in Life's name and for Life's sake

The update on my Reading Week trip is going to be split in two, not just because I visited two cities and countries (and continents!) but also because I don't quite have the time to sit and write out the whole thing at once! But right now I have just about enough time to write about the three nights and two full days I spent in Barcelona. (I haven't managed to upload my pictures yet, but my photographer friend Drew who was with me on the trip has his up; you can view them here.)

One of the first things that I liked about the trip was that the four years I spent studying Spanish in high school suddenly seemed much more useful. Despite the fact that Barcelona is the center of the Catalan region, which has its own peculiar dialogue (called Catalan) which is about as different from Spanish as Italian is, it's still in Spain so everyone speaks Spanish in addition to Catalan and I was impressively able to make myself understood. Also, the street signs are (sometimes) in both languages.

I'm not usually all that into pure architecture -- I appreciate buildings that have a history as well as a beautiful facade -- but my favorite things about Barcelona were purely architectural and 90% Gaudi (Cliffs Notes version: he was an architect associated with the movement known as modernisme and built a lot of really awesome stuff that makes me think of a cross between early Disney fairytales and Dr. Seuss). Saturday, our first full day in Barcelona, was spent visiting the two coolest Gaudi sites in Barcelona: the Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell.

Sagrada Familia is a giant unfinished cathedral that rears unexpectedly out of the heart of the Eixample section of Barcelona. It's massive, intricate, and still under construction. Gaudi spent the last years of his life working on this masterpiece, knowing that he wouldn't be alive to see it completed; since his death, other architects and artists have contributed to different aspects of its current design (Gaudi did leave behind some plans, but apparently a lot of them were destroyed or lost during the Spanish Civil War). It's a little schizophrenic as a result, but no less beautiful. The interior is still very stark, with most of the design work having been done on the exterior, but the two facades which are complete (only one of which was completed by Gaudi) are stunning. I personally favored the facade that wasn't designed by Gaudi because its style is a lot more sparse; there's a lot going on still, but it's mostly going on in one color, at least, and with a lot fewer random elements.

When we were there, you couldn't see half of the church's interior because they were doing construction work on it, and overall the interior is (as I said before) not that impressive. But it's worth it to pay to go in because only from the inside can you take the elevator (or stairs) to the top of one of the church's towers. We did, and I had another Eiffel Tower-esque experience (albeit at a much decreased height) in which all of a sudden the church was a lot taller than it had seemed from the ground -- and it seems pretty damn tall when you're standing at the base of it, feeling like one of the towers ought to fall over any minute now! This is why I like climbing things: it gives you a completely different idea of how tall things really are.

After Sagrada Familia we went to Parc Guell, which was originally meant to be a posh housing development outside of central Barcelona...however, it was far enough from Las Ramblas (the main boulevard) that no one wanted to live there when Gaudi began it! (Ironically, now some of the most expensive Barcelona real estate is near Parc Guell.) The result is a large park sort of in the middle of the city, with a few instances of classic Gaudi design. The gatehouses at the entrance to the park look like literal gingerbread houses; there is a terrace at the top lined with mosaic benches ergonomically designed for comfortable lounging. (We took advantage of this.) We spent a couple of hours just wandering the park before heading back to central Barcelona and Las Ramblas for dinner.

Barcelona is the #1 city for pickpocketing, and most of it occurs on or near Las Ramblas, the busiest pedestrian corridor in the city. My friends and I escaped unscathed, but I can understand why so many people lose their wallets there: we weren't there during tourist season and the place was still pretty busy, especially on a weekend night. The actual street which cars can drive on is separated by a giant meridian which is a pedestrian zone, full of stalls selling wares, street performers, living statues, tourist traps, and outdoor dining for the many tapas restaurants lining either side of the street. We ate at one of those restaurants (albeit at the inside portion) two of the three nights we spent in the city. I cared less about the tapas and more about the fabulous chicken paella. Somehow, neither I nor any of my friends ever managed to get a picture of all the food -- possibly because we were too busy eating it!

Sunday, we spent the morning in the Picasso Museum (mostly his earlier stuff -- more mature works are at the Prado in Madrid, I think -- but still well worth the admission fee), the afternoon strolling Las Ramblas, and the late afternoon/evening making our way to Montjuic, something larger than a hill but smaller than a mountain atop which rests a fortified castle looking out over Barcelona's harbor. The view of the city from there rivaled the view from Parc Guell (and there was a castle!). Apparently, Franco took over the place during the Spanish Civil War and made it into a stronghouse. It's not a very castle-y castle in the medieval (or even gothic) architectural sense, just a place on top of a hill with a lot of guns around it so that you'd be an idiot to try to storm it. But it had a clear view of the ocean -- the first time I've seen the sea since leaving California! I do miss saltwater, apparently.

We turned in pretty early because we had to catch a bus back to the airport the next morning to continue our journey to Marrakesh. (Stay tuned!)

I spent three nights and two full days of this weekend in Rome. I was there for a week or so during July, and this was my fourth trip there in total (the first being six years ago, when I was just fourteen), but every time I visit, the city has something new to give me. This time, I met up with my friend Andy, who’s studying at Trinity College in Dublin for this school year and who had always wanted to go to Rome but had never even been to Europe until his trip to Dublin. With my more-than-average knowledge of the history, myth, legend, geography, and even language of Rome, I led us on a two-day whirlwind tour of all of the major sights and experiences, including:

the Vatican Museum + Sistine Chapel;

St. Peter’s Basilica + climb to the ‘cupola’ (the pinnacle atop the dome);

Piazza Navona;

the Pantheon;

Piazza di Spagna/Spanish Steps;

Trevi Fountain;

Piazza del Popolo and Via del Corso;

Borghese gardens;

Victor Emmanuel Monument;

Roman Forum;

Colosseum (properly known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, in case you were curious).

In fact, the best question is probably what we didn’t see. We didn’t cross the river and hang out in Trastevere, we didn’t go into the museum at the Villa Borghese, we didn’t rent Vespas…and really that’s about all that we didn’t manage that I have at some point done or wanted to do.

My favorite part was being in the Forum at sunset; I took more pictures in that one hour than I did at any other site we visited, I’m almost sure of it. There’s something beautiful about Rome at sunset, but the Forum at sunset in mid-October was totally breathtaking; I’ve never seen anything like it, in Italy or elsewhere (though Florence, near the Arno River, during a summer sunset comes to mind). I also really liked climbing to the top of the ‘Vittoriano,’ as the Victor Emmanuel Monument is called in Italian, and seeing the city from there, something my family and I had never done. The days were long, and there was a lot of walking, but I had a fantastic time — mostly because I’m slowly becoming more and more familiar with the city and its culture. I’m even getting confident enough in basic Italian to ask for directions, order a meal, and always say my pleases and thank-yous (not to mention read street signs and purchase train and metro tickets). Actually, it wasn’t until after I’d gone through the whole process in Italian that I realized the self-service metro ticket machines could be made to display their instructions in English.

This upcoming weekend will be spent reading Nicholas Nickleby and writing the first essay of the semester (a close textual analysis of a passage from Jane Eyre) because the weekend after that, I will be making my first ever trip to Paris! Then I have one more week of instruction before I get a whole week off for ‘Reading Week,’ in which technically you’re supposed to study and catch up with reading, but when I and my friends will be spending two and a half days in Barcelona followed by three and a half days in Marrakesh. I’m really excited to be doing so much traveling and experiencing so many different places while I’m here, but I’m equally excited to be able to call London ‘home.’