Park Güell, La Sagrada Familia, Good Eats and Thinky Thinky.

So I slept all day yesterday, woke up, hung out in my hotel room for a few hours, then took some codeine and a muscle relaxer, and went back to sleep. I have not slept this much possibly ever, and it was goddamn amazing! I don't think I've quite beat the jetlag, but I am tons and tons better than I was before yesterday. So I lost a day of Barcelona, but I think in doing so, I vastly improved the quality of the following ones. Many thanks to all the friends who offered jetlag advice on fb - I've been following it! Sunlight ftw!

There are a couple of things that occurred to me today.

One is that I'm really, really glad I speak Spanish.

They say that everyone speaks English in Europe, and maybe that's true - I don't know. In Spain, it seems like English is more of a labor for the people who can speak it, with few exceptions (usually people who want to sell me stuff).

Also, it's kind of nice to be thinking in Spanish again - even though sometimes I don't understand everything people here say, in part because I'm out of practice, in part because on top of having a Spanish from Spain accent, they have a Catalan accent! Most of the time, I'm fine with Spaniards speaking Spanish, but the cabbie who brought me back to my hotel had a really strong Catalan accent. (Think about those parts in Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels when they had to subtitle the people speaking cockney or the Pikeys. Okay, not as bad as the Pikeys, but still!)

Another cool thing is tricking people - another of my cabbies today (okay, listen, I've been taking the Metro, but there was something wrong with the L5 Line and while it would have been nice to walk to Sagrada Familia from where I was, I'd hiked my ass all over Park Güell and I needed some AC!) asked me where I was from - he seemed quite surprised to hear the U.S.! He said he'd thought I was Cuban or Mexican. (LOLOLOL oh Mary!). This is an awesome compliment, because I'm generally a little self-conscious about my Spanish, because I'm nowhere near as good at it as English. Also, the guy at the store where I bought my cell phone said I speak Castillian better than he speaks English! (Now, I don't know if that's a comment on my Spanish or his English, but I'll take it! LOLOL)

Something else that occurred to me - or I guess it'd be more of a discovery - is that the Barcelona Metro is as fucking awesome as everybody says. It's awesome, it's clean, it's modern, it's reliable, it's speedy. I bought myself a monthly pass today, and at 47.50 Euro, it's not a bad deal at all - a little more than a monthly T pass in Boston, but hey, it's Europe - everything's more expensive here. Also, the Barcelona Metro makes the T look like a horse and buggy as far as speed, accessibility, and coverage of the city are concerned. Psha!

The third thing I discovered/occurred to me is that I actually really, really, really like hiking. I just don't like hiking with other people.

I'm kind of a city slicker to begin with - my experience with hiking equals exactly one (1) dog hike with Doug over a year ago. Besides that, I'm overweight and out of shape, and in general, the people I know who hike are decidedly not (there may be a connection here... LOL). However, when hiking by myself through Park Güell, the back end of which turned out to involve a lot of dusty-footed climbing over unpaved, mountainy terrain, I found I enjoyed it. I was careful when I needed to be, slow when I wanted to be, and took my time to look at the landscape around me and go at a pace I was comfortable with. What this resulted in was a really enjoyable hikish walk in the sun, and climbing to the top of some kind of peaky-hill-high-place-thing successfully and happily! There was no stress about being the n00b fattie holding everyone up, there was no being uncomfortably out of breath and trying to front like I wasn't, there was no tripping or falling or anything - just a nice walk, and an awesome view! Granted I didn't dress for it - LOLOL I wasn't expecting Park Güell to involve this kind of business - but my ballet flats have good, substantial soles and served me well. Maybe a dress wasn't the best choice of attire (my skirt flew up and I nearly gave the other tourists a bit of a show at a couple of points - it's windy in Barce!), but overall, I was fine!


This was my reward for climbing and stuff.

So there was that.

Anyway, after scaring the shit out of myself and climbing to the top of that little mountainy peak thing, I was like, "Now where the hell are the sculptures?!"

So after a little searching, I did, indeed, find them.

Wow.

It's like a big sculpture you can walk around in. Outside. It's... I don't even know if it's worth describing. I mean, there were tourists everywhere, from all over Europe and beyond - and I guess that was another thing that was nice about being alone, and about being abroad - I felt the liberty, for the first time, to just be a goddamn tourist. I had my camera out all the time, took pictures of every damn thing, people-watched, wandered around lost a few times, asked questions, and generally just let myself feel the wonder of being in a wholly different place that was completely new to me. It was great! As for the park itself - well, I took a bunch of pictures. That's all I can do. I will say that I hadn't known places that beautiful existed - that people could make art like that out of objects that we can be inside of, that surround us. It is a special thing to be surrounded by a structure that is, in itself, so obviously art. It was wonderful and felt otherworldly in places, and was such a great and lovely experience. I don't think I saw everything, either - I'll most likely go back before I leave and see if I can't find more.



I also took a side trip to the Casa Museu Gaudi - which is a really cool-looking pink house on the grounds where he lived. All I have to say is that clearly, I need to live with a great crazy artist architect. Well, actually I probably don't - I haven't read up on Gaudi, but if he was that talented and creative, odds are he was seriously maladjusted, or at least had major woman problems, so maybe not.

It had been my intention to write on La Sagrada Familia and maybe even the very fancy lunch I had - but I've decided now that I'm too tired. LOLOL. Anyway, the pics'll be up on fb. :D