Maxed Out

We ran out of available web space for our blog/picasa back in November, and Brittany just got around to upgrading it. Some of these posts are pretty old, but I am going to publish them anyway.

último día

We woke up on our final day praying for clear skies. The night before, there was a 50% chance of showers. We had several sites around the city that we hadn’t seen and it would have been more difficult to get to them if it were raining. Thankfully, the weather cooperated and we were off to the subway.

First on the list was Sagrada Familia – the massive church that has been under construction for over century and is slated to go for another 20 years. We tried to tour it earlier in the trip but they were closing down for the day and we would have only had 25 mins. The line to get in this time was very long. This is partially because the Pope (El Papa) had consecrated the site the day before and partially because we got there at 11(peak tourist time). We stood in line for an hour and fifteen minutes; it was well worth it.

Once inside, I was blown away at the height of the ceiling. Gaudi made the columns that support the roof look more similar to trees than Romanesque columns. The detail throughout is amazing. It has almost only natural light from tiny windows (some stain glass) all over the place.

The feel inside of the church is not like other cathedrals that I’ve been in. It is more like a museum with people talking and lacked the reverence I’d expected. Britt and I concluded that this is a function of it primarily being a museum as opposed to a place of worship. I think this will change once they get pews in there and have a more organized schedule to the tours. They open the floodgates for tourists now to help fund the project (funding is the primary reason it’s taken so long to complete). I certainly plan on returning to see this venue once they complete the other towers and entrance that they are currently working on.

After Sagrada, we jumped back into the subway (huge fan of it in BCN; NY should take notes) and headed down to the “Old City” area, where the Cathedral and Picasso Museum are located. This area is the oldest part of the city – portions of the old Roman wall still remain in a few places. Unfortunately, the Picasso Museum is closed on Mondays. Not a huge deal as I don’t feel that you have to see a museum to experience a city, which was our primary goal for the trip. With that said, Brittany did decide that we should replace this Picasso dude with something more tangible. The Chocolate Museum filled the void and then some. Nothing overly cool here but they did have a chocolate fountain.

Our final tourist stop was the Cathedral. It was a very neat and more like what I expected in a church. It’s not nearly as amazing as Sagrada but classic and old.

I was feeling a bit drained at this point from cruising around the city all day. Britt, however, had Euros in her wallet and time on her hands. I dipped into a bar while she went to the 5th Ave of BCN. I have one takeaway from that portion of the trip - Iberia Ham is much better than Prosciutto. Random I know, but when you spend two hours with a Spanish bar tender who speaks broken ingles, at best, and a non-bilingual American, you resort to conversation topics that involve props. His prop was an Iberia Ham, which he was butchering. Mine was the beer I had in my hand. He explained to me that Iberia Ham is wild boar where as Prosciutto is farm raised. I claimed to not understand and so we had a taste test. The Iberia Ham costs about twice as much and is well worth the premium. The flavor is fairly similar but the texture is the rub. Iberia Ham melts in your mouth; prosciutto is more like a Lays potato chip (good but just different). I will be investigating if we have Iberia Ham at any of the groceries in B’ham.

We topped off the night in style. Our dinner reservations were at 9:00 at Moo. That seems crazy to we Americans but eating at 9 there is like a 6:30 dinner in the US. The restaurant was very modern and in the Hotel Oom. Moo is hands down the most expensive restaurant I’ve ever eaten at . The food was awesome and the wine was even better. They had 3 options of courses (ranging from 5 to 8 different sequences of courses). I went with the mid-price option. Each course has it’s own glass of wine. The service was excellent; the Somali would explain where each wine was from – all in and around the Iberian Peninsula. I tried a few dishes I’d never experienced before, which I love, and I even convinced Britt to be a bit adventurous (with some rabbit pudding that was delicious). Once we received the bill, I wished Brittany a very Merry Christmas and we turned in for the night.

Outside the Sagrada Familia:

The sculpted bronze doors of the Passion Facade are inscribed with the Gospels of Matthew and John:

Inside the Sagrada Familia:

The chocolate museum:

Inside The Cathedral:

They love vintage Vespas in Barcelona! We are going to own one of these one day.

Trail to Parc Guell

George giving commentary on our way up to the park...

Parc Guell and Gracia

Today we ventured to a huge park in Barcelona called Parc Guell. After that we went to Gracia, a more artsy and bohemian part of the city. It was a fabulously relaxed Sunday. We watched the FC Barcelona game at a local bar in Gracia. These people LOVE FC Barcelona! They beat Getafe, a team out of Madrid, 3-1. Wahoo! Success in both Football and Futbol this weekend :).

George at the top of Parc Guell:

You may have seen Carles Puyol playing for the Spanish national team in the World Cup this summer. He was the one with the curly mullet-like hair... you really can't miss him. I figure he has to be uber cool to sport that hair and be their team captain, therefore he is my favorite.

We walked by a playground today and spotted this little red and white elephant. It was too tempting to pass by... so we harassed it a little bit.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Montjuic War Eagle

Montjuic Mountain

Montujuic is a mtn adjacent to the city of Barcelona. It was the venue of the majority of the Olympic events from 1992. It has very cool views of the city. I've been impressed at how much of an economic impact the Olympics had on this city. These pictures were taken at the very top where a castle/fortress was built to monitor the happenings of Barcelona during the Franco reign. The altitude difference between the city and the fortress is significant. I, for one, was much cooler at the top than at the bottom.

This happened.

Need I say more?

Scootin in Barca

We decided to rent a scooter today. I am totally confident on a scooter but we were forced to rent a 50 CC scooter (which tops out at about 30 MPH) and I'm used to a 150 CC scooter (which tops out at about 60 MPH). I know it's only 30 MPH but that's a big difference when you're trying to own a traffic jam. In Birmingham, I own traffics jams; in Barcelona, traffic jams own me.

The reason for the 50 CC is that "I didn't obviously have a license for 3 years". In order to get a bigger bike in B'lona you have to have a license for atleast 3 years and it's all based on the issuance date (I've had a drives license for a decade now but that is irrelevant). None the less, we bought in to this 50 CC garbage and made it happen. Barely.

I will say that I rented a scooter in Barcelona and San Francisco and both were great experiences in regards to getting a fell for different areas of the city. I wouldn't recommend renting a scooter to everyone (Houston Wurtele - don't be mad, there are other pro LSU posts coming) but it's good if you can keep your cool.

We got very few pictures of the scooter as foreigners are not happy on the road. Here is one of the good ones we (Brittany) were able to capture.

The Fanny Pack

What a stud.

I'm not going to lie, I have never been a fan of the fanny pack. I don't necessarily hate the "style" it exudes, but I do hate looking like a tourist. There is no way you can wear this without shouting "I am from America." It has been growing on me though because George is so proud of it. I have a weird feeling that it will make its way into his everyday wardrobe.