Art & Architecture

Sant Juan Holiday is almost equivalent to North America’s new years celebration, and took place here in Spain this past Saturday (June 24th). Celebrations started during the day on Friday and proceeded right threw the night, and then Saturday was technically a holiday, and therefore all of the stores were closed. My flatmates and I threw a party on Friday for all of the other iaeste trainees in the city, as well as friends of Hoelgers and the iaeste coordinators. About 25-30 people crammed into our relatively small place, and much food and drink were enjoyed before leaving for a random street party where we danced to lots of traditional Spanish music. Finally, at some point in the morning we eventually made it to the Barcelona beaches with the rest of Barcelona. Lots of fireworks were going off right threw the night, and we stayed to watch the sun come up. Again I slept most of Saturday (it seems that this is becoming a Saturday routine), and then headed to the beach once again to catch some sun, a quick swim, and be lazy. It should also be noted that firecrackers (extremely loud ones) have been going off here (especially in the park under our balcony) for the last week, peaking in intensity Friday afternoon/night. My nerves are pretty much shot, and apparently we have yet to see the end of it, as they will continue until the next holiday in a couple of weeks.

Sunday I met up with two other iaeste girls, Lorena from Mexico, and Lily from Vancouver (UBC). We had an awesome time first visiting the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), which is supposed to have one of the top Romanesque art collections in all of Europe, as well as some amazing Modern art. I was very impressed and will be returning to see some more next Tuesday.




After MNAC we decided to see the Monjuic Castle located at the top of a very large hill that is the site of many parks, museums, the soccer stadium, and other Olympic facilities. The walk up was rather hot and tiring, but we enjoyed some lunch at the top, and the view was great.



We then went to a very small museum called El Pavello that was created by Mies van der Rohe, and is known internationally for its architectural brilliance. While I’m sure I wasn’t able to appreciate it as much as an architect would, I still found it very interesting. One of the key pieces is the Barcelona chair (very famous). Lily assured me that I had not seen it in an ikea catalogue, although I’m not sure I believe her.

Finally, just so that we could see how much famous art and architecture we could fit into just one day, we decided to hike it over to the other side of the city in order to visit Parc Guell. This park was created by the same man who designed and developed Sagrada Familia (the large church/cathedral that was shown in many pictures in a previous posting). Parc Guell lived up to my rather high expectations, as the pieces of art were amazingly detailed, colourful, and like nothing else I’d ever seen. Every piece was very fluid, with always more curved lines than straight. See the pictures below.

All in all, it was a full day of intense tourism. I´ve realized that this is just the beginning of the art and architecture I need to see while here in Barcelona, let alone throughout Spain. My flatmates keep me updated with every score in the world cup, regardless of whether I want them to or not, and we are still getting along very well. I will try to post some pictures of our place soon so that everyone can truely understand what I mean when I say it is student accommodations.

Missing you all in Canada (especially on July 1st)!