Barcelona and Sevilla

Finally time for a blog post about the last leg of Danielle and I's journey together, Spain.

Please forgive any wording that doesn't sound quite right, I'm pretty tired right now so I didn't spend a whole lot of time editing. It's also several weeks old by now so even though some of it sounds like it's happening right now, it actually happened several weeks ago. Anyway, enjoy.

Well you already heard about my fiasco with getting pickpocketed on the metro while we were in Barcelona, but aside from that I had a great time. It didn't take us as long to get there as it had for the other cities, so when we first arrived and dropped our stuff off at the our couchsurfing host's place we went immediately to sightseeing. The first thing we saw was La Sagrada Familia, the unfinished cathedral designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi. His work is all over the city but the most famous is this cathedral. Construction was begun I believe in the late 1800s if I am remembering correctly and they have been slowly working on it ever since. Out of all of the cathedrals I have seen in Europe this one by far took my breath away the most. It is just so much different from anything else. The columns and the details on the ceiling reminded me of being in a forest, which gave me a similar feeling to the joy I feel when I'm out in nature (as opposed to other cathedrals which impress me with the grandness of what human beings are capable of). I also loved the stained glass windows which cast so many bright colors onto the stone walls and pillars around them. I was in awe as we walked around, and we ended up staying for what I think was over an hour. I never wanted to leave. 

The second day we went to Park Guell, another famous Gaudi landmark. The whole park used to be free, but in the last few years they started charging admission to the most popular parts, so we saw those parts first, and beat most of the crowd because we got there early. Unfortunately one of the typical Gaudi style buildings was covered in scaffolding so it didn't look very nice, but the other one wasn't, and we even got to go into that one and look at the inside. It was really cool, and I really enjoy Gaudi's style so just walking around admiring it all was great. 

Then we walked around the part of the park you don't have to pay to get into and had a nice time listening to musicians, browsing the street vendors, and enjoying the views of the city from the top of the hill. After that we tried to go see another Gaudi building, but that one was also completely covered in scaffolding so we didn't get to see much. Since we couldn't see that, we just wandered a little bit in the old Gothic section of the city. 

The next day we walked to Placa de Espanya and then wandered up the hill to a museum, and then stumbled upon the stadium that was used when the Olympics were in Barcelona in 1992. Neither of us had any idea it was there so it was a nice surprise. Our main goal for the day was to do a free walking tour like the one we did in Amsterdam, and this time we also did it a bit backwards since we didn't do it on the first day. So we went to that and saw some things we had already seen, but we also saw some new things and our tour guide was so fun. He was a goofy British guy, so of course he had a great accent, and he told a lot of corny jokes and was just overall very entertaining. After the tour we stopped at the Museum of Chocolate and got hot chocolate, actual real hot chocolate not just hot cocoa. It was delicious! Probably the best hot chocolate I've ever had, although it might tie with Burdick's in New Hampshire. I think I'd have to have Burdick's again to be sure. :) We also went back to the cathedral and went inside, because after 5pm it was free to go in. That was cool, and had a nice garden in a courtyard to the side of it, but after Sagrada Familia it just didn't have the same wow factor. 

Then on our way back to our host's apartment was the fateful metro ride that resulted in the loss of my phone, which you heard all about. Unfortunately it also meant the loss of the previous 2 days of pictures that I hadn't backed up yet, including all of the pictures from Park Guell. :( That night we just stayed in and hung out with our host, who was a really nice Slovakian guy who had been living in Barcelona for a few years. He gave us some wine and Bailey's to help make me feel better and we had a nice time just chatting until Danielle and I got too tired (we seem to get really tired in the evenings from all of the walking and the days we've had to wake up early to travel between cities). 

Although I don't have many pictures left from Barcelona, here are a few of them:

First sighting of La Sagrada Familia

Up close

I love these stained glass windows! So beautiful. 

Before arriving in Barcelona I was excited to finally be in a country where I understood the language, and then an interesting thing once I got there was that half of what you see and hear there isn't actually Spanish, it's Catalan, the language specific to the region of Catalunya where Barcelona is located. Catalan is very similar to Spanish, so I can understand about half of it, but some of it is just different enough that I have no idea. When it's written it shares some characteristics with French, and when it's spoken it sounds a little bit like Portuguese. Catalunya has a lot of pride in their region and many people there don't want to be part of Spain, so speaking their own language is a way for them to remain connected with their heritage and differentiate themselves from the rest of the country. There is actually a vote happening November 9 that we kept seeing signs for in which Catalunya wants to vote to become their own country. However from what we learned while we were there, this vote is not like the vote in Scotland recently which was completely accepted and legally binding. Apparently this vote wasn't even recognized by the Spanish government, who had said that even if it passed it wouldn't have any effect on the country. So it was more of a symbolic vote to show the government how much they really don't want to be part of Spain anymore, and it will be interesting to see what the results are. From my perspective I don't understand why a government would be so stubborn like that. If people don't want to be a part of your country, why would you want them to be? I know there are undoubtedly many political and economic reasons behind it, but to me it just seems selfish. I think the Catalunyans should be allowed to live how they want to. Yet another reason I don't understand human nature. [Note: after I wrote this I looked up the results of this vote. The question that was voted on was basically asking people if they thought Catalunya should be independent and if yes, whether it should be completely separate from Spain. The vast majority voted in favor of complete independence from Spain, with a few voting for the other 2 options. The articles I read said that the outcome might not have been completely representative of the population because people who don't want an independent Catalunya may not have bothered to vote because they didn't think it mattered, but also it's possible that some people who do support independence didn't vote because of intimidation from the government. In any case, it does seem like there is a huge push for independence, and it's unfortunate to me that the Spanish government is so resistant to a change that many people clearly want.][Another note: Catalunya is the Catalan spelling of the region, in English it is Catalonia, and in Spanish it is Cataluna (with the accent over the N which I can't do on this computer).]

I don't have much to write about Sevilla because I'd been there before so there weren't lots of new things to see like in other cities, and also because we decided Sevilla would be our relaxing city. We stayed in a hostel instead of couchsurfing, partly because we couldn't find a host, but it worked out because we had more freedom to come and go as we pleased at a hostel than if we had stayed at someone's house. I enjoyed wandering around, eating tapas, and admiring the buildings. I had forgotten how much the architecture in southern Spain is influenced by northern Africa, and I really like the style. We also got to see someone I knew when I studied abroad in Salamanca, which was awesome! Her name is Cristina, and she was one of my intercambios, a Spanish student who I met with every week so I could practice Spanish and she could practice English. It was great to see her after 4 years, and she was just as fun to talk to as I remembered! 

Ok, I think that's all I have to say about Sevilla, and it's time for me to go to bed. I will hopefully have a post ready soon about what I'm actually do right now, which is WWOOFing in Spain! Stay tuned!

P.S. Danielle did a much better job of summarizing our trip to Sevilla, so if you are interested here is the link to her post: http://solongusa.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/sevilla.html