Barcelona and last thoughts on Spain

So we got into Barcelona on time and went right to our hostel. It was an incredibly painless process.

I'd been to Barcelona once before with my parents so I knew it is a big, sprawling city that would be impossible to navigate by foot and map, so I bought tickets to an on/off bus tour that cruised around the city hitting all the various tourist spots with bits of information. I usually like to avoid such blatantly tourist-y things but for such a huge city with so many things to see it seemed like the best viable option.

The Miro Foundation, which was one of my favorite places the last time in Spain, was no dissappointment. Miro's art, while highly abstract and pretty curiously empty at times, is at the very least interesting to look at. They don't allow photographs inside but they did let us take pictures of the sculptures outside.

The other major point of interest is the Sagrada Familia, the unfinished church (estimated date of completion varies from each person you ask, anywhere from 2026 to 2090). The photographs taken from my iPod don't really do it justice, even with those nifty filters, but I tried to take as many good pictures as I could.

It's really hard to convey just how huge and incredible the church is. As soon as I got in I gasped, just because all of the detail and magnitude of the place is just incredible.

After that I went over to the Gaudi park to see some of his less...gigantic works. I love his mosaic-style of color blending and how from a distance it seems almost like scales, which really complements his natural influences.

Barcelona was my last stop in Spain before the intended stop through the French Riviera and then on to Italy. But I'll talk about that in my next entry, which should be fairly soon...I hope. Until then I'll move on to my next point.

This:

is a photo of an empty bowl of gazpacho. Why did I take a picture of an empty bowl of gazpacho? Because I couldn't will myself to stop eating it long enough to take a picture of the bowl when it was full.

This is because I love gazpacho. It's probably my favorite thing to eat, and it's just one of the many things I'm going to miss about Spain.

Actually I'll sum that up to say that I'll miss all spanish food; cold gazpacho, hot tapas, tinto de verano, fresh bread, cured ham, manchego cheese, I'll miss all of it.

The other major thing I'm going to miss is speaking/understanding Spanish. While I'm far from fluent, it's really nice to communicate and listen to a language that I'm familiar with. While I understand a little bit of French, Spanish is the only language besides English that I can communicate with.

I'll also miss the Spanish architecture and the open balcony's facing the streets. I'll miss the dry weather and the friendly people. I really do love Spain.