I've always wanted to go to Barcelona to see Gaudi's magnificent and unfinished cathedral the Sagrada Familia. Ironically enough, the first time I was exposed to it was a Sims City game when I was in elementary school. I thought, "Wow, that's cool! I should see that some day."
Well, that someday was today.
Christine and I met up at the Augsburg train station with her folks who were visiting from the UK. We had a fun hour-long train journey to Munich where I found out a few years ago that Christine's dad, Dave, had been pulled out of the audience to do a cooking demonstration with Ainsley Harriott, a famous British TV chef. I was super excited that Dave got on and they were super excited I knew who Ainsley Harriott was (only because Gordon Ramsey made complete fun of him).
Once Christine and I made it to the airport we got to "toodle" around as Christine says and discovered how awesome Lufthansa is. They had free newspapers and free gourmet coffee/tea/hot chocolate at the boarding gate. Sweet!
Our flight was delayed a little, but we made it in to Barcelona in good time still, grabbed our luggage and headed to the Aerobus which would take us downtown. We just made it (as in they shut the door behind me and were pulling away from the curb as I was giving the driver my money). Once we got to Plaza Cataluyna we had to take a taxi a short distance to our apartment. However, Christine has an aversion to taxis so since we were so close to the Metro, we took the Metro. Hahaha....ha...ah. Unlike the Paris Metro or the Munich/Frankfurt Metro, the Barcelona Metro has no down escalators...none. So through three stations and one transfer we had to carry our luggage up flights of steps. By the time we got to the apartment and looked at the map, we could have just walked the distance it took us to walk through the Metro.
Nevertheless, the apartment is lovely. Right on a side street to a major street, the neighborhood is filled with Spanish grandmas and local residents. The first thing we did was to change into skirts (it was 24 degrees!...Celsius which is a glorious 75 degrees F) and then head out to the supermercado. We found all the necessities to last us through Sunday (being from Germany we were well-acquainted with the idea that stores are closed on Sunday).
After eating some bread and surprisingly tasteless cheese(EDIT: I was reminded that the conversation went a bit like this: Me: This cheese tastes like mozzarella without the salt. Christine: This cheese tastes with mozzarella without the taste!), we took an evening stroll down to La Sagrada Familia. It's only 5 blocks away. Since the sun was going down, the light was beautiful, hitting the sandstone facade and turning it shades of pink. We came along the Passion facade first.
From there, we walked around to the darker side away from the setting sun, the Nativity facade which didn't look near as good because the lighting was off. But I guess I'll just have to come back again...and again...
I can't wait later this week to go in the interior and up the lift to the top of one of the spires, of course to see inside, but also to pay the entry fee and claim that I helped finance a modern cathedral that's been in the works for over 100 years.
So that was my first day in Barcelona. The next few days should include visits to several museums, a market trip or two, eating tapas, going to the international church for services, seeing the traditional dance outside the cathedral and just generally enjoying all that Barcelona has to offer (shopping!).
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