Park Güell

Today the main event was a visit/tour of Park Güell. This Gaudi designed park was started by Eusebi Güell as essentially a private housing development centered around a park. This "get back to nature" approach was a good fit for Gaudi. The effort started in 1900 with the development of the park and attempts to entice wealthy folks to buy/build homes in the park. As a commercial venture, it failed. The rich folks thought that the park was too far from the center of Barcelona and didn't bite. It was turned over to the city and is now a municipal park. Like la Sagrada Familia, this park is unusual and fantastic. These rough stone walkways wind through the entire grounds:

Fairy tale buildings dot the property:

One of the rough stone pillars is in the shape of a laundress:

These support pillars are modeled after tornados:

One of the buildings has been converted into the neighborhood elementary school. I can't think of a better place for kids to go to school--surrounded by Gaudi's unusual art:

This is the main entrance to the park:

After the park, we wandered down to the gothic quarter, then to the art museum (we didn't go in). This fountain in front is called "The Magic Fountain":

Further up the hill towards the art museum is the cascade fountain:

Proof that we made it to the top:

The place around the art museum was very busy because the final stage of the Tour of Catalonya had just wrapped up. Here's Chris Froome signing autographs outside of the Sky Team bus:

We went back into the gothic quarter and just like cathedrals all over the world, this one had buskers out front:

On the subway back to the hotel, or is it a bar. It's weird to see people drinking beer on the subway. That's not a thing in the US:

We went to a great little kebab place around the corner from the hotel for dinner. I'm so full. We have  a noon-ish flight back to Sevilla tomorrow.

La Sagrada Familia

 The view from our hotel room was even better in the dawn light:

Out the back side of the hotel, you can see the Mediterranean Sea:

You can also see it from the rooftop pool:

The big "mission" for this trip to Barcelona is to see some Gaudí architecture. His most famous work, his life's work, is the church La Sagrada Familia:

Started in 1882, Gaudí oversaw the project starting at age 31 and continuing for 43 years until he died in an accident involving a city tram. This church is like no other church in Europe. I looks like the kind of sandcastle you make on the beach by dribbling very wet sand into columns:

Nature is an important theme in Gaudi's work. The door on the east entrance is a brass casting made to look like living ivy. There are even "insects" lurking among the leaves:

Gaudi lived on the site for most of his time on the project. He used some of the donations to build the church to run a small school in the basement for poor children:

The church is anticipated to be finished in 2026. Construction cranes are still on site and working to erect the final towers:

We went up into one of the towers to see what we could see:

The peaks of some of the church towers are like a Carmen Miranda headdress:

The spiral staircase was a bit disconcerting:

All that aside, the interior of this church is otherworldly. Gaudi tried to make it look like you were in a forest. The stained glass on the west side is in the yellow to red range making it look like autumn inside:

The main supporting pillars are like trees. They start in tall straight "trunks" then split into "branches" near the ceiling and look like a forest canopy:

The altar and crucifix are austere and unusual:

Here you can see the continued construction:

A little way north of the church is this really beautiful hospital, not a Gaudi:

I've never seen anyone busking in a subway with a baby grand piano, haha. How did they get it down there!

This strange apartment block is a Gaudi:

Barcelona

I always think of Manuel from Fawlty Towers when I here "Barcelona". Anyway, we here for a quick 2 day visit, arrive Fri, leave Mon. This is just a quick post, since it's late and I'm already in bed. The Sevilla airport was kinda busy, but not out of control this Fri evening. Our flight was a little late, but not too bad:

We managed the airport bus and then metro from the Barcelona airport to the hotel. We were greeted with a gratis bottle of champagne and two flute glasses. We made a toast and enjoyed the view from our 20th floor room:

Champagne is gone now and soon so will I be. Good night!

Point of Failure

I continue to experiment with the gopro doing long timelapses trying to figure out why the camera seems to stop randomly in the middle of a long capture. Today I was pulling the battery out of the camera and the little plastic tab that enables one to pull out the very snugly fitting battery broke. It seems like an obvious point of failure:

I searched around on gropro forums and this is not an uncommon problem. Again, obvious point of failure. I got onto the tech support chat and they're sending me a new battery (free). Also, I was able to get the stuck battery out of the camera by tapping the camera on the edge of a table (but cushioned by a pad of paper). Not ideal, but I think not hurting the camera either.

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The flowers are really coming in strong here. This bright yellow and orange bloom was along the upper bank of the river today:

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I continued working on my paper draft today. I also continued reading All of Statistics today. Still working through proofs in basic probability. It's a lot like real analysis and set theory, so kind of fun and familiar.

I also started/continued reading The New Childhood by Jordan Shapiro. Today he argued that play is the work of childhood. Play helps children develop executive function and social skills. In my generation play was social and physical, but since, play has become social and virtual. Our play helped us prepare for our adult lives where many of the occupations were physical in nature. Our childrens' play helps them prepare for an adult life that will be mediated by virtual interactions and on-line activities. When we disdain that kind of play, we are concerned about shifting norms about play. Shapiro argues that the kind of play, video games, minecraft, social media, is precisely what children today need to thrive as adults. I'm not sure I buy his argument, but it is thought provoking. I'm certainly not of a mind to condemn these new forms of play because they aren't the same as those of my childhood.

Subtitles

I like to watch series on Netflix that are produced in Spain. I watch them with English subtitles. It's a chance to hear Spanish at speed and to try to pick up as much meaning as possible on the fly, but to have the subtitles as a backup. It takes concentration.

Today I found a series called Money Heist. It's actually the most popular foreign produced Netflix series in the US. It's produced here in Spain and entirely in Spanish. I started watching the first episode, but noticed that there were no English subtitles available. On a hunch, I fired up the Whitman VPN to make Netflix think I was watching from within the US and suddenly the English subtitles were available. I can't even imagine what kind of licensing black magic is happening behind the scenes to make this happen. (Gotta love copyright lawyers!) At least I have a workaround now.

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Another lovely evening along the river. People were gathered as usual along the river as I went out for my run:

Not sure how I'm gonna cope with winter next year.