Terra Incognita

things i'm going to miss about london
...not having to drive anywhere. A destination that has a twenty minute walk is nothing.

la rubia!
I am convinced that European men are the rudest, filthiest men in the world. (By Europe, I mean mainland Europe; the U.K. does not in the slightest think of themselves as European. They are British. And by European men, I do not mean Irish...they were great gentlemen.) But the Italians, the Greeks, the French, the Spanish, they all are awful! When Ellen and I arrived in Barcelona, we grabbed a bite for dinner and took it to the steps of some monument to eat. We sat there, unwashed, in our travelling clothes (i.e. jeans, t-shirt and sweater), our hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, with hardly any make-up on, and two guys came up to us and tried to get us to hang out with them the rest of the night. They were so forward! And they were about the third or fourth 'encounter' we'd had since stepping off the plane at 4:00. We got calls of 'la rubia' (the blonde) and 'mwah! mwah!' (who knows what that means) and the traditional matting call: the clicking tongue. I mean, really, do they think that's going to work?! Have they ever been successful with such lines? Ellen even had some bum crouch down and look up her skirt while she and Emily were sitting at a fountain. The nerve!

Here's to the good-mannered boys of America!

semana santa
Holy Week. It was really neat to spend Easter Sunday in Barcelona. We went to the most beautiful church I have been to all semester for Easter evening mass. Unfortunately, we had difficulty interpreting the sign and arrived in the middle of the priest's homily. Ellen, our resident Spanish-speaker could understand bits and pieces (Barcelona speaks Catalan Spanish, she knows Castillian) but all I picked up were 'Senor Jesu Christ,' 'resurexion,' and 'hallelujah.' I figured those were the all the words that were important for the day.

Happy Easter!

bareclona's catedral got it right
The Catedral was gorgeous. After a semester of visiting huge, ostentatious cathedrals with intricate gold details and humongous stained glass windows, it was refreshing to see a church that knew how to be beautiful but not gaudy. The parts of the church that were the most stunning were the crucifix at the front, the organ and the cloister. The crucifix had four angels attending Christ on the cross and a Jesus that wasn't smothered in gold or jewels. It was just plainly beautiful. The organ was elaborate but not showy and the music it played was gorgeous.
The cloister was my favourite part. Its centre was opened to the outdoors and had palm trees, foliage, a pond, and beautiful birds who (loudly) brought attention to the middle of the open room. There was no escaping the beauty within the cloister. You could admire the little chapels dedicated to various saints all you wanted, but as soon as you turned around, your attention was immediately swept away from the man-made chambers and statues, and toward the beauty of God's own chapel, nature. Barcelona's Catedral knows how to do it.

the sights
On Monday we went all over Barcelona. The first thing you notice upon arriving in the city is its love (read: obsession) with the famed architect Antoni Gaudi. He was born in Barcelona and most of his work was done in Barcelona. His trademark is putting a mosaic in his buildings. We walked around Gaudi's Sagrada Familia temple (Sacred Family) which has been under construction for more than 80 years (Gaudi presided over the first 40 years of its construction before his death). It was so strikingly different from all the other cathedrals we've been to; it was so very modern…nearly had an air of Candyland around it. It was really interesting, though, to see a cathedral under construction. It seems like most huge churches in Europe that attract visitors are centuries old: Notre Dame, the Vatican, Canterbury, Westminster, Sacre Coeur, and it was neat to think how Ellen, Emily and I were seeing a bit of history go up.
We saw more Gaudi in the Park Guell, the huge park that he designed. You might recognise the famous mosaic benches and lizard fountain. After lounging on the benches in the sun, (this time I had sunscreen!) we made our way to the Olympic Stadium. It was really neat to see all the work that went into a city that housed the Olympics. I think the metro system is the best we've been to in Europe.

a bit of Bryson
I'm reading a book by Bill Bryson called Notes From a Small Island. Bryson was an American who lived in Britain for 20 years and fell in love with it. He wrote the book before returning to the States with his family to 'give the kids the chance of experiencing life in another country and my wife the chance to shop until 10 p.m. seven nights a week.' He has a knack for describing Britain in the best ways:

The countryside roundabout was gorgeous and extravagantly green. You could be excused for thinking that the principal industry of Britain is the manufacture of chlorophyll.

I have a small, tattered clipping that I sometimes carry with me and pull out for purposes of private amusement. It's a weather forecast from the Western Daily Mail and it says, in tot: 'Outlook: Dry and warm, but cooler with some rain.'
There you have in a single pithy sentence the English weather captured to perfection: dry but rainy with some warm/cool spells. The Western Daily Mail could run that forecast every day - for all I know, it may - and scarcely ever be wrong.