Last full day of Barcelona

So this was our last full day in Barcelona.  We wanted to get all our major sight-seeing out of the way today so we could spend the next morning relaxing and shopping and visiting our librarian friend one last time.  So we headed out pretty early, hit the market for breakfast again of course and then headed wayyy out to the very edge of Barcelona. We took a bus that went right along the edge of the water the whole time.  Its such a beautiful coast.  For some reason, coming into Barcelona I didnt even think about the fact that it was right on the water, and I didnt even think about it that much when we were in the city.  Its nothing like any kind of resort city and its not concentrated around the water, so the water front is still really open and pretty still.

Chocolate covered pastry.  Oh but wait, it was filled with chocolate too. yesss

The Forum, famous building by Herzog and de Meuron

Interesting but completely deserted park right on the ocean

Pretty dramatic viewing platform, great views to the ocean

Giant solar panel thing? Pretty sweet

FOA park with metal things and floating flower pots the size of a small room

 After that we headed back towards the city, stopping at a mall to find a bathroom and wander around.  They had a huge Christmas tree! Ahh Christmas.  I cant believe its already December.  Time is flying.  I cant wait to go home but im not ready to leave yet! thats a problem, right?

Christmas!

They legitimately had a store dedicated only to muffins! Walnut plus chocolate. mm.  bring that to the US

 So we headed to Park Guell which is at the complete other end of Barcelona, the northern tip.  Plus, its on a huge mountain top, we we could overlook the entire city again.  We've basically seen the whole city from 4 points all around it.  The park was designed by Gaudi and of course he did some pretty interesting stuff in it.  Of course, the park itself is already amazing because of its location on top of the city, but he definitely gave it a little more of his own style.

Torre Agbar and Sagrada Familia

Gaudi's projects at the edge of the park

Looks like a gingerbread house

mosaic mosaic mosaic

 Wandering back towards the metro to head back to our hostel, we stumbled on this awesome library.  Its crazy how many interesting and modern buildings there were in the area.  During the day, for lunch, we found a place with burritos!!! We couldnt resist.  Now I know its not spanish, but mexican is close (not really).  Basically it was delicious and filled with chicken and cheese and all that good stuff.  Later in the night, we were looking for the same tapas bar that our librarian friend took us to so we could sit down and have dinner there.  We could not remember how to get there for the life of us, and spent over 2 hours walking around looking for it.  After getting pretty frustrated and tired and hungry, we gave up.  Then we walked around the corner and there it was! Thats how it always works, right? Annoying, but soo awesome.  We were thrilled we found it in the end, even though it took forever.  IT was definitely worth it.  I got the same thing as before, the tapas mixer plate, because it had a little bit of everything.  My favorites were the chorizos, blood sausage and green peppers.  plus a little red wine to go with it.  Excellent day number 3.

cool library

Chicken burrito (shaped like a quesadilla (we dont discriminate)

mmm more tapas

More of thanksgiving in barcelona

So the second half of the day, after Sagrade Familia continued to be awesome.  While it would have been so awesome to be home, this day was the second best option for sure.  At the end of Sagrada Familia, we got climb the back facade and look into the towers and look out over the city.  The sun was getting low so the lighting was really pretty.  In the distance we could see our next stop, Torre Agbar.

Hanging out near the top of the Sagrada Familia, looking over Barcelona

Torre Agbar

Stepping out of the Sagrada Familia, we were starving.  It was thanksgiving and we all needed a taste of home for lunch.  Guess what we saw right away?? A KFC!! I know, not spanish food, not authentic, not even that good in the US, but nonetheless it sounded delicious.  We figured chicken is close to turkey, and we can all get thankgiving-esque sides of mashed potatoes and coleslaw or whatever.  In fact, it was delicious and a lot of fun. Love me some fried chicken!

Our Thanksgiving Lunch table! Just like the pilgrims...almost

Just what we needed.  Mmm mashed potatoes, just like kfc at home.  Nowhere near as good as homecooked food, but it was fun

So after that we wandered over to the Torre Agbar.  This building is pretty cool and famous.  While it is an odd shape (cucumberish, or some might say phallic), the facade is really cool and the color makes it pretty interesting.  Plus it obviously stands out in the skyline as different than your typical skyscraper.

Crazy tower! Torre Agbar!

Sunset + cool colors + cool facade = perfect timing for photos

Close up of the facade

After visiting that it was time for a snack.  Pastriess!! At least for me.  Another random cream/honey pastry which I wasnt too sure what it was, but it was cool.  Plus we found a lot of ham chips?  Weird, but they actually tasted just like ham.  

Random snack, always good

Ham chips.  Im sure they will catch on in the us soon

Then we headed back to the tower to see the real spectacle when it is lit up at night.  While it was impressive in the daylight, it was even more impressive and stood out more at night.  I loved the way the colors worked and blended.  

Bah! so cool

Everybody loves cool lights

Now its time for Thanksgiving Dinner! I even got dressed up. No turkey and stuffing for us.  Instead we found a really nice place in a backstreet that looked pretty cool inside.  This was our night for authentic spanish food.  We wanted delicious Paella and sangria.  We had been warned the night before not to go anywhere that had photos of the Paella because that meant it was frozen.  And the places without photos usually cost like 20 euro just for paella.  So we were lucky we found this place.  It was much cheaper and we could see them actually putting our paella together and cooking it fresh.  Its basically this rice dish with seafood and saffron and its super awesome. Plus we had some awesome red wine sangria and tortilla chips. mmm. Happy thanksgiving dinner!

Chips and cheese appetizer, dont mind if i do

Thanksgiving Dinner! The best it could be without being home,

Seafood Paella! Id go back just for that!

Late night snack!  Thanksgiving was a long day, and since I couldn't stuff myself with turkey and stuffing, I had to have a snack after looking for discotecas at night.  Luckily, the Kebab places are open late.  I had a delicious falafel one.  Basically its falafels, corn, yogurt sauce, spicy sauce, onions, and random other veggies and stuff.  Another awesome day!

Kebab!

nom nom nom, super delicious

Thanksgiving morning, First half of Barcelona day 2

 So I took way too many photos in Barcelona....oops.  But I want to show them all to you! I wish I could haha.  I went through and was just picking my favorites and there were way too many. So these are the photos from the first half of day 2.  Day 2 was probably our busiest day, so theres lots to show.

It was thanksgiving!! I wish I could have gone home.  I missed having turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and stuffing myself until I exploded while enjoying the break with my family.  It makes me realize how awesome that can be and how lucky I am when I am able to do that with my family.  Everybody was home and I was thinking about them! But I will be home in a short 3 weeks and I will undoubtedly be ready to stuff myself next thanksgiving.  For now, I must enjoy where I am and make sure I take everything from this experience I can.

So we started out our thanksgiving wandering around looking for somewhere to eat breakfast.  For some reason, we had a hard time finding a decent cafe.  Lucky for us though.  If we had found a cafe, we wouldn't have stumbled upon this massive outdoor market.  The market was really clean and they had everything you could imagine.  We all got pastries and they had every fruit juice possible from coconut kiwi to strawberry orange.  We later found out that this market is world famous and is one of the largest in Europe.  Pretty convenient to stumble upon it.  It became our breakfast spot the rest of the trip.

Awesome market

Crunch honey/syrup bread with pine nuts

juice juice juice juice

Breakfast part 2 - apple muffin. yumm

Massive shopping mall that looked like a space ship

 After that, we had planned to take the morning and tour all of the Gaudi architecture in Barcelona.  There is a ton of it.  He was basically this crazy architect who designed stuff like no one else during this time.  Its very unique and pretty unforgettable. We were going to take a free walking tour that an organization in the city offered, but the tour guide was crazy.  She was British and too happy and telling us things we didnt really care about.  So we ditched the tour group and did our own touring, finding the sites ourselves.  This ended out working a lot better.  The first place we went to was pretty tame, but there was a lot of interesting ironwork.

Crazy iron work much? One of his tamest buildings, but crazy details

 The next place we stopped at was a house built for a really wealthy family.  The house is also called the house of bones, and from the way it was designed on the interior and exterior, it is clear why.  there are a lot of references to skeletal structures and ribbing throughout.  Gaudi was a master of mosaics, light, stained glass windows, and his unique way of shaping the stone.  We went inside this one and it was absolutely crazy.  Kind of expensive but well worth it.  It reminded me of Dr. Suess or something.  This is not the kind of style I would ever want to build, but it is impossible not to admire his daring, innovation and fearlessness in his designing.

crazy front facade

See the ribbing? explains why they call it the bone house

crazy roof + awesome sky = great pictures

just chillin on Gaudi

 We continued to walk through the city and saw a lot of other cool buildings.  Barcelona seems to be filled with unique architectural works and interesting places.  Heres a random apartment building that looked really cool, right across the street from another Gaudi project.

crazy facade

Gaudi number 3, crazy stonework this time

And the grand finale of Gaudi.  The Sagrada Familia.  This building deserves its own blog post and its own everything.  It was absolutely incredible and the pictures and any description I give cannot do it justice.  I have never been so impressed by a building.  The size, articulation, extremeness, craziness, detailing, lighting and spaces were all incredible.  I had no idea what the interior would be like and as soon as I walked in I was speechless.  This made the trip so incredible and I am so happy we chose to go to Barcelona. Like I said, I couldnt even take pictures that did it justice, but the exterior is gorgeous and so tall.  The interior blew me away.  Its just so huge inside and the columns are so impressive and ahhhh.  Plus the stained glass windows made the atmosphere so incredible.

AH Sagrada Familia.  Still cranes working away, but still absolutely incredible

The inside was filled with light

The ceiling was so complex and interesting

The columns seemed to go on forever

So huge its impossible to even show it all

Insane detailing on the other facade

Beautiful stained glass all over the northern end

Created some crazy effects

Looking up one of those massive towers on the outside

Thanksgiving with the Sagrada Familia!

This building has a whole history along with it.  It was designed over 100 years ago and is still under construction.  There has been funding problems and as you can imagine, the scale of the project is beyond comparison.  Lucky for us, the pope came and blessed the church last week, so there was a mad rush for construction in the past few years.  So it was perfect timing and the inside was open and clean and it appeared as if the whole thing was finally almost done.  (Apparently its really only halfway doneish, but I cant imagine how much more there is to work on).