Gaudí!

   Antoni Gaudí is a famous architect and he has built some of the most famous buildings and many of them are here in Barcelona. He was born in 1852 and died in 1926. He had a different mind than any other architect. His imagination was fantastic! He included animals and nature in his buildings to make them unique.   

 

     Perhaps his most famous building is the church called La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia is extremely big and it has 8 towers, 4 on the back, and 4 on the front. It was started in 1882, but it was left unfinished for some years because of the death of Gaudí. Now they are still working on it, thanks to Gaudí leaving an original copy of the building plan that explained how he wanted it to look. We walked up a spiral staircase, and when we got to the top, we could see the whole city!

     One last building that Gaudí built before starting to work on La Sagrada Familia is Casa Milá a.k.a. La Pedrera. Like I said before Gaudí had a very imaginative mind. He made this building wavy, with no 90 degree angles! It’s also an apartment building and the people who live there are lucky! They have a museum exactly above them! We went up to the roof and the chimneys have broken bottle pieces embedded in them! You could also see La Sagrada Familia from the roof. 

     Gaudí also designed the park called Parc Güell. He used a lot of tile work like broken plates, broken bowls, imprints of twigs, and much more. He designed a bench that doesn’t look wavy if you look at it straight on, but if you look at it sideways, it is extremely wavy! He put a statue of a beautifully tiled and brightly colored lizard in the front of the park, which seemed to be quite famous because so many people wanted their picture taken next to it! Somehow my mom and me squeezed in to get our picture taken before we got mauled by the hoard of tourists!

          Speaking of getting mauled, Gaudí died on June 10, 1926 when he got cruelly crushed by a passing tram. When he was in the hospital nobody recognized him because of his shabby clothes! He didn’t demand special treatment because he was a humble tío (in Barcelona slang, “tío” means dude and uncle but in this instance it means dude). He is now buried in the crypt in La Sagrada Familia.

Soccer! (Or should I say "fútbol"?)

   Today I went to the FC Barcelona field and museum, and they were both awesome! FC means Football club and football means soccer in Spain. The field was only for the Barcelona players and the logo was everywhere. You could go all the way down to where the players came out of their locker rooms and you also got to go through the tunnel. The workers were testing the lights, so you couldn’t touch the field, but you could go up to where the people from the media would sit and watch the game and make notes, and I have to say, they have sweet seats up there! 

      The museum had a lot of neat stuff, like past players’ (now retired) jerseys and their cleats. They also have Leo Messi’s (he still plays on the team) replica of his first golden ball (for top player in Europe) and the replica of his golden cleat (for most goals in the league). There was also a piece of art by Joan Miró, a famous artist, but I’ll write about him another time. In another part of the museum, some people on screens were teaching the Barcelona song. Sadly though, I can’t remember it. 

      One interesting thing is, the Barcelona museum is the most visited museum in Barcelona. So that means that at every hour that it’s open, there are always people there, looking at the timeline, jerseys, trophies, and cleats.

      One neat thing is that FC Barcelona pays UNICEF (United Nations program for children) 1.5 million Euros a year to put UNICEF’s logo on their jersey instead of getting money like other soccer teams. I think that it’s really neat because it’s generous and because they choose to put UNICEF’s logo on their jersey instead of being bribed like, “If you put this logo on your shirt I’ll pay you this much.”

We went to watch the FC Barcelona B team play Xerez-CD and good news, we won!!!! One awesome thing that happened was, one time the ball went into the stadium--right next to were we were sitting! So I ran over, got the ball and threw it to the ball boy. When the ball they were playing with went out of bounds, guess which one they picked? The one I threw to the ball boy! Then at half time my mom and me got, chips, corn nuts, and Fanta. We ate all that and then finished of the mints that I had brought. By then the game was over so we went home and went to bed.

      That’s some of what’s in Barcelona and a lot of stuff about an extremely famous team! I hope you liked it!

Las Ramblas!!!!!!!!

Today I walked down Las Ramblas, a famous street in Spain and it was amazing! It was bustling with people and there were assorted shops and restaurants and bakeries. There were so many things that if I told you about all of them it would take forever and I would be 92 when I finished! So I’ll only tell you about 3 things, a pet shop, statues, and ice cream.

There was an outside pet shop and they had baby hamsters and baby ducks and tiny turtles. It was so cool! I stuck my hand in the turtle cage and rubbed his front flipper. I tried to pet his head, but he shied away and literally put his head in his shell! It was cute to see. 

 There were also people who had dressed up so they looked like statues and they actually fooled some people! They would stand really still and then some people would walk by and the statues would move so suddenly that the other people would scream and then laugh. Then they would put some coins in his/her jar and take a picture or video of him/her being still and then scaring some other people. 

There was also someone who was acting like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland and it was hilarious! She never talked, only used emotions and movements to tell the growing crowd what she thought of the person that took a picture with her, drinking tea. For instance, if she didn’t approve, she would give them the evil eye after they left and when she was taking back the cup she would snatch it away from them and put her hat over her eyes. If she was sad because a little kid would not go up and get a picture taken, she would sniffle and make puppy eyes. Then the mom would put the baby down by the Mad Hatter and take a picture. Then, when they left, she would tip her hat to them and wave to the baby and the baby would wave back.

There were also some outside sweet shops and after I had eaten something healthy, we went and got ice cream. Personally I think Spain makes the best ice cream ever. It’s soft and cold and….well, it’s just good. I’M NOT DISLOYAL TO PORTLAND!   

One interesting thing before I leave, the word “la rambla” comes from the Arabic word “ramla” and it means, “dry riverbed.” And just like a river flows, people flow down Las Ramblas! I hope you like Las Ramblas!!! I liked going down it. There’s a lot more to say, but like I mentioned before, I would be 92 if I tried to write about it all! 

zooooo!!!!

Today I went to the zoo and it was amazing! The park’s name was Parc de la Ciutadella. It was enormous! And the zoo was only half of the park! That’s how enormous it was! The funny thing was, you couldn’t walk on the grass! And the park was mostly made of grass! There only was a dirt path that you had to walk on.

There were huge pink flamingos, which I had not seen ever before.  They sounded like an orchestra when they all made sounds at once. The first thing I saw when I went in the zoo was the ostriches and they tried to follow me when I left. There was also an alligator pit place, but that was closed. However, we were able to see the penguins and giraffes.                              

Something I heard a lot of people saying is “Guau!” which is Spanish for “wow!” Once my mom and dad heard that they started saying it all the time. One funny thing is they always add “mister” at the beginning because “Mister Guau” is the name of a pet store that I went to, to get our cats back home kitty care packages!

There were also tiny monkeys that could fit into your hand and they were so cute! But there were also big monkeys and apes and gorillas. The gorillas kept staring at us and one of the monkeys was running laps.

In one space there were prairie dogs, which were tiny and cute. One of them was trying to get out and it was so funny! It kept jumping up the glass wall, trying to get out. Then it would take a running head start and try to jump up and over.

In another part of the zoo there were hippos and rhinoceri. There was also a dolphin show but that was closed too (:-( “boo-hoo!”). One of many funny things from our trip to the zoo is, in the birds’ place, there was a toucan that at first kept trying to bite my hands off but then he started making cooing sounds at me and we became best buddies. I was sad when we had to leave, but I knew we could come back.  

Something I hadn’t seen other zoos do is, the zookeepers were letting peacocks and cats run free! Two funny things were, twice I saw a cat in a cage with another animal! First I saw a cat with a lion, and second I saw a cat with a hippo! Because the peacocks were running free, I was able to touch a peacock’s tail and it was so soft!  

To exit the zoo, you had to go through a gift shop so that you would get interested in the gifts and stay longer and buy more stuff. It worked on us! I bought a blue tiger shirt.

Cavalcada de Reis means 3 kings parade

On our first night in Barcelona, we were walking towards our apartment when we saw a bunch of people standing behind barricades, seemingly waiting for something. We went to check it out, and in a few minutes, a parade started happening! I was puzzled because most parades are in the afternoon in the U.S.A. There were some pretty cool things like candy catapults (which are basically catapults that you throw candy in.) There were also huge animal puppets, including a giraffe and a camel with someone riding on it.

It was fun listening to them talk in Spanish and Catalan, a language neither of my parents know but its language is really close to Spanish.

The kids were putting letters in these little containers that some of the people were bringing by. My dad asked someone what this was all about and he said it was a holiday to celebrate the 3 kings and Jesus. Jesus was a baby when the 3 kings came to celebrate his birth by bringing him frankincense, myrrh and something else. And if you’re good then you get a present in the morning in Barcelona for the kids. So it’s kind of like Christmas for them. Twice!