I slept like a baby all night on the train, woke up to a drastically different landscape out the couchette window…. Spain. The sun was out fully at 8:30am as we pulled into Barcelona. It was hard to believe we had been in four hotels in three weeks, and that it was almost July. Some in our group didn’t have the restful night I claimed, due to motion sickness, and also due to the excitement of an all night train ride and opportunity to continue celebrating being in Europe. All stumbled out of the train, dragging bags, sleepy eyed, but eager to get back on stationary ground.
Our bus was waiting, and we got to the hotel about 9:30am, but our rooms would not be ready until the afternoon. All the luggage was piled into a holding room, and we set off to find food and explore our new neighborhood. We learned there would be a huge hill to walk up/down to get to anything – food, Metro, shopping. It was fine on the way out, as it was downhill, but we always dreaded the hike back, especially if loaded down with bottled water and/or other purchases.
We were excited to have air conditioning, spacious bathrooms, and comfortable rooms once again. Everyone hit the showers, more than ready after a full day of walking on Sunday in the Paris heat, then an overnight train, then several hours in the Barcelona heat. We had just a couple of hours before boarding a bus for a city tour… needless to say, we were all dragging.
A bus tour was the right choice for an introduction to Barcelona. We’d have never made it if we had to walk the tour. We had an excellent tour guide who shared lots of facts and trivia, as well as humor about the sites on our tour. Barcelona is the capital of the region of Catalunya, where the language of Catalan is preferred over Spanish. The city is known for its architecture, its Barri Gotic alleys, boulevards, and grid-planned new part of town, called Eixample. Barcelona is a former Roman colony, and in modern times has been a top textile and manufacturing center.
We saw most of the major sites in Barcelona from the bus, including the Olympic Stadium, the beach and port, the art school where Picasso studied, and other historic sites.
However, the centerpiece for all Barcelona is Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) Church, the work of Barcelona’s famous architect, Antoni Gaudi. Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1883, and is the landmark of the city. The amazing structure is still not expected to be completed for another 75-100 years. The project if funded completely by private donations and tourists’ entry fees. The design is rich with symbolism from the Bible. The story of Christ’s Passion unfolds in the shape of a Z, from bottom to top. When Gaudi died in 1926, only the stubs of four spires stood above the building site. The rest of the church has been inspired by Gaudi’s vision but designed and executed by others. The ever present cranes and construction equipment are a constant reminder of continuous progress and adaptation as time passes. Sagrada Familila is the most unusual house of worship ever designed, and offers a fun look at a living, growing, bigger-than-life building.
We also took a quick walk through the 30 acre Park Guell, another of Gaudi’s masterpieces. I loved the whimsical design in this park, colorful, fun and care free, a place to feel freedom and expression, with a magnificent view of Barcelona. Gaudi originally planned the area to be a high end residential, gated community to accommodate 60 homes, but he was ahead of the times with this plan, so it became a park open to the public instead. He used mosaic tile work in the décor, one of the earliest known uses of the mosaic style recorded.
Our group met after dinner for a short time to make final changes to the presentation, and assign who would speak to what. We planned to use Tuesday (allotted for final group work) to rehearse repeatedly. Our hotel had laundry facilities on site, so I decided to do a load while we were working. When I pulled my wet clothes from the washer, I heard something drop to the floor…. It was my little green flash drive made from recycled plastic bottles that I thought was lost! I couldn’t believe it! Although I had recreated most of the changes to the presentation that I thought were lost forever, the version on the flash drive had all the animations to the file that had taken so much time to insert, so my fingers were crossed that it would still work. I hurriedly climbed the two flights of stairs to where Nicole and Jibsam were in a study room. They were shocked to see the little green drive in my hand and we all held our breath as I plugged it in my computer. The only thing different was that it was now a clean, green flash drive! Wow – unbelievable – all worked perfectly and we were able to recover the version of the presentation we had worked so hard on in Paris. What a good way to end the day!
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