Saturday, January 31, 2009

La Sagrada Familia

On Thursday after class, I went with two exchange student friends to La Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's famous unfinished cathedral. We have Thursday afternoons off so we decided to make Thursdays our do-touristy-things day. This particular Thursday wasn't the best day to go site-seeing because it was gloomy and looked like it would rain any minute. But it was still fun! We had a little Thursday afternoon adventure :).

DSC00209
This is Natasha and Adi from Israel! I've been brushing up on my Hebrew with them :D. I learned a cool new Hebrew word: "Sababa". It's like the equivalent of "Okay" in English. So you can be like:

A: How's it going?
B: Sababa.

or

A: Hey let's go to La Sagrada Familia, sababa?
B: Sababa.

Hehehe...

DSC00212
And here it is, La Sagrada Familia. Construction began in 1882 and continues to this day.

DSC00210
The construction now looks exactly the same as it did when I visited here two years ago over Spring Break!

DSC00221
Here is a shot of the front door to the cathedral. The gold lettering says (in Catalan), "What is the truth?"

DSC00222
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews

DSC00231
Windows inside the cathedral

DSC00235
The ceiling inside the cathedral

DSC00226
The ceiling again

DSC00240
The facade at the back of the cathedral

DSC00242
Pretty crazy huh?

DSC00244

DSC00248
Here we are with a turtle

DSC00249

DSC00250
We tried really hard to capture the entire back facade of the cathedral but this is the most we could get! Imagine how amazing the whole thing looked...

DSC00261
Had to take one of these "at arm's length" photos! :)

DSC00264
Pretty windows...

DSC00265
We decided to pay an extra 2.50 euros to take the lift up to the top of the cathedral. I'm glad we did this because I didn't do it the last time I came! The lift only takes you halfway and then we had to get off and walk through these tiny stairwells to make our way up. You can't tell but it was actually quite dark (since it was such a gloomy day). You can only see Adi and Natasha because of my camera's flash!

DSC00267
As you walked up, every now and then there'd be windows that you could look through to see the view...

DSC00268

DSC00269
There's the Torre Agbar building

DSC00270

DSC00274
Those two buildings in the distance are in the Barceloneta. If you look carefully you might recognize them from some of my earlier posts.

DSC00277

DSC00284
Adi and Natasha both have super nice cameras!

DSC00288
Adi and I on a landing, on our way up.

DSC00290
Then we started to make our way down. This is a downward view of the first winding staircase we had to take to go down.

DSC00294
Shalom Natasha!

DSC00297

DSC00298

DSC00303

DSC00309

DSC00316

DSC00319

DSC00321

DSC00322

DSC00331
Okay, this was the scariest staircase. It was super narrow and was completely open on your right hand side. So if you weren't careful and accidentally stepped too far right, you might just fall down that hole!

DSC00328
Keep in mind that it was really dark so we really couldn't see anything as we walked down. I told Natasha to smile but I don't think she could really see anything hehe

DSC00335

DSC00337

DSC00339

DSC00341

DSCF4660
That was a fun trip. I hope we can have more Thursday adventures!

3 comments:

  1. THAT CATHEDRAL IS SOOOOOOOOOOO COOL! It's so intricate. I am giving you a mission -- I want you to build/design a cathedral in Beijing. YOU CAN DO IT.

    Joyce-uh -- looks like you're having a good time! Hehehe. We miss you back in PVD =[ Band practices have moved into your room, but I think Lauren enjoys it. We keep her company =D

    And today was the once-a-semester all band practice all afternoon at Trinity. It was fun but I'm really tired! I'm the only one with a car so I had to drive a lot and lug around a lot of equipment (but Jason helped!). x_x

    Hey have you found any good Chinese restaurants around there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. heard from mom that you are sick =(((
    get lots of sleep, drink lots of water! let me know when you are online and we can skyppppee with our xongxongs =)
    feel better soon!! love, seester

    ReplyDelete
  3. pangster, you sure look like you're having mucho fun =] that cathedral is wicked awesome. looks really skeleton-like, though. but it's still cool!

    and you are sick? boo. get better soon or else. >=/

    ReplyDelete