Barcelona, bullet-point style

This is how I will remember Barcelona: not in one cohesive picture or any one consistent theme -- there wasn't enough time for that -- but as a series of brightly colored threads, a brilliant fringe to rub between mental fingers, a burst of small and discrete points of light. And also as somewhat lonely. Maybe it's because of the size, because it is MUCH bigger than Valencia, but it felt emptier, less homey. Valencia feels more like a community to me, more toned-down in many outward respects and more...more quietly exuberant in others.

-La Sagrada Famila. It's so much different than any other religious building I've ever seen. Definitely grand, but not in the distant way a  lot of other cathedrals seem to be (a lot of others...I've only seen two or three in person, but pictures count right?). From the first you get the sense that you're watching a very intimate conversation between Gaudi and something divine. God, nature, the creative force in the world, SOMETHING powerful was pushing him to build up, and in a way that looks very much outside of the constraints of any other building, religious or otherwise, I've seen. The Wikipedia page makes me want to read a biography of Gaudi's life, or at least another Wikipedia page.

-Walking through the market and seeing the biggest apricots/tripe/walnuts/selection of fake Ray Bans (Reyes Barres) I'd ever seen.

-Understanding some of the people I traveled with more, and some a little less. Having conversations I did not expect to be having so early on in knowing someone, and opening up a little bit more and having it be okay.

-Realizing that I'm not a club person and never will be.

-Realizing that leaving the club to go to the rope playground on the beach at 3AM is much more my speed. 

-Getting a really, really good apple from a little fruit store, even though it looked shitty and the apple was small and brownish. And also a baguette (turning into a pan-fanatic) for a whopping total of one euro. This somewhat softened the blow of the five euro beer from the restaurant on Las Ramblas the night before. Novice traveler lesson number one: do not buy alcohol on the tourist street.

-Standing at the tallest point in the Parque Guell, which involved climbing up a twisting, crowded, railing-less stairway (fear of heights ftw) and seeing the whole city, all sprawled out and lego-like, and the Sagrada Familia looking like some kind of ornate bauble set down in the middle of a sea of blocks. Listening to a man play American country music on a guitar while looking out on the little post-it squares of color. Feeling extraordinarily peaceful.

-Traveling with people I like. Thinking about how this is only the first of many trips. Getting on the bus, leaving the city and thinking about how I might never come back to Barcelona, and not feeling sad but rather just wondering at the fact that  I will only be alive for so long and might not choose to come back there again, and at the realization that you can see a place and have it be both the first and last time in your life.