crazy genius

Casa Batllo. The family that invented the chubba chub once lived here.

Apparently it was said of Gaudi that he was either a mad man or a genius. After touring some of his works in Barcelona today, I am no closer to knowing which it is.

After the rest of the family dropped me at the train station at Tarragona, I made my way to Barcelona. I know they were happy to see me go. I've been hogging the front seat of Louis for a month and they were going back through the Pyrenees. I navigated the metro easily enough and found my hostel without much stress. The guy on the front desk was really helpful, giving me some maps and marking out the best places to go. After getting my bearings I set off for La Rambla, to catch an afternoon walking tour with RunnerBean. I arrive early so kill the time walking down La Rambla. The main stretch is lined with tacky little shops and people selling things in the streets. A lot of men had these whistle things they make a sort of bird call, so that's about all you can hear as you walk down.
The walking tour was a free tour of Gaudi's buildings. We don't go inside, but our guide, Ann-Marie, gave us all the details of costs and hours, so we can decide what we might like to see later.

Not knowing much about Gaudi at all, except that he was hit by a tram, I found the tour pretty insightful. It's one thing we've missed out on these past few weeks. We've walked through some amazing places, but not known a thing about what we were looking at. We started at Placa Reial, before moving to Palau Guell. The tour involved two quick metro trips, the first to Casa Batllo and a short walk to La Pedrera

la Sagrada Familia

We caught out second metro, came up the stairs, and wow. La Sagrada Familia (lit, Holy Family) was right behind us. This place is bloody amazing. Excuse the French but it just is. It was started in 1882 and is still going. They expect it to take another 22 years or so. We saw a drawing of what the finished building is expected to look like, and well, lets just say, it's not surprise it's taking so damn long to build. The attention to detail in this building is incredible, and to have such vision and creativity, Gaudi was certainly one very special man. We finished the tour there and feeling very hungry after all that walking, I joined an English girl, Ayra, for dinner. We ate in a little square not far from her hostel before I caught the metro back to my hostel. In my hostel room are three guys from Quebec. They were asleep when I arrived (big night last night) but at up now and invite me to join them for a drink on the terrace. I last until about midnight.