Hola, everyone! We got to Madrid last night and were there just about an hour and a half. We didn't have time for a meal, so I thought it would be a good chance to try out the tapas. As I don't speak any Spanish, I got what looked like four meatballs. Then as I sank my teeth into one, I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that bulls' testicles are served as a delicacy, at which point I decided I would no longer order something if I didn't know what it was. They didn't taste that great anyway. So we headed for the platform for our night train that left Madrid at 10 pm and was to arrive Barcelona at 7 am. In a hurried glance I saw Barcelona at platform 15. As Bryan asked "are you sure," I made some sarcastic remark about knowing how to read. When there were about four more minutes before our train departed, some woman spotted the stupid Americans with backpacks on the platform with the arriving train from Barcelona and tipped us off. We hightailed it to platform 19 and got on our train just in time. Bryan was nice enough not to say I told you so.
Our "first class" sleeper car was very small with one bench that I referred to as our "lounge" and two bunk beds. We were still pretty jetlagged from NY, so neither of us got to sleep til pretty late. Luckily they let us check in to our hotel at 8 so we caught a couple more hours of sleep before hitting the streets of Barcelona. What a beautiful day we were blessed with! It was 34 degrees Celsius, which translates to pretty darn nice Fahrenheit; sun shining all day long! We started out walking down Las Ramblas, the street with all the street performers and neat little booths and artists and flowers and just about anything you could hope to find in a city. We then strolled down to the port and took a stroll through an air conditioned centre before hopping on a bus to Parc Guell.
Parc Guell was an amazing sight/site. It is a park designed by the architect Antonio Gaudi (presumably under the influence of hallucinogenics.) It had all sorts of twists and turns and tunnels through rocks and twisted trees. The few buildings on site are tiled with colorful mosaics. If you can imagine a building as curvaceous, then you might get the picture. Then underneath a park lined with these curvaceous mosaic benches is a shaded area with large columns and a small band playing classical music. It is just so neat. I think I found my new favorite playground in the world, at least eye-candy wise. Gaudi's influence is all over the city, and the architecture of most of the buildings displays it. Some of the buildings look like they are carved out of bones. Almost every building you see has rows of windows on the front that are accompanied with intricately designed shudders and a small porch with plants.
The best part of the trip so far is that we have way over-budgeted for the Spain part, so tonight we are going out for a nice meal on the sea, and then tomorrow we take a train to Figueres to see the Salvador Dali museum and a house that he designed. That is just a day trip, and tomorrow night we will be back in Barcelona and are hitting an 11:30 flamenco dance show. Until then...
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