Barcelona

Sorry these posts haven't been coming with any regularity, I will change that soon. The reason is that I had to wait until I could post my pictures with this post. Otherwise, nothing I talk about would have seemed half as sweet.
First off, we traveled all the way across the country (guys, maybe biking across Spain is more reasonable than the States, haha) in about a 12 hour bus ride. Somehow, this ride seemed to be about the same length as the ride to Portugal, not really sure why.
Barcelona is a really cool city. We visited 5 different spots in Barcelona with Jesus, our resident director as our tour guide. On Saturday we visited the Casa Mila which is a set of apartments that wrap around a circular courtyard. Designed by Antoni Gaudi, these apartments were waaay ahead of their time when they were built in the early 1900s and they all have this wrought iron handles on their porches which were somehow molded into extremely detailed piece of art.
^^^^^ Kind of looks like Laura when she is mad

Gaudi got a lot of his inspiration from nature and made the coolest roof ever, I hung out on the roof a lot when I was there.
From there we then went up to Monjuic where we saw the Olympic stadium from the 92 Olympics, Bon Jovi was setting up for a concert there that night!
Say It Isn't So was what we were saying when we reached the top of Montjuic, supposedly the best view of the city was covered with fog and didn't allow for any sweet panoramic pictures.
Undeterred by the weather, we ate delicious food and shopped around a bit.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead was what I was thinking that night.

Sunday came and in the morning we went to the famous Park Güell, also designed by Antoni Gaudi. Words don't really do this park justice.

This is the main part of the park, where the infamous benches line a sand field in the middle, the benches are made up of pieces of crushed ceramic in really cool designs. This is underneath the last picture, these columns hold up the benches and sand infield somehow. Note the curve of the roof here, it is also made up of crushed pieces of white ceramic.

I don't know where you find this much ceramic, but Gaudi had the bright idea to make designs on the ceiling - and he made some cool ones.
Haha he could really do anything with ceramic.
Pedro and I (commonly known around here as Arroz con Pedro) at the top of the park.

By now we were definitely Living on a Prayer as we traveled over to La Sagrada Familia (Translates to The Sacred Family)
Antoni Gaudi (starting to see the theme here) worked on this project for 40 years and devoted the last 15 years of his life solely to the construction of this Temple.
The Temple was crazy, you can see why the total project, which is scheduled for completion in 2026, has taken so long to construct. From the 4 high towers which are symbolic of the 4 Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to the facades which capture the Nativity story and the Passion of Christ, it really is exquisite. I can't fit all of the pictures on here so check them out on the blog. If you are ever in Barcelona and you Want to Make a Memory then go here.

Since It's My Life I won't even include the details from our visit to the Pablo Picasso museum.
Who Says You Can't Go Home was what we were saying by Monday morning when we made the long bus ride back to Salamanca.
It's still hard to call this place home, but it's all I've got for the next 3 weeks.
More to come soon on the crazy city I live in. if you stayed with me through this, congratulations, You Give Love a Bad Name