The next day we went to the Sagrada Familia. It was really cool. I had heard a lot about this place but after walking through it there was a museum underneath that we walked through and learned a lot. Basically, this guy Gaudi was a genius. He was an architect with a mind like none other. The basic design for the cathedral came from this. ...Ok so I dont have a picture. That is wierd, but basically he took a bunch of strings and weights and hung them from a ceiling and when it was all set up, he took a picture and flipped the image and that was the overall blue print. (There will be a similar picture later.) There were to be 12 minor towers for the 12 apostles, 4 more for the 4 evangelists, and 2 major towers, one for Mary and one for Christ. They had a few façades but the whole project was meant to be one done without help from the Catholic Church. They only wanted money to come from donations. That is why it isn’t done yet. They can only build as fast as they had money and that wasn’t working too well. When they finished one of the sides and had the plans for the 2nd he was killed by a street car and so the completion of the project has passed to new architects. During the Spanish Civil war his blueprints were burned in an accident. Here is the façade that he finished.
This is called the Nativity Façade. It has a lot of symbolism and is really cool. On the inside there were a lot of really cool stain glass windows.
The inside of the church was based off of the idea of trees in a forest.
As you can see, the church is under constant construction.
It will be really cool in a few years to see when it is done. They sure are making a lot of money. There were tons of people there and each one paid 6 Euros to enter so I don’t think that money is quite the issue that it was a century ago. Here is a better Nativity shot.
There was some symbolism with the musicians but I don’t remember it.
Cassi played the obo, just like that guy.
On the other side, called the Passion Façade. This one was to represent the suffering of Christ and Christians. It was finished after he died and Gaudi was carved into it to represent the writer of the story similar to a gospel writer.
He’s the guy furthest left in the picture. Gaudi was all about using natural shapes and natural architecture.
Here’s the passion side.
This door was cool.
Here is a good shot where you can easily see Gaudi.
Once again, the bottom left. It was based off of this photo.
From there we went to La Casa Milá. This was another of Gaudi’s masterpieces. We had to wait so long for the line that we didn’t get all the time we wanted so I don’t know quite as much about it. It was the same crazy architecture though.
The whole place was wavy and crazy.
We got the audio tour but I’ll be honest, I don’t remember anything from it but I do remember being in awe when I listened. We were in a hurry and I am looking back at my pictures and they are all blurry.
That really bugs. Oh well.
Here is another one where he flipped natural gravity.
The whole underside was like a giant throat.
I had the creepy recollection of Jaba’s belly. The building was pretty cool though. The roof was amazing though. All the chimneys were designed specially.
They said that the inspiration for Darth Vader came from these.
He did very organic art.
It was probably the coolest roof I’ve ever seen and it had a beautiful view of the Sagrada Familia.
We went back to the hotel to change shoes because I as wearing my flip-flops and they were killing me. When we got back we saw a really neat basilica and then bought delicious ice cream. From there I went to the wharf and took some cool pics while telling Erica my life’s story. It was pretty fun.
Some started up a soccer game.
But, even with a broken camera I really wanted to find this arch and see the city. My camera was still on night shot at first.
But, because I know my camera pretty well I can change between night and normal without looking. The town was pretty chill. I liked it.
That house was covered in vines.
It had a pretty cool view out into the countryside.
And here it is, the famous arch.
We were a little late but there was really cool statue I wanted a picture with so I handed off my camera and ran down there.
There was a little problem with the zoom and I was nearly cut off.
But there I am. Don’t worry about me. (My “challenge” shirt is pretty hard to miss.) And then we headed home. Thus ended the last trip in Spain. Kind of sad.
There were all sorts of neat little places.
These smelled just like home.
At the top there was an awesome view of the whole city.
I was really liking the park.
I took a picture of this band playing some nifty music.
And then that was it. I went to put my camera in my shirt pocket and somehow it didn’t actually make it into my shirt pocket. It fell straight to the ground. It can still take pictures.
But as you can tell by everyone’s faces, it was not a happy moment. The rest of the day had a cloudy haze of sadness. My camera was everything to me here in Spain and in an instant it was gone. We saw Gaudi’s house in the park and it was pretty neat but without a camera it just wasn’t the same. I bummed off of other people but it didn’t work out like I would have like. It’s like when Ron broke his wand. Sure you can use another but it doesn’t work as well unless it is yours. We wandered around the city a lot and I used Kyte’s camera to take pictures for a while but I kind of lost the enthusiasm until her battery died and even then I was just taking pictures of the fountains blindly. I couldn’t really change to the right setting and couldn’t even see the frame of the pictures. But when I got back and put them on the computer, I was actually pretty pleased with them. 
So that was the famous fountain show of Barcelona. It was really cool. I know that some of the pics are blurry and some are crooked but it really worked out in the end. Here is the plaza heading up to the fountain.
Here was a pretty neat roundabout.