Last Sunday, I finally went to Gaudi's park, Park Güell, after many weekends of thinking about going and not actually doing it. It was well worth the wait and nothing like I expected. Instead of being like any normal park in the states, it was a gorgeous garden on the top of a hill with paths twisting all around, amazing architechture, and a beautiful view of the city from the long, curvy, mosiac-tiled bench.
This is part of the long climb to the top. They have outdoor escalators, but I decided to get in my full workout for the week (and practice for climbing the stairs in my apartment building).
I stopped to catch my breath and take a few pictures of the scenery. This is Tibidabo, one of the two mountains on either side of the city. There's an amusement park up there that I haven't been to...yet.
I found out later that we kinda snuck in through a back entrance and missed the impressive real entrance (next time...), so this was the welcoming message instead:
It seems a little ironic that someone who hates tourists would buy a house next to the famous park, but I guess it's a good place to get your message heard.
One of the main attractions is the long, winding bench that overlooks the entrance. It sounds strange that a bench is such a tourist attraction, because after all, it's just a bench. But this is no ordinary bench. I did a little research on it:
The focal point of the park is the main terrace, surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. To design the curvature of the bench surface Gaudí used the shape of buttocks left by a naked workman sitting in wet clay. The unique shape of the serpentine bench enables the people sitting on it to converse privately, although the square is large. The bench is tiled and in order to dry up quickly after it rains, and to stop people from sitting in the wet part of the bench, small bumps were installed by Gaudí.
Pretty genius, in my opinion. Here are a few pictures of the mosiac tiles:
My favorite part, hands down, was the bubble man. This guy brought a bucket with some bubble solution (soap and water?) and some sort of bubble making contraption, and it made the kids go loco. I could have watched for hours.. I had to restrain myself from joining in. Everyone was taking pictures and the kids were running around trying to pop the huge bubbles.
This one was my favorite: she just stood in the back with her white dress all dirty and looked at the others like "Really, this is nothing to get so worked up about".
Afterwards, people gave their kids coins for the bubble man, and he packed up his things and left. (We later saw him getting onto the metro, but unfortunately he wasn't there to make more bubbles). One little guy got distracted by kicking the mud around, but when he noticed the bubble man had left he was determined to give him money and sprinted across the plaza. So cute.
Since we got there only a little bit before sunset, it made for some great pictures but not much time to explore before dark. Plus, in true Laura fashion, I tripped and broke my sandal and had to ghetto-rig it back together with a hairband. Hobbling around like a fool was definitely a step back from my goal of blending in with the locals.
Here's the birds nests that Gaudi built to look like the trees above them. Now they're the home to tons of fat, happy, pigeons.
I have to end this now because my laptop's about to run out of battery on me. I hope everyone is having a lovely evening. Don't forget to watch The Office tonight and think of me waiting days before someone uploads it on Youtube.
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