I just got back from Barcelona!! I’m extremely tired but I’ve missed you guys so much, so HOLA!

It was such a fantastic trip; the food was great, the architecture is genius, the sun was shining, the people were nice. Barcelona is such a fun city, with such passion for life. Everyone seemed to be out and about, with smiles on their faces.

I can’t write everything in one post, so I\’92m going to write bit by bit; architecture, food, the tourist sites, the beach.

I’ll start with the architecture. Barcelona\’92s main attractions are designed by this one guy, Antoni Gaudi, who was well ahead of his time in the 1800s. Two of his many famous projects were Sagrada Familia, a church and Casa Battlo on Passage de Gracia (where Gucci, LV, Chanel are; such convenience!)

SAGRADA FAMILIA

It was highhhh.

We had audio headphone thingys to help us go through each detail of the church; windows, lighting, ceiling, floor plan. Knowing me, I don’t appreciate architecture that way; I just like to see. I see and I like. I don’t know how to appreciate the boring technical bit that only my architect friends would understand.

So I was like this half the time.

But I have to admit. The church was awesome!! Every inch had some cool details on it, and the lighting was just amazing at night.

The cool part was that you could take a lift up to 55 metres above ground to see the view from a bridge on the tower.

Knowing that Stella is afraid of heights, Dean and I rushed to the queue. This was going to be fun! And indeed it was. She was shit scared, it was so funny. Dean kept jumping up and down in the tower, pretending to break the tower apart. As if that was going to happen. Even so, Stella was squealing like mad, telling him to cut the crap.

What they didn’t tell you was that there’s no lift going down.

-___-

We had to take a gazillion steps down in a SPIRAL STAIRCASE which was like as wide as an airplane seat (Economy class!). If you are claustrophobic, my condolences to you and the people around you in that stairwell.

Some parts of it didn’t have railings, so you had to make sure you were as close as possible to the wall. I can’t imagine my nephew and niece in this place! So dangerous!

My knees were hurting so bad, and it didn\’92t help that other tourists in front of us were slowing us down by wanting to take a picture of themselves every few steps. OK fine, we were one of them. But it\’92s somehow more annoying when you see others do it.

It didn’t help Stella’s confidence either because there were large windows in the stairwell overlooking Barcelona to let light in, so Stella kept squinting her eyes all the way down.

As hilarious as it was for Dean and I to watch Stella, we were all pretty much exhausted by the whole visit there. We had to take a detour; back to the hotel to nap. Like grandmas.

CASA BATTLO

We did this on the last day, as we were shopping at Zara, Mango (cheaper there obviously!) and other places.

It was like a proper house; Gaudi designed dining room, drawing room, sewing room, loft, laundry room, even a water sewage room in the attic.

The theme was super quirky and surprisingly modern!

Cool folding doors

Spiral ceiling

Big window panel with quirky shapes

Very Spanish-themed courtyard

Cool lighting

Flower tiles

Dragon-inspired rooftop

Bone, sternum, rib something

Stella and Gaudi

I’m no architect, but I think Gaudi is a genius. He likes to play with nature, as I recall the audio lady telling me. Hence, a lot of waves and movements in his work, a lot of colours to play with the light, a lot of animal and plant influence.

The only sucky thing about Barcelona is that it was as if the whole city was under construction! The Sagrada Familia isn’t finished yet, which is sad because Gaudi didn’t live to see his genius creation being completed. The Barcelona Cathedral was also under construction (we couldn’t enter anyway because Stella and I were rejected for being too sexy in our shorts and tank tops). A lot of sections were closed and there were scaffolding everywhere, which blocked our paths. It was also noisy because workers were banging things and drilling stuff, so it broke our concentration. Not like I had any. But still.

This is only a fraction of the trip. Will update more soon, so stay tuned! You wouldn’t want to miss the beach story! 😉