Saying Howdy to Gaudi in Barcelona

I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Spain and have been excited about this trip for months!  We started our four-day Thanksgiving weekend in the resort town of Alicante on the southern coast.  The end of November is way past tourist season, but it was warm enough to spend a lazy day walking barefoot on the beach and watch the wind surfers for a couple hours.  After a nap (it’s okay to be lazy on Thanksgiving, right?!) we went into town to try to watch the Packers game.  Finding American football is NOT easy, but Google got us to an American bar, the bartender found the game, and we found ourselves playing out a new version of our old tradition.  For for the past many years (and hopefully the next twenty) all the Schmidts gather on sofas in Chris’ parents’ house to watch the Packers play while the Thanksgiving turkey cooks.  On this day, I would have traded Barcelona for their den in a heartbeat, but we enjoyed ourselves despite the distance.  To balance all the relaxing, we dealt with two bits of self-induced panic:  one from waking up only 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave the house to catch the plane that morning (rookie mistake) and the second from Chris having to sprint back to a restaurant to recover the purse I had left there (oops).  All’s well that ends well, right?  We made the flight with about seven minutes to spare and nobody had taken my purse. Phew!

Wind Surfer in Alicante, Spain

Chris watching the Packers game on Thanksgiving at Bar Austin in Alicante, Spain

Friday morning we were up early to take a five-hour train to Barcelona. Chris slept almost the entire way (My brother is the only person who can fall asleep faster!) and I read enough of the book “That Used to Be Us” to get me scared about the future of our economy. I know it’s an inflammatory book, but still think it’s worth a read. (Just an aside: trains have assigned seats labeled by train-car and seat number. So you can, for example, have a ticket for car eight, row six, seat C. For our first train ride from Marseille to Nice we didn’t realize that and just hopped on the car that stopped in front of us and sat in the two seats that looked most appealing because the train was almost empty. About three stops down the line we realized that everyone was looking at their ticket to find the proper seats so immediately took our out tickets to correct our error. I am not kidding; from that entire train we had somehow chosen our exact two seats. Totally strange, isn’t it?! )

After checking into our Barcelona hotel we walked down La Rambla (shoppers beware: you could drop your next paycheck in an instant on this street) to Casa Batllo (www.casabatllo.cat), a home the famous architect Antoni Gaudi (Gow-di) built for a rich textile merchant around 1900. Gaudi was born and raised near Barcelona, and lived there most of his life. He designed and built homes, monuments, and parks throughout the city and spent the last fourteen years of his life dedicated to his ultimate project: a church called La Sagrada Familia. The church is… outrageous. To me the outside is a monstrosity but the inside is breathtaking. Gaudi’s works are IMPRESSIVELY unique. The joke is that Gaudi was gaudy, which I would totally agree with, but after spending hours learning him and the architecture he created I have to say Chris and I are both fans. Gaudi was a nature lover, and incorporated as many elements of the natural world into his architecture as possible. He was also inventive, and picky about capturing the perfect amount of natural light, blending textures, shapes, and materials, making spaces ergonomic and useful, and in my opinion adding weirdness wherever possible.

Casa Mila, aka La Pedrera (The Stone Quarry), a Gaudi apartment complex.  Cal, you thought mom's house was hard to build because of its weird corners...

Looking up at the facade of Casa Batllo.  The curving windows "represent waves on a stormy day" to Gaudi and the iron balconies look remarkably like skulls to me.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but the facade is covered with thousands of colored tiles.

Chris standing in the main drawing room of Casa Batllo.  It was totally worth the 18 Euro to take the audio tour and get to see inside the house!  The attention to detail is amazing - everything down to the handrails was designed to be comfortable!

On the roof of Casa Ballo, with one of Gaudi's crazy chimneys and The Dragon's Back - a colorfully tiled cap above the facade.

The attic of Casa Batllo - the arches look like a rib cage, don't they?

The Passion Facade of La Sagrada Familia

Inside La Sagrada Familia.  The columns and stained glass were stunning!

The Nativity Facade is on the opposite side of the church and in stark style contrast to the Passion Facade.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Montjuic, a large hill overlooking the southwest part of the city that is home to some beautiful museums and stadiums from the 1992 Olympic Games.

Looking over the Placa d'Espanya from the stairs of the National Palace.

Saturday morning we failed at our attempt of a long training run. Stopping for traffic at every street corner was so annoying! The one good part was getting to see the Park Guell (designed by Gaudi) which was really cool.

Chris standing at the front of Park Guell.

Me with a Gaudi lizard.

After the run we headed to the waterfront to see the Olympic Village and watch the sand volleyball games. It felt like half of Barcelona’s families were out strolling along the boardwalk!

People lounging in concrete chairs watching other people working out on the beach gym.  I watched until some old guy started doing squats in a speedo.  LOL.  

That evening we went to watch the ‘Magic Fountain’ – a gorgeous light, sound, and water display in a massive fountain in front of the Palau Nacional. What a unique thing, we loved it!

The Magic Fountain - the color, texture, height, and shape of the fountain changed with the music. 

The Magic Fountain.

Lots going on in this photo - the Magic Fountain lit up pink, behind it is the National Palace with its rays of light.

I’d say the only somewhat disappointing part of the weekend was the food which was hit or miss. Tapas bars are really common, and I absolutely love the idea of serving small portions of a wide range of dishes, but we don’t love all our food swimming in oil. A bit of olive oil makes most things taste better, but for me, an inch-thick pool at the bottom of every plate takes away from a dish. Our favorite bites were actually from little markets: fresh smoked tuna, crisp runner beans, good bread, etc. Oh, and the Cava, their sparkling wine, is so yummy. I went for the midrange €5 (the cheapest I saw was€1 which was far less expensive than a bottle of water!) ‘Extra Brut’ Cordorniu at the grocery store and it was perfect with our grocery store dinner!

Sunday we took an unimpressive tour of Barcelona’s Old Town and then ate some decent seafood paella for lunch. The most fun part of the day was meeting Cassie, who had ditched her San Fran job and was on the third month of bumming around Europe. She convinced us that parts of Turkey (the country, not the bird) shouldn’t be missed, so now I’m trying to figure out how to make that trip happen. We didn’t have time to tour Barca’s (the muy famous soccer club) stadium or go to any museums but all in all we saw a lot of Barcelona in the three days we had there. The amazingly efficient, clean, and user-friendly transit system helped get us from area to area but I swear we also must’ve walked ten miles a day... we were tired and glad to be heading home by Sunday night!

We got lucky with the customs line this time around. Sometimes it takes more than an hour to get through, but the line was short when we landed Sunday. No clue why, but I am always nervous going through customs even though I never do or carry anything illegal. Occasionally watching the reality TV show ‘Nothing to Declare’ (about the UK and Australian Border Patrol) apparently hasn’t helped me either. The agents being interviewed for the show talk about what makes people look suspicious and instead of helping me avoid doing those things it has just made me more self conscious! The border agent we encountered on this return to London was absolutely intimidating. He didn’t ask any questions, but scrutinized each of our passports page by page. After about an eternity he looked me in the eye and said: “You came from Barcelona?” Me: “Yes sir.” Stern Agent: “Did you say howdy to Gaudi?” It took a couple seconds for the joke to sink in and when it did, I just… squawked? It just escaped out of me… an awkward and too loud one-syllable laugh. Instantly I thought “Did that just make me look suspicious? “, then “Why am I holding my hand in this weird position?”, then in an instant my thoughts unraveled to “Oh my gosh, do I look guilty of something? Are they going to take me for more questioning? Are they going to put me through one of those crazy scanners to see if I’m smuggling drugs?” Hahahaha, wow. None of those things happened; Stern Agent just looked at me funny and let us through.

Well, the next planned trip isn’t until Amsterdam for New Years but I may be heading back to Tennessee in the mean time to be with my sweet, amazing sister-to-be who is going through surgery in the next weeks to help her beat cancer. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers, please!

A few days late, but still so applicable; here’s an amazing Thanksgiving prayer from my old pastor: http://revjameshowell.blogspot.com

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Edinburgh and the Hairy Coo

In the spirit of Veteran’s Day I’d like to thank Chris and all the Air Force guys and gals for their service, Chris’ father Scott for his 20+ years with the Army, to Chris’ late granddad who retired with a couple Purple Hearts, Bronze Star, Silver Star, and a Distinguished Flying Cross, to my own granddad who served two years in the Navy, and to my Uncle John who was an M.D. in the Army Reserves for eight years. Without people like them we truly wouldn’t be able to do the simple things we enjoy like travel freely and speak openly.

We REALLY capitalized on Veteran’s Day this year by traveling six hours north to the amazing city of Edinburgh (pronouced ‘Ed-in-burra’, don’t say Edin-burg!) Scotland. There’s absolutely no way to see all of Edinburgh in one weekend, especially this late in the year when the days are so short. After squeezing in a 12-mile run Friday morning (Ironman training is still going well!) we arrived in Edinburgh as it was getting dark (4:30). We learned the lesson to not sit in a car for 6 hours immediately after a long run – we were stiff and sore and hungry! Ever heard of haggis? It’s Scotland’s national dish and I had it for dinner Friday night. I’d hated it as a kid (we ate lots of weird stuff growing up) but I guess my adult taste buds have changed because it was really nice! I know I’m going to lose a lot of people on this one, but haggis is made of sheep’s heart and liver minced with onions and a special type of oatmeal, heavily spiced, and cooked for hours. Yummmmmy.

There were so many people living within Edinburgh city walls during medieval times that there was simply not enough housing.  Building maxed out at 17 story high-rises but the top floors were so unstable they’d regularly crush the people below.  To make more room, people start building down into the rock, hence the many cellars and tunnels underneath the city.  With the sheer number of people stuffed into the city walls, living conditions were horrific and disease was rampant. Hundreds of people sick with the plague were said to be cast away to the underground vaults and bricked in to try to contain the disease. Inspired by this dark history, we took one of the many ‘haunted Edinburgh’ tours. I’m too much of a skeptic to make that worth the money. The guide had one good story, though: As there was no sewer system, every night at 10:00 the people of Edinburgh got rid of their toilet waste by chucking it out of the window and yelling ‘guardi loo’ to warn people below. Ten PM also happened to be when the bars closed, so he reckoned the phrase ‘s**t faced’ may have originated in Edinburgh. Well, that’s £20 we’ll never get back…

Saturday we were really late getting to a day-long tour we had booked to see the Scottish Highlands. I’m blaming a slow bus systemJ.  BUT we made it, and the tour was awesome!!! Our tour guide Donald drove the bunch of us around in a bus called Bessie (named after the Hairy Coo we would be photographing extensively later.)

Me and Chris camouflaged as Hairy Coos :)

the bus

Donald (wearing a kilt and bright orange shirt) was really proud (with a capital P) to be Scottish.  After listening to his stories of how many times England had tried and failed to conquer it I could understand why!   He relished the fact that Scotland had never been part of the Roman Empire, either, and laughed that either the Romans thought Scotland’s cold, harsh, wet climate wasn’t worth the fight or the Scots were just that good!  Donald even taught us how to speak like Sean Connery.

Our first stop on the Hairy Coo was the William Wallace monument to learn about one of Scotland's most famous people and the truths and fictions (gasp) about Braveheart.   I hated history as a student but now am fascinated by how things came to be in the areas we visit.  To be able to see how geography, a couple poor or good decisions, and luck shaped huge chunks of the world is so interesting!  We also stopped by a little lake to take in some of the gorgeous views.

William Wallace monument

After the obligatory visit to the William Wallace monument, the Hairy Coo started the journey up into the highlands (about an hour northwest of the city.)  The transition from low- to high-lands was drastic – within two miles the scenery had completely changed.  This time of year the hills have a rusty red color from all the dried bracken (ferns).  As he drove, Donald told stories about his family (we went through his tiny village on the way into the hills) and the history of Scotland.  We stopped at the prettiest little spot to snap some photos.

Scottish Highlands

From there it was off to find the Hairy Coos!  That Scottish Highlands are so rugged that only a few species can survive outside all year 'round.  This particular breed of cattle isn’t the best at producing milk or meat but is the best at staying alive up there!  I tell you what, if I came across one of these beasties somewhere without a fence between me and it I would run the other way – in a zigzag motion to confuse it – and never return to the area.  They are aggressive and have massive horns.  I’m smiling in these pictures, yes, but only on the outside. 

About to pee my pants?

Feeding mama and baby Coo.

Chris with papa Coo - that thing's horns completely dwarf Chris, don't they?

The last stop on the Hairy Coo was to Doune Castle where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed.  The castle looked spooky as darkness fell, but Donald lightened the mood with movie quotes.

Sunday morning we hiked Arthur’s Seat, an ancient volcano that sits smack dab in the middle of the city.  It’s a popular hike because the views from 800 feet up are fantastic!

Chris with the peak in the background.

Me with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

Chris (with his new pose) on top of Arthur's Seat.

Everyone has different styles of traveling and different things they really enjoy experiencing in a new place.  Right now we’re less of the ‘museum and castles’ style and more of the ‘unique scenery and food’ style.  This trip fit the bill – we really got to see the countryside and beautiful mountains and lakes but didn’t spend nearly enough time in the city.  So, future visitors, if you want to go to Edinburgh we’d welcome another chance to explore!

PS: As an aside, poor Chris is dying inside because there are big flocks of ducks and geese flying overhead and he’s devastated to be missing the start of Arkansas duck hunting.

PPS: How many sheep are there in Scotland? Answer:  No one knows.  Every time someone attempts to count them they fall asleep!   Hahaha, seriously though, there are millions!