Day Seventeen - Friday

I WANT HER JOB!

The next morning, we woke up and piled back onto the bus to head up the side of one of the mountains that tower over Barcelona to see our first sight – Park Guell! This park was originally a housing project by Antoni Gaudi for Count Guell at the beginning of the twentieth century that was never completed – as in the houses were never placed on the property. As it was at least half finished, it was converted to an absolutely gorgeous city park overlooking most of the city and some of the Mediterranean Sea.

Walking through the park, you get the feeling of being Alice in Wonderland – you keep exacting a white rabbit in a waistcoat and glasses to hop out from behind one of the many bushes. It's just such a crazy fantasy that you could touch and see all around you. There were so many combinations of architecture styles – Roman, Egyptian, Gaudi's own Modernism – that you never knew exactly from where he drew his inspiration.

While we were underneath the main “terrace”, we saw a few performers between the Egyptian-inspired columns – one of which was a belly dancer with these gorgeous red, gold and black silk fans! I was in HEAVEN. I snapped a few shots and praised her talents, which got me a huge smile and tons of thanks. Such a nice lady!

Jess, Joanna and I walked around the gorgeous space and enjoyed the sun, the salesmen selling their tourist-driven wares, and the people milling around just as awestruck as we were. After about an hour of free time, we packed back up into the bus and headed back into the city for our next stop...

MOST EPIC ROOF EVER

We were dropped off down the street from out next sight – Casa Battlo, a house redesigned from the inside out (but not torn down first!) in order to give its owners a sense of difference and personality while living surrounded by all of the neo styles of architecture. The fascade is incredibly cool – it was redesigned, as I have already said, by Antoni Gaudi using a lot of inspiration from the sea and from fish to create its very serene beauty.

And then on the roof sat a dragon. Yeah, you read that right. There was a frickin' dragon. Most epic roof, ever. Gaudi had apparently received instructions to make the house stand out as much from the front, and he had spared no steps to please his clients: The front part of the roof was tiled with the dragon's side scales, the head a quirky combination of imagination and distortion. The effect was perfect for the rest of the facade... it was just so quirky, it worked.

We walked inside and explored the house room by room, with Jesus pointing out certain architectural features every few rooms. The most widely-explored part of the house was the main family's home, which was the entire first floor, and the staircase/elevator leading up the house to the apartments that the family rented out (there are 12 units, still used, I believe). After about two hours of the guided tour, we enjoyed a few minutes of browsing in the gift shop (nope, didn't get anything – left my wallet on the bus to make room for the notebook I used to take notes, like a good little student) and general perusing of the first floor and the inner “courtyard”, which was just a carved-out part of the house where all of the windows from the different apartments faced, and also where the elevator was housed. The best part of Gaudi's genius, in my opinion, is how he worked with natural light: rather than putting in a bunch of hot, expensive false lighting, he used color to move light. For example, in the “inner courtyard”, he put dark blue tiles towards the top of the room (nearest the roof and, thus, the light) and much lighter blue and white tiles towards the bottom, because the lighter tiles would reflect the light better in the lower parts and the darker colors would absorb them and take some of the burn out of the immediate access to light. How clever is that?

SIGHTSEEING LIKE A CHAMP

After we finished up at Casa Batllo, a bunch of us stopped off at Las Ramblas (the most famous thoroughfare in Barcelona) and dove into this cafeteria to see about getting some lunch. We had about an hour and a half to eat, which turned out to be just barely enough time! The cafeteria charged us per bread roll that we had eaten, which made Jess' hair catch on fire... noted, do not ever make her mad, ever.

Once we were all rounded back up and put back onto the bus, Jesus said something about “estadio” and “vista de la ciudad” as the bus lumbered up yet another mountainside... and within a few minutes, we were parked outside the Olympic Stadium where the Barcelona Games had been held!! With the torch-holder there and everything!!

AWESOME. JUST SO FREAKING AWESOME.

We took pictures and hung out, and I was kind of weirded out at how small it was in real life. You know how sports events always make stadiums look huge? This was just not as large as it was in old video clips. Totally strange. Jesus pointed out that the Real Madrid stadium was actually larger than this stadium, and wondered aloud why they had not chosen to host the ceremonies there. Yeah, not a Real Madrid fan at all.

After our few minutes in Olympic glory, Jesus and Ramon herded us back onto the bus (are you sensing a theme yet?) and we headed even farther up the mountain... to a gorgeous view of the city and the harbor. Pictures were snapped and breaths were taken away.

And it was then and there, I decided. I am moving to Barcelona.

(Just kidding, Mom!)

(Ditto, Sam!)

(...pretty please?)

SMACK INTO A WALL AT BREAKNECK SPEED

Once we had snapped out of our holy geez this is so freaking amazing reverie, we remembered that the day was not over yet – there was still Casa Mila, Gaudi's other domestic architectural wonder that was just a block or two down the street from Casa Batllo. Jesus wanted us to get as wide of a range as possible with Gaudi's accomplishments, so we walked into the just-as-beautiful-as-the-other house and enjoyed more modernist awesomeness.

The unfortunate part of this part of the story is... Jess had been feeling bad and had a splitting headache that didn't seem to be dissipating, so when we got to Casa Mila, no one was incredibly shocked when she more or less passed out on the way up the stairs to start our tour. Ramon and his wife rushed her back downstairs to the bus and then rushed about to get her medicine and no one saw them until after our tour and perusal of the gift shop. Ramon had told me to enjoy the tour and that he would take care of Jess, so when I was finished and headed back to the bus, I was surprised and endeared to him to find him completely freaked out by everything. Jess was more or less unconscious, she was sleeping so soundly, in her seat on the bus and Ramon was hovering over her. Here's more or less how our conversation went (because he was so worried it was almost funny):

Me: Ramon, what did you give her? She looks like you clocked her over the head with a mallet!

Ramon: I gave her (drug name here), because the pharmacist said that it's the best thing for migraines, and she fell asleep almost immediately afterwards. I've been standing here watching her breathe.

Me: ...excuse me, I think I mis-translated that. One more time?

Ramon: We don't know if it's a migraine, it could be something else. And what if she stops breathing? I'm watching to make sure that she keeps breathing. I just don't get it, how did this just show up? This is-

Me: Ramon, she's been showing symptoms of a migraine all day, and the breakneck pace we've been at with very little access to water hasn't helped. She's most likely got a migraine and a severe case of dehydration. She's physically exhausted and just hit a wall, it looks like. Let's just let her sleep.

Ramon: Well, what about her breathing? Will she be okay to sit like that? Will her neck muscles get strained that way? Does she have a clear way to breathe?

Me: Ramon, I will stand here and watch her breathe, if it makes you feel better. Just relax. She's fine, she just hit the point where her body said 'nope, we're gonna be done now'. May I please have the medicine you gave her?

The rest of it was Ramon explaining to me her dosage information (how much she'd had, when she could have more, et cetera) and more or less ordering me to watch her breathe and to hold her head up to make this easier. I did all of the above and thanked him for taking such good care of her in the meantime, and then took over the trip back to our hotel in keeping an eye on her.

The thing that I love about Ramon is that he's not a terribly solemn or serious person. He jokes and gets sarcastic with the best of them, so we have naturally become friends because we can relate through a similar sense of humor. Our conversation might sound like I was short and at points rude to him, but that's become our relationship – we both know that I am overly-formal with him (useless usted form is useless in Spain) and completely respect him as my elder and therefore superior, but we have become friendly enough that I can be straight with him when the situation warrants it. I really hope that our friendship survives the trip, because he is just so cool.

Just saying – I wish I'd been around when he'd had his first child. That much worrying must have been hysterical.

NO ME GUSTA GREEK YOGURT

Getting home was actually really satisfying – I hadn't realized until that last bus ride how incredibly worn out the day had left me. The bus pulled up to the curb of Hotel Alimara and we piled out (well, I more or less dragged a zombie-like Jess) and headed for our rooms. After making sure that she was safely in bed and explaining to her roommate the dosage info just in case Jess needed more, I headed back to my room, changed and freshened up, and considered dinner options.

I ended up getting take-away dinners from the bar (one for me, one for Jess) that were fantastic deals – you got a main course, a dessert, a drink, and a small salad for 7 euros. I bought two of them as well as a bottle of water as long as from my shoulder to midway down my forearm (I'm not exaggerating) to re-hydrate Jess. The bar was more or less empty except for a guy at the end cradling the end of a beer, so as I sat there waiting for the food to be ready he caught my attention and we had a nice conversation. It turned out that he was visiting from England and was “doing the tourist beat”, and his last night would be spent at the hotel bar like a good little Englishman. He was funny and we got on well – when Jess' meal was finished, I took it upstairs to give her a head start on eating and promised to return for mine, which was not finished being prepared. Once I got back from dropping off her food and more or less ordering her to drink at least two bottles' worth of water before she fell back asleep again, he introduced himself as Sam the Englishman, and we chatted more about Barcelona and the places he had seen while “holidaying” in the gorgeous Catalan area.

Once my meal was done, I thanked him for his time and headed upstairs to Chelsea, Kirsten, Caitrin, Camila and Joanna, who were waiting to start our “girl's night in” with Harry Potter and my takeaway meal of ham-and-cheese sandwich and greek yogurt (yum to the first, never ever again to the second). Jess surprised us all by coming over to see us! She was apparently well-rested after her three-hour long coma and wanted to be a little more social before going back to sleep. We watched Harry Potter 7 and added commentary occasionally, and generally had a great time! That is one of my favorite ways to pass a movie that I have seen a few times already – give some commentary every once in a while and keep it fresh and fun. Good times, all around :)