A little more Gaudí

If you've read my blog for awhile, you'll know that I love Barcelona, and I really love Barcelona's artist Antonio Gaudí.  I dare say he might be my favorite artist of all time.  One of the cities we had to go to for work was his birthplace, and it had a museum.  And then, from there, on the way back into Barcelona, we were passing a town where he built some stuff.  And then, we gave ourselves a fun day in Barcelona so Maple could see the city, as she's never been before.  It was a tour de Gaudí!

We went to Reus first.  It wasn't like any of the other Spanish towns we'd been to, and I found myself immediately thinking that I liked this town.  This square had this amazing house on it.  Rumor has it you can pay to see the inside of the house.  Maybe next time...

That's what I call a window!

On the same square was the Gaudí Center (museum).  It was super cool because it was interactive with things to look at, walk inside of, touch, listen to, turn, etc.  I won't bore you with all of it, but I really enjoyed learning more about him and his creations.

On the way out was a wall drawing where you could take photos of the famous street in Barcelona that launched Gaudí into celebrity status.

Maple and I tried to take some selfies...but we couldn't get the light right.

Might as well take silly photos if the light is going to be silly.

(Sidenote story: does it look like I have a goose egg on my forehead?  Well, I did.  In Valls, I bent over one day to pick something up, and full on smacked the living daylights out of my forehead.  We were pretty sure I gave myself a slight concussion.  I had the goose-egg for several days, and a head ache for at least a week.  Pitiful.)

Then we drove to the Colonia Güell, the last major Gaudí building on my bucket list.  Here is the outside of the Crypt.  It looks like a spider crawling away into the trees...

Inside...

I was enthralled with these windows.  When closed, they look like normal rose windows.  When opened, they look like butterfly wings.

Gaudí loved to study the human body and create functional things that fit perfect to the body's form.  So these church pew/benches are designed for maximum comfort when sitting.  I sat in them for a good long while and just enjoyed some time with God in this gorgeous little chapel.

The windows from the outside...they look like teardrops, don't they?

The Alpha and Omega were around several of the windows, as well as fish swimming.  I keep hoping that I'll meet Gaudí in heaven, and that God's letting him design my house up there.

We made it back to Barcelona, and Maple did an excellent job driving across the city to drop the borrowed car back off at our friend's house.  I, however, was a nervous wreck the entire time.  (That's an awful pun to make about the situation.  I was so stressed about navigating her across that city in the car that it took me a few hours to calm back down.)

The next day, we hopped (me, quite happily) on public transport for our fun day in Barcelona.  That morning, Maple went to the Sagrada Familia.  Since I'd already been, I sat in the park across from it and read while she enjoyed what is probably my favorite church in the world.  (Why didn't I go in?  Because it costs 24 euros a pop.)  Afterwards, we headed downtown for lunch, and stumbled upon the same little hole-in-the-Gothic-wall bagel shop I'd eaten at on my last trip, and decided to eat there.  I walked her up the Passeig de Gràcia so she could see the famous Gaudí houses.

I sort of dashed her dreams when she realized we didn't have time to go in one of them that day.  She might be smiling in this photo, but really, she was crying inside.  She kept consoling herself with promises to return one day with her sister and see the insides of the houses then.

Next we headed up to the Park Güell.  Now, I should explain about the park some of the history I have with it.  On my first trip to BCN, my friends were pickpocketed the morning of the day we'd gone to the park.  By the time we got up there, it just wasn't so much fun.  Beautiful, but everyone's mood was ruined from the earlier event.  The next time I went, it had just changed that day from being free (as it was the first time), to being a paid-for entry ticket.  If I'd simply gone the day before, it would have been free.  That's another bummer associated in my mind with the park.

So Maple and I arrive up there (it takes a while to get that far north in the city), and go to buy our tickets...only to find out that we couldn't enter the park for another 2.5 hours.  Apparently, they only allow 400 people into the park at a time, and they are very rigid about allowing you to enter only during the 30 minute time slot listed on your ticket.  While the woman was explaining this to us, the original time slot she'd told us filled up, and we were pushed back another 30 minutes.  So even though we arrived at 3:30, we couldn't get in until 6pm.

Man, if you thought Maple's smiling-on-the-outside-crying-on-the-inside photo above was convincing, this one should be even more so.  We tried several times to sneak in earlier than our time slot, but were never successful.  Rigid.  Another tourist also tried, and in his frustration yelled, "I didn't realize I was in Germany!"  haha.  

Once we finally got in, (at 6pm and not a moment before), we had a great time.  Maple got to take some fun photos and I just enjoyed being up there.  

But I've decided that if I ever get to go back to Barcelona again with a friend who hasn't been there, and they want to go to Park Güell, I'm going to tell them they're on their own.  As Maple says, I've got some bad juju with that place.

I still love me some Barcelona.