The Events of Saturday, April 2, 2011

                In the U.S. clothes lines are considered “cute” and “old-fashioned”. Here in Spain, everyone has one. The thing is – nobody has dryers. I don’t know if anybody here has even heard of a dryer. As I looked out my window this morning I expected all these hanging clothes to have icicles hanging from them. That’s probably because I was freezing last night. I am definitely going to put some more blankets on tonight. Oh well. I wasn’t cold anymore. I had just taken a shower, and, even though it went from freezing cold to scalding hot, it seemed to know my preferences and stayed more scalding hot than freezing cold. “Abby, come on, it’s time to have breakfast.” This call brought me out of my reverie and into the hustle and bustle of the real world.

                We bustled through breakfast, packed up and then went out the door. After walking a very pretty block to the metro station, we were very surprised to see what we found inside. Some of the public transportation systems that we experienced in the US were dirty, dark, and sort of creepy. What we entered into here was well lit and had clean silver curvy walls that ended in nice automatic elevators that took you underground. The walls are not infested with graffiti and advertisements, they were clean and shiny. We waited on nice benches until the metro arrived. We were rather curious what was going to happen next. We saw a sheet of clear glass separating us from where the train was going to be, with automatic doors installed. When the metro arrived, these doors opened up along with the doors on the train and were left open for enough time for us to get inside. Inside we found well kept benches and tons of standing room. It was overall a very pleasant experience.

                To get to where we needed to go we had to transfer a couple of times. Our first transfer consisted of riding up four long escalators and I thought that was very fun. After transferring a couple of more times, we rode the escalators up to street level and came up in the Plaça de Catalunya. After going to a helpful tourist information center, Caitlin read to us about the Plaza. For a while we watched some kids getting taught to sardana dance and that made us all the more excited about watching some professionals tomorrow.  Then we began our “Rambles down the Ramblas”, the main pedestrian street in Barcelona. Until lunch time we followed the Rick Steves tour down Las Ramblas. First he took us to the Fountain of Canaletes, the start for celebrations, demonstrations and parades. Legend says that one drink from the fountain ensures that you’ll come back to Barcelona some day. I didn’t know this when I took my drink.

                Then we walked on, past a lot of street performers acting as human statues. Every time someone put a coin in their bucket, they would unfreeze and start acting and pose for pictures. We followed a couple of young ladies who gave money to every person, so we were able to see them act without emptying our pockets. We strolled along until we reached a large Baroque church. We went inside, admired the interior that held statues and beautiful paintings and then continued on our tour. Next we came to La Boqueria, a huge produce market filled with fish, chickens, pigs, other meats, fruits and veggies and souvenirs. Those items sound normal. But other items we saw:  octopus legs, octopus, squid, conch animals, snails, barnacles, pig’s livers, kidneys, legs and feet, chicken feet and full chickens – with eyes still intact! We bought some juicy red peppers and strawberries for lunch in addition to two cups of fruit juice. In a rather large stand were tons of different types of fruit and many cups filled with all different types and combinations of juices. We ordered a mango pineapple and a kiwi juice cup and were surprised at how yummy they turned out to be.

                We exited the market and headed down to the bottom of the Ramblas. Marked by the Columbus Monument, Las Ramblas ends here. Eager to see the person who discovered America, we circled around the Columbus monument so we could see his face. It commemorated where Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand welcomed Columbus back from his first journey to America. After taking some pictures, we headed down to the harbor and sat on the dock to watch the fish. There were a lot of large fish and many people were feeding them and watching them swarm around the food they threw. Suddenly we heard a big commotion and we realized that the bridge we were sitting by was a drawbridge. However, this drawbridge didn’t go up but slid parallel to the stationary dock. A few sailboats went through the gap and I waved to them until it was time to go. We next tried to find the number 19 bus stop. After going to an information center twice for directions, we were finally directed back across the bridge. The bridge was pretty cool architecturally. The architecture makes it have look like it has waves like the sea.

                Finally finding our bus stop we rode the bus all the way to Sagrada Familia, the big, beautiful church designed by Antoni Gaudí . The church looks like a big upside down ice cream cone melting to the ground. Gaudí  studied nature and the human body to find things the way God made them. He figured that the best way to honor God is to design building based on his work – nature. Gaudí  inherited the construction of the Sagrada Familia in 1883 and worked on it until his death in 1926. Since then, other architects have worked on it, following Gaudí ’s plan. The estimated finish date is 2026. I hope I can come back when they finish the construction. The front of the church is the Nativity Façade. In little nooks in the front of the church are statues depicting the stories of the wedding of Mary and Joseph, the visitation of the Angel to Mary, the annunciation of Mary, the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the shepherds, the adoration of the Magi, the massacre of the innocent children, the flight into Egypt, the presentation of Jesus in the temple, Jesus at work, and the coronation of Mary. I have to admit it is very overwhelming.

                After circling around the back of the church, waiting in line, and then getting inside the church yard, we were suddenly confronted with the back of the church:  the Passion Façade. This side, in my opinion, was not as overwhelming as the front, but it was just as, if not more, beautiful. It definitely looked more modern. The statues showed the events of the Passion: the Last Supper, Peter and the soldiers, the kiss of Judas, the flagellation of Jesus, Peter’s denial, Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), the trial of Jesus, the centurion, the soldiers gambling for Jesus’ robe, the crucifixion, the burial, and the ascension. We spent a while figuring out what all the statues were portraying before we noticed a sign explaining what they were portraying. Soon we were headed up the staircase. We noticed that the doors to the church had tons of writing on them and found out that, written in relief, was the story of the Passion from all of the four gospels. Inside of some of the letters were little drawings, such as a wine cup, a fig tree, or a pelican. Walking inside we found the floor covered with inlaid marble, depicting the story of Palm Sunday. We had been told that the only way to describe St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was “WOW!” Actually, we think that WOW! is more appropriate for this church. It was just so overwhelmingly gorgeous. It was airy, had colorful rainbow stained glass, a beautiful altar, organ pipes stretching to the ceiling. In all the other churches we’ve gone to, I have found some way to describe it:  Gothic, Roman, etc. This church is just simply beautiful. We even found symbolism where we didn’t expect it. Caitlin had put her camera on the ground to take pictures of the magnificent ceiling. In looking at her picture, she found that there seemed to be a sort of stick figure with a halo and its legs and arms stuck out as if to say, “Here I am!”

                Breathing in all this beauty was like sticking your nose right next to wisteria and taking a deep breath. It was nice, but extremely overwhelming. We spent a couple hours going around the church before going into the Gaudí  museum and then leaving and taking the metro home. We sent Daddy and Caitlin to shop for dinner while the rest of us went home. We expected them to come back over an hour later which is how long all our other foreign shopping trips, even small ones, have taken. We were surprised to find that they took only 55 minutes to shop in Spain. They had purchased chicken, rice, mushrooms, and a glass container of leek soup to flavor this meal. Since we did not have an oven or a rice cooker, Mom decided to boil the chicken and rice for dinner, sauté the mushrooms, and microwave the leek soup so that we could flavor our meal how we liked. It turned out to be an excellent way to end the day.