Cara Mia, Oh My!!!: Gaudi isn't gaudy, is he?

Whew….this was a long day.

I was up at 4 a.m. for some unknown reason. Could not get back to sleep. The room was cool, the place fairly quiet. Well….sort of.

There is a group of high school students from Denmark … and they tend to get noisy. Add to this that some of the rooms have a common bathroom, which happens to be on my end of the building, and people going to the can in the middle of the night close doors hard. Fairly quiet.
I have a bathroom. It is small. There is no shower curtain, just a stall and a drain on the floor. It gets wet in there!

The air conditioner runs for 30 seconds at a time. Then it is off for 30 seconds. Then on. Then off. You may sense the pattern. I didn't count sheep, I counted seconds between cool blasts of air.

So I bought a ticket for the hop on, hop off city tour bus and went to Sagrada Famila. This is the masterpiece of Gaudi. He started it in 1893 or somewheres about. Pictures show the cathedral out in a field with nothing around it. Today it is surrounded by apartment buildings and traffic. It is not yet finished. In fact, workers were actively working this summer. The project continues as contributions are received.

I want to say it is about a football field in length, but again, my memory is not as good as it used to be. The cross section is one third of the length. There are going to be 14 towers when it is completed, probably not in my lifetime.

Gaudi was asked if he was disappointed at the slow pace and responded, "My client does not keep a schedule."

The pope blessed it a few years ago.

The facades reflect elements in Christ's life, such as his birth and his death. The birth facade is full of figures and shapes and is a happy side while the opposite is true of the side depicting his death.

Two of the towers are open for viewing. I rode an elevator up and looked out over the town. Lord that was high! (Pun….get it?) I had the option of going down a two foot wide winding staircase or going back on the elevator. Since I was already woozy, sweaty, clinging to the sides…..i took the elevator.

That's when it got not so good. I got on the hop on bus and rode about an hour back to my starting point. Then I rode it to the house with the funny chimneys.

La Pedrera is call the zenith of Gaudi's work. He built this apartment building in the 1920s. His designs are linked to nature and there are elements of leaves, trees and everything else in the building. There are no straight lines...everything has a curve. It is pretty amazing.

The tour also goes into a period apartment in the 1920s...way cool....and in the attic, which gave a great look at how it all holds up.

Then I rode the bus again to a park, Giuel Park, that Gaudi orignally laied out as a residential community. High on the hills, it gets a nice breeze and has awesome views. Not a lot of houses were built, but some were and I looked at a couple....but my legs were about dead at this point.

There were also people selling water....1 Euro a bottle...and the police were taking the water. As soon as the cops went out of veiw, out popped more "fresh water."

I was tired, and not real hungry when I hopped on the bus for the 40 minute ride back. That's why I did something maybe I will regret later.

I went back into Mercat de La Boqueria. This is a market with almost anything you want to eat in the world, and some things you would never consider eating, is available. Bought a friuit jusice. Then I decided to save money so I bought a couple of fried items....like a breaded chicken and a breaded lump of parmesaan cheese. And another fruit juice. Now, I feel like I have a ton of something waiting for action. Maybe I should have gone out for tapa again.....
And on afinal note....I am a sexy man. At least that is what the lady in the short skirt and tight, tight top called me when I walked past: "Hey, there, Sexy Man.....Stop for a minute. Hey Sexy Man, where are you going?" I did not stop.