of class today, plus it was Thursday, so no class tomorrow. I was very prepared for class, so it went very well. We were to read a story and answer some various questions on it. I, for one, thought it was a fairly straight forward story and the questions were pretty sensible. So I was on top of it in class, participating well, as usual. Then, after class, I went home for lunch and guess what was there. Thats right, my bike. I ripped it open right away and walked out of the house to go the bike shop to have them install my headset. There, I met a guy named Xavi (pronounced “chabi”) who i later found out was French. He hooked me up and did everything I needed very quickly. Then i headed back home to eat and finish putting it together. I finished just as I had to leave to go to Sagrada Família. It is definitely worth searching the internet for pictures of this national monument. It is the life work of Gaudí and absolutely phenomenal. Construction began in the late 1800s and by the time Gaudí died in 1926, only one tower, of the sixteen planned, had been completed. It is an extremely complex and ornate structure with every possible detail thought out. The towers have slots in them, as you can kind of see in the picture that I did post. These kind of resemble the slots in organ pipes and thats exactly what they are. When (eventually) music is played in this structure, the towers will act as amplifiers, broadcasting the sound throughout the city. One side of the structure is done in a very Gothic style, which Gaudí designed and depicts the birth of Christ. There is of course the holy family, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, and many other important aspects of the early life of Jesus. On the other side, which was done in a much more modernist style by another Catalán artist, who's name I don't remember, depicts the passion of the Christ, complete with the kiss from Judas, Pontious Pilot, the whipping, the soldiers drawing lots, and everything else. I don't really like the style as much, its kind of cubic and too modern for me, but it was decided that each generation would add their own aspects to the cathedral. One student asked our teacher when she thought that it would be finished. She told us that when she was a child, she asked the same question and they told that probably around 2020. Today, it is obvious that that will not happen. She said that maybe, maybe when we are very old, like 80 or 90, we will be able to come back to she the inauguration ceremony, but much has changed since the time of Gaudí. People say now, that faith has died somewhat. It used to be that many people, when they died, would leave all of their money to the church, but this does not happen anymore. I imagine they at least make enough money each day to pay for the work that is done that day. I paid 8€ to get in, which was really paid by my school, and then another 2.50€ to ride the elevator to the top of the tower and walk around, far above the city. While I did feel a little cheated, having to pay to ride an elevator, it was worth it. We took the stairs down, which was also a little adventure. It was a spiral staircase down about eight stories. And it was straight down in a tight spiral that we were happy to be out of at the end. After this, I headed home and took my bike out on its maiden voyage in Spain. I pretty much got lost immediately, but Barcelona is a compact city, so I wasn't long before I started seeing landmarks. After I had ridden around for a while, my headset started to come loose, so I went back to the bike shop. Xavi fixed it for me right away and then invited me to ride with him and some friends after the shop closed. I readily agreed and met him outside the shop a little later. Also, I was thrilled to find out that this weekend is Paradise Weekend. Whats that you say? Well, its the biggest messenger race in Barcelona and I happened to get my bike the day before it started. After a bit of riding I headed home for dinner after agreeing to meet again tomorrow for the race.

Day 50 – October 17th – Friday
Today we went on a day trip with the ISA program to Girona and Figueras, two cities in the Costa Brava to the north of Barcelona, close to the French border. Girona, was just alright. I had been to the airport before to fly to Milan and it was pretty small. It turns out the city was pretty small as well. One interesting fact though, that Lance Armstrong used to live there back when he was training for the Tour in the Pyrenees. We saw the building where he had a flat and I definitely took a picture. After a few hours of walking around and looking at not much, we headed off to Figueras, the home town of Salvador Dalí to see his museum. He helped to design it and there are many things there that he did that are really not known about. I'll tell you, it was a very strange museum, as you can imagine. He was probably one of the most insane people ever to walk the earth and it shows magnificently. The building is covered in golden loaves of bread, referring to one of his famous paintings, “Loaf of Bread” and there are enormous golden eggs on the roof. Don't ask why. There is no understanding of Dalí, you must just accept what you see and try to imagine the mind that it came from. I've never seen so much detail as in his drawing, which are of his dreams, his nightmares. Each and every drawing is stranger than the one before. It may appear to have symbolic meaning, but no, its just Dalí. He died in 1989 and is buried in the museum itself. I have a picture of the crypt. It is a shame that he is not still alive, but neither is Gaudí. They have both left an extremely complex and amazing legacy that will never be truly understood (especially Dalí) but will always be appreciated. We were lucky to have missed a rainy day in Barcelona, but by the time I got home, it had dried up enough to do ride. I ate dinner (lasagna) and then went off to meet up with the group. It was surprising to see such a mix of people there. Of course, my French friend was there and plenty of Spanish people, but I also met a Swiss guy, a few other French people, a guy from Baltimore, and the organizer of the race was from Chicago. There were probably about twenty-five people all together, which I thought was pretty small. It was still a little wet, so we didn't actually race, instead we went to Montjuïc, one of the mountains, and had a nice little race up a very steep hill. I didn't win. I'm pretty out of shape after not riding for almost two months. I went home afterwards and then headed out on the town with a few friends. We were out pretty late, eventually going down to the beach. I grabbed the first metro home in the morning at 5am and went right to sleep.