High School Reunions in Foreign Countries 3: Worship at the Altar of Gaudì

Two weeks ago (from the day I’m writing this. It will be bit later when it actually goes on the internet) I was the sickest I’ve been in a long time.

Two weeks ago I was taking my Italian final.

Two weeks ago I was about to leave for Barcelona, to finally make it to Spain! That final and that cold weren’t about to stop me.

So I finished my final, popped a few Ibuprofen and headed for Orio Al Serio airport to hop on my flight to Barcelona! I took a quick nap at my gate (I really felt horrible) and then we were off. It was my first flight with Ryan Air, along with the most uncomfortable I have ever been while on a plane. Thanks, sickness and budget airlines aka the most dastardly duo this side of Team Rocket (not counting Meowth). Luckily I survived my flight and made it to Barcelona, grabbed my bus to downtown and I wish this were the end of this story. Unfortunately in my drug/sickness-induced stupor I got off of the bus quite a few stops too early (for some reason I thought the bus said it was at my stop…) and had to wait an extra 20 minutes for my bus. Fortunately I didn’t get mugged or anything while I was waiting, so that was good. After the wait I got on my bus and went straight to Plaça Catanlunya, main square in Barcelona and, according to my hostel, just a 5-minute walk away from said hostel. I managed to turn that 5-minute walk in to an hour and a half long ramble through the streets around the plaça and those nowhere near the plaça. It was a long night. Eventually I found my way, got checked in to my hostel, laid down in my bed and got a glorious nights sleep.

The next morning I got up and met my Barcelona travel buddy, Charlotte! She had come in from Madrid the day before with her friend Sasha from her program there. We headed out for the day and got me some nice and strong Spanish aspirin, a bite to eat and lots of Vitamin C. We met up with Sasha on the Rumbla off of Plaça Catalunya, and I had a PTSD-induced flashback to getting lost there the night before. After I came back to, we grabbed the bus up to Parc Güell, the park Gaudì designed, in the north of Barcelona. The park itself was beautiful, and Gaudì’s architecture just blows my mind. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Church or something

Downtown Barcelona. La Sagrada Familia is just off center to the left

Guardhouse

Gaudì's famous dragon

We spent a good two hours in the park, wandering around and seeing all there was to see. After we had our fill we grabbed the bus back to town and got lunch at a place near la Sagrada Familia, our next stop. I don’t have a picture of the main course, but I do have a picture of the ridiculously amazing Flan I had for dessert:

So amazing

We left the restaurant and made our way over to la Sagrada Familia, which was AMAZING. It is the most amazing church I have ever seen in my life. It completely blew me away. Look:

The stained glass was INCREDIBLE

Light shining in from the Stained Glass

We climbed to the roof as well, and this is what we saw:

Barcelona's copy of the London Egg

Looks delicious

 Twisty

Then we headed home to take siestas before we headed out again that night. We planned on heading out around 7 or 8 to see the Ramblas and then go to Montjuic (the eastern neighborhood) but all ended up sleeping longer than intended (especially me. I didn’t get up till 9. Whoops). Anyway we finally got underway and went straight to Plaça Espanya, in the center of Montjuic. We made our way over to Magic Fountain (our main destination) to watch a 10 minute, amazing/mind-blowing water and light show. Here is a quick video:

Not the same as real life

Next we headed to dinner and got some tapas to share (no pictures, but they were fantastic) and then went to the shore, where all the clubs in Barcelona are. We went to a club called Catwalk (really early, around midnight. People in Spain don’t go out until 1:30 or 2). So we hung out there for a bit and then decided to check out the upstairs, which was a LOT more awesome than downstairs. We stayed out till around 4, until I started falling asleep on the dance floor, and headed home. I slept nice and late the next morning (till around 10) and had to see Charlotte off before her train back to Madrid left (because she was leaving for Ohio the next day). I was sad to see her go but I’ll see her again in a month! That meant for Saturday I was all on my own. My first (and only stop, really) was Casa Milà, an apartment complex Gaudì designed. It is primarily famous for its roof, which undulates in weird, hypnotizing ways.

Casa Milà

Statues on the roof

The view

Wavy weirdness

More decorations

I also toured the Attic of the building, which was a Gaudì museum, with many of his models:

But I only took a picture of one

And then saw one of the Apartments in the building, furnished to the period when people lived in the building, before it became a museum/UNESCO heritage site.

So fancy

Back in the 30's people didn't eat real fruit, just the plastic display kind

Toulouse!

After my tour of the Casa Milà I had two hours before I had to leave for the airport so I just walked around downtown Barcelona to see what it had to offer. I saw Casa Batllò, another Gaudì, and got lunch from a bar down the street from my hostel (Rick Steves told me it was a traditional Catalunyan sandwich)

Casa Batllò

Plaça Espanya

Finally, I grabbed the bus back to the Airport (got off at the right place this time) and headed back home once more, sad to leave the ridiculously beautiful city of Barcelona behind, but happy to go home and sleep, and sleep, and sleep until I was finally not sick anymore. 

A Quirky Town by the Sea

So after my Sunday at Church, I got up Monday morning, packed my bag and headed south to Brighton to visit my friends Chhaya and Ben from Miami. Unfortunately the first thing I did Monday morning was break my camera as I was walking to the bus (I tried to take it out of my pocket, it turned on while I was doing it and I somehow dropped it on the ground, RIGHT ON THE LENS. Lens Error. Dead. Sad) so I have no pictures of Brighton (even though it was awesome). I’ll have to steal some from Chhaya.

I got to Brighton around 9:30 and met Chhaya at the station. She greeted me with the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. I knew it was going to be a good day.

We grabbed the train to her house and we stopped by to drop my bag off and grab a bit to eat. Afterward she took me to see the University of Sussex’ campus (where she and Ben are studying this semester) and we woke Ben up to make him hang out with us. We had a nice chat over a cup of tea (SO BRITISH) and then Chhaya and I headed out to Brighton itself to see the town, where Ben would meet us later that day. Brighton was a really cool city, right on the English Channel. First thing we did was walk down the Boardwalk on the beach, which made me flash back to Miami and the South Beach Boardwalk (which, no offense Brighton, is way more awesome). Our walk eventually led us to Brighton Pier, a cool little carnival stretching out in to the sea. We walked up and down the pier and had a hard time resisting all the possible ways to waste our money, but managed it just the same. There were a bunch of rides (Log Flume, Crazy Mouse, etc) but a single ticket cost something like £5. And I need to spend as little as possible for the next two months, so no rides. I eventually did cave in to a cone of soft serve, but gelato has ruined all other ice cream for the rest of my life. It was just average.

We left the Pier and wandered over to the Royal Pavilion, a palace built by the Royal Family in an Indian/Mandarin Chinese style. Now is when I would just put a picture up instead of describing it, but I don’t have any! It was a pretty building though.

Ben finally made it in to town at this point, and we started walking around trying to decide what to do. We eventually made our way to a part of Brighton called the Laines, which is their version of Minos’s Labyrinth.  In other words, even people who have lived there their entire lives still get lost there, and there’s a rabid half-man/half-beast creature there hunting all who get lost/trapped. I liked it. We spent a while there wandering around/avoiding the Brightotaur and at one point saw a random Hindi parade dancing in the streets. It was completely unexpected but pretty awesome. We also stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get fatty horrible things, and I got a Lemon Meringue donut, which was worth every single gram of fat. After, we walked back to Chhaya’s to get my bags so I could head back to London and take off back to Milan. I bid a fond farewell to my friends and to the UK and took off for home once more.

Londontown: Wherein I Stalk Harry Potter

The weekend after the spring break of spring breaks, Jorge and I made a trip to the UK, ostensibly to see one of the most important cities in the world, but actually to stalk Kate Middleton see the royal wedding.

But really

Our flight out of Milan was scheduled to take off around 8 in the morning so we got up bright and early and headed to the airport. We got through security, to the gate and on our plane just fine, right on time. We ended up waiting on the plane for an hour until the pilot came over the loudspeaker and announced to all of us that the flight had been canceled due to mechanical reasons. In other words, Jorge and I were definitely not going to get to London in time to see Kate Middleton/the Royal Wedding. We got rescheduled for the next flight out of Milan and so finally got to London around noon, but got waylaid at customs (almost as serious as the US, and a rude awakening because we were so used to the Schengen Area) because we didn’t know the address of where we were staying. Long story short Jorge and I now have “immigration histories” in the UK, whatever that means. I guess I was technically an alien for the four days I was there, which is pretty cool.

When we finally got past customs we got on the metro and made our way in to downtown London, and finally emerged at Piccadilly Circus, London’s Times Square (aka the place all movies set in London film at least one scene).

Piccadilly

After wandering the area a bit and getting ourselves a bit of a sense of direction for the area we headed up to Camden Town:

a trendy/weird neighborhood in North London where we met up with my friend Chhaya from Miami (who is studying in Brighton this semester). She had brought along some British people too, which was awesome. We wandered the Camden Town Market and saw some cool stuff:

Mirror makes me think of the 2012 Olympics logo

And then went in a steampunk store called Cyberdog. No pictures were allowed but some of the stuff we saw in there is indelibly imbedded in my memory. And that’s as much as I’m going to say about it.

The outside of Cyberdog, which is all you need to see

After that we headed to a bar to grab some drinks, and I got some delicious cider (for which I am a huge sucker). We hung out there for an hour or so then went our separate ways, Jorge and I to our home for the night and Chhaya and her friends back to Brighton. Our destination was King’s Cross Station (AKA HARRY POTTER PLATFORM 9 ¾ PLACE AHHH) and as soon as we left the metro I saw this tower:

And flashed back to the beginning of Chamber of Secrets when Harry and Ron flew over it in Mr. Weasley’s car and got really excited/judged by Jorge. One thing though: We never made it to Platform 9 ¾ in the station itself, all we heard were bad things and we just kinda ran out of time by the end of the weekend. Guess I have to go back or something. Anyway we were staying with one of Jorge’s friends who studied in London and got checked in to her dorm for the night. We went up and finally dropped our bags off, then headed out to get dinner down the street (authentic British food! Which is a lot like American bar food, in that it’s not nearly as good as Italian food!). That capped off our first day in London.

We got up early the next morning because Jorge’s friend was heading out to travel Europe (her semester had just ended) so we headed to the metro to go to our new home, staying with Jorge’s friends Anna and Abby who had visited Milan in February. Unfortunately the metro was having all KINDS of work done on it that day so we had to get off after three stops and grab a bus from Liverpool Street (which is right in the middle of The City, London’s financial district)

The London Egg

We got to Queen Mary’s College (Anna and Abby’s school) after the trek, dropped our bags off and then headed out again to get some culture. First stop: Buckingham Palace!

Gate at Buckingham

Bobby!

Another One!

Horse Guard

Gates, Close-Up!

We hoped to see the changing of the guard (hence all the pics of bobbies) but it wasn’t happening that Saturday (only every two days before May. This was the day before May. Thanks London). After that disappointment we made our way down the Mall (big street heading in to Victoria Square/Buckingham Palace) and in to Trafalgar Square, home of the National Gallery (and the opening scene of Half Blood Prince!) Out in Trafalgar Square we saw AL ROKER!

Jorge, Al and I. The L on my forehead is a different story. 

Probably for the Royal Wedding. They were just getting prepped however. After our brush with fame we made our way in to the national gallery, which was free (awesome) but allowed no pictures (not awesome). The gallery itself was huge though, and had paintings from the 1200s all the way up to 1900 (all the modern art is in the Tate Modern). We only had an hour to take it all in, however, because we had a Harry Potter walking tour to get to at 1:30! So we did some speed-art appreciating and then grabbed the tube over to the Westminster stop, where we met this man:

Kontiki Richard

Whose encyclopedic knowledge of Harry Potter nearly eclipses mine (he made a mistake at one point in the tour, and no one knew but me…). After everyone arrived for the tour, we were off! Our first stop was Westminster Bridge, which made a brief cameo in Order of the Phoenix (when the Advance Guard is flying Harry to Grimmauld Place)

 Westminster Palace, aka the Houses of Parliament

Big Ben!

The London Eye

Then we headed in to the Westminster Tube stop, where they filmed the scene when Harry and Mr. Weasley take the tube to the Ministry of Magic.

Then we made our way over to Whitehall, the street with all the various governmental buildings on it, which made a brief cameo in Deathly Hallows Pt 1, when Harry, Ron and Hermione are breaking in to the Ministry.

Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer live

More Whitehall, near where the entrance to the Bathrooms/Ministry was in the film

Our next stop was Old Scotland Yard, another filming location for DH1, aka where Harry, Ron and Hermione drugged/kidnapped/stole the identities of three Ministry employees to get in to the Ministry to steal the locket back from Umbridge.

Where they hid the bodies

If you have seen the movie I hope you recognize this corner

Then headed to Trafalgar Square, to learn about how it cameoed in HBP (mentioned above) and then to Piccadilly Circus (also mentioned above, but not in a Harry Potter context). We learned that Harry, Ron and Hermione apparated to Shaftesbury Avenue after the wedding in DH1, which leads right in to Piccadilly Circus. After, we headed to Leicester Square where all the movie premieres are held. They had to move the red carpet for DH2 because Leicester Square is currently under construction for the 2012 Olympics:

But the premiere itself will still be held at the Odeon:

Where the last seven films have screened as well.

Our final stop on our Harry Potter walking tour was the street that our guide believes inspired Diagon Alley: Cecil Court, just off Charing Cross Road (the street the Leaky Cauldron is on. Perfect!).

Proto-Diagon Alley

It was an awesome tour, and I learned a ton about London on the way. There’s no indication of it above but half the tour was actual London history, and the other half was Harry Potter geekery. Totally worth the 6 quid.

After that awesome tour we made our way over to Covent Garden to meet up with our friends who are less than enamored of Harry Potter, and missed out completely on that awesome walk. Once we made it to Covent Garden we saw the London Apple Store:

Join the Cult

And so immediately went in to play with Apple’s toys.

White iPhone!

Prettiest Apple Store I've ever seen

After we managed to pull ourselves away we headed out to explore Covent Garden a bit more and then found this pub:

The Lamb and Flag

One of the oldest in London! Jorge, Anna and I headed in immediately to get drinks at this historic institution, and I continued my love affair with Cider with a bit of Stowford Press

So. Good.

Our next stop was any sports bar we could find to watch the Arsenal game (Jorge’s favorite team) but it turned out that it was actually the next day. We got a pitcher of Stella Artois anyway and enjoyed the atmosphere of drunken Britons getting riled up over football. We headed home after the match, got dinner and called it an early night. We had a big day the next day.

We all got up around nine on Sunday morning to get ready to go to a club south of London called the Church. It’s only open on Sundays, and opens right after the first service lets out. On the way we saw a street called:

So I had to take a picture of it. HARRY POTTER.

And that’s all I’m going to tell you about that Sunday.

Also,

Just like revenge...

That was our weekend in London! I stayed in the UK one more day to visit Brighton, but Jorge headed back early Monday morning. I’ll tell you about Brighton in my next blog.