Day 11: (Barcelona) So Sentimental
Today we had to wake up an hour earlier, which was a little bit of a struggle but we couldn’t complain too much since it was our last full day on the trip. We sleepily ate breakfast and then went back to the area of Barcelona where Sagrada Família is, which is called ‘the Extension’ since it is the part of the city that was built after the original walls of Barcelona came down.
We met our tour guide Maria at Sagrada Família and then walked up a cute street to Hospital Sant Pau, a modernist hospital that was just recently opened to the public and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We took a tour of the place and it was incredibly beautiful and soo different from any hospital I’ve ever been in. Sorry to the doctors reading this, but this hospital actually made sense. The hospital was made up of a series of buildings which were dedicated to different illnesses or procedures to prevent contamination (funny thought, huh?). The buildings were in a large plaza and separated by lots of greenery and gardens filled with plants with medicinal qualities. The large outdoor areas were made for the patients as the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner and the doctors he was working with believed that fresh air would help cure patients faster. So, the people were often transported outside and were able to sit outside in the gardens to breathe in the fresh air. The separate buildings which housed different illnesses also had windows that could be opened and closed to allow fresh air in and had walls lined with tiles for easy cleaning to make the buildings more hygienic.
It was a short tour since we were unable to tour some parts of the hospital because they’re still in use, but it was definitely a cool spot to check out! It was even cooler because it was just opened to the public in the past year or so, so it hasn’t yet been listed in the guidebooks yet so it wasn’t full of people.
Then, we took a bus over to Park Güell (which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984) and looked at the portion of the park which is most famous and is filled with a lot of Gaudí’s designs – like the trencadís benches, the salamander fountain, his funky, psychedelic houses and a few more. (Note: Trencadís are the mosaic-like style often used in Catalan modernism, and especially in Gaudí’s style. Trencadís are broken up tile shards while mosaics use small, square-cut tiles.) This section of the park you have to pay to get in and like Sagrada Família, you pay for a certain time and have to come at that time. We got to look at the benches that overlook all of Barcelona and give an impeccable view of Sagrada Família. Not to mention, the benches were SUPER comfortable. Like, you’d think a ceramic and concrete bench made of broken plates and tiles would be really hard and uncomfortable. But seriously, Gaudí was the man. I’m not sure how he did it, but these benches were so comfortable – they even had lumber support! Points for Gaudí! Another cool thing about the benches is that along the outer side of them, there is a little gutter which catches all the rain water and send it downstairs into the pillars of the market area, which we’ll talk about in just a moment. I like this because even back in the day when Gaudí was constructing this, he kept sustainability in mind. Now if only all the architects now would keep that in mind as well!
Directly under the benches was what Gaudí had designed to be the marketplace. Park Güell had originally been designed as a park for the 40 families that lived in that area of Barcelona and Gaudí and Güell conceived the park with the notion that it would be filled with luxury homes, designed by Gaudí as well as a park and a market for the people who lived there to use. Much to Güell’s upset, the luxury homes didn’t do so hot – only selling one to a single family and then Gaudí living in the model home. That being said, this beautiful marketplace under the benches never got put to much use. The ceiling is all white trencadís, indented with a collage of an assortment of broken colored glass. Like at Hospital San Pau, the bottoms of the large pillars were also covered in white trencadís to ensure easy clean up. As I started to mention before, these large pillars in the marketplace had large pipes in them that were connected to a large water storage basin beneath the market floor. This park is very large and has a lot of plants and gardens, so they would use the rainwater captured in this basin to water the park and… it’s still in use today!
After the short tour, we hiked up a little farther in Park Güell and had a nice little picnic where we were surrounded by pigeons. It was nice to just kind of relax and be able to enjoy the park, breathe and look over the city of Barcelona. We finished eating and went back to the hostal for some free time before our conclusive class session. I used this time to finally talk to my mom (this was the first time… technically second but the first time was for 10 minutes before I had to leave) and to upload the myriad of pictures I took. Before I knew it, it was time for our last class session for the study abroad program, so I went downstairs to the lobby and got cozy with the rest of my classmates.
Our last class session was comprised of everyone picking one of their blog posts and reading it aloud to the rest of the group. I chose to read my Day 1 blog post from Madrid. I thought it was really interesting to read it and be able to reflect on my expectations and apprehensions going into the trip and compare those to how I felt on the last day. It was weird, and definitely felt like I wrote that a long time ago, but as I was reading aloud I think me and my classmates found a slight nostalgic connection to it.
After I was finished reading, the group comprised of myself, 7 other students, 2 professors, and our tour guide. One of the student’s on the trip gushed about my writing style, telling me it’s easy to see what I’m seeing and feel what I felt and told me that she’d follow up on my blog and keep reading it. I like to hope that’s true, but we’ll see if she keeps reading! (Shout to you boo, Marissa). Another one of my professors told me that I’m definitely choosing the correct career path with public relations and that I’ll be great at it, especially through my writing. The feedback was great, but what really struck me was our tour guide’s comment: “It’s interesting to me that you chose the title ‘I Somehow Lost A Day of My Life’ because through this trip we’re seeing history from hundreds and hundreds of years ago and reliving the past. The trip that you’re taking now, would’ve taken months to complete back then…” Just something to think about.
After our class session was over, we walked over to a place called BCN Kitchen where we were taking a cooking class to make our very own tapas/pinchos style dinner! We were all split up into groups and given a dish to work on. I love to bake but have hardly made anything past Pasta Roni and Chicken Nuggets, and they had entrusted me with a huge sharp knife, so I knew this was going to be interesting. Of course, my group got assigned the hardest ask as dubbed by the chef – Thai spring rolls with crab and shrimp. I’ve never even eaten crab or have had Thai food other than fried rice so I had literally no idea what I was doing. But, low and behold, they turned out great (except for a little too much garlic). The rest of the food looked great too, we had: Thai spring rolls with a spicy sauce, gazpacho, steak and tomato skewers with a cheese sauce, fried eggplant and goat cheese, and bread topped with garlic mashed potato, tomato and olive paste. It was all very good and I tried all of it (look how adventurous I am!) I liked some, didn’t like others, but it was a fun process. To end the night, we were served a chocolate ganache with crumble on top. This was probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and I can’t wait for the recipe to be sent! YUM YUM YUM!
Rick decided he would let us try to find out way back through the streets of Barcelona, only asking for his guidance if we needed it. This, of course, resulting in a long, round-about way of getting back to the hostal, but I kind of liked it. It was a beautiful night, warm with a light breeze – we were all in a good mood from the food we made and ate and it was our last day in Spain. It was a really positive vibe, and I enjoyed the extra time I got to spend with my group from taking the long way home.
Of course, because it was the last night, we all decided that we needed to go out together one last time. We were going to go somewhere farther away from the hostal to explore a little more, but we were all a little tired, so we just hit up L’Ovella Negra again. We ended up sharing a table with a group of guys who had known each other since they were 4 years old growing up in Argentina and hadn’t seen each other in like 8 years. I talked primarily with this guy named Matias, who had an especially interesting life in my book. He is studying to become and electrical engineer and took off three years to travel the world… through paragliding competitions. Yes, that’s a real thing and it’s so cool! Through his travels alone, he now knows how to speak 9 different languages and has friends all over the world.. Incredible. In our conversation he urged that I speak in Spanish (even though he fully understood English) so I could practice. I appreciated it, and I became a little less nervous having someone critique my Spanish and pronunciation.
A little while later, one of the girls in my group decided that we should all get up and go to a club. No one really wanted to go anywhere far away as it was already 2:00am, so Matias took us down Las Ramblas to Plaza Real where there were some night clubs. Once we got all the way there, no one was really feeling it so we picked up a piece of pizza and went back to the hostal and off to bed.
It felt just like any other night going to bed, and it felt like I was going to have a full day the next day (which I would because my family was coming in) but the whole end of the trip hadn’t quite sunk in yet…