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Posts Tagged ‘Catalonia’

22 Jan

My European Travel Pt. 16, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Posted by renxkyoko in Barcelona, European travel, European trip, my life, Random thoughts, Spain. Tagged: Barcelona, Catalonia, European tour, European travel, my life, postaweek2011, random thoughts, Spain. 81 comments

Renxkyoko Iglesias here, HI !

Someone commented here, ” Where are you? You’re MIA ! ” Don’t worry. I’m still here, lurking. Actually, I’m on semestral vacation, and I go back to school last week of January. So, what have you been doin’, Ren? Well, 1. I have 2 jobs, and I’ve been given more work hours. 2. Playing Resident Evil 5. My brother ‘s Christmas gift is Resident Evil 6. I want to finish RE 5 first before I start with the 6th. Problem is, I ‘m bad at aiming. I need a high powered assault weapon than can fire 100 rounds of ammunition without reloading. Freakin’ zombies. 7. And, instead of reading some blogs from my email folder, which has 6, 247 unread ones already, it makes me not do anything at all… a totally complete opposite effect on me. I mean, I’m…..completely overwhelmed. It’;s a daunting task, I know, but, * shows a determined look * I vow I won’t lose to it. I’ll read up , every last post of it, and I bet all my Pokemon card collection I SHALL OVERCOME AND I WILL WIN ! ! FTW ! !

Now, where was I? Oh , yeah, Part 16 0f my European tour….. Barcelona, Spain. Ah, Spain ! The land of my ancestors . My great grandfather came from Sta. Maria la Nueva , Segovia, Spain. He went to the Philippines to work in Spain’s so – called Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines. I don’t know the economics of that, but , it ‘s not a nice heritage , in my book. I mean, tobacco ? And to this day, our family is still involved in this business. It is , in fact, a family corporation. Well, not directly my own family here in the US., but , kind of…. we still get our share from the produce. I think our folks there should stop producing that . Diversify . Plant garlic or something , or sell off the land and stop acting like some absentee fuedal landlords or whatever they call them. Anyway, I don’t know if our Spanish relatives are still living or have disappeared . My grandmother and some relatives from the Philippines did go to Spain in 1970 to attend a grand reunion given by great – grandpa’s folks in Segovia, one of whom was a mayor of their town, named Bruno ( funny name, that ). And Senor Bruno was honest enough to inform grandma , et al, that though most of great- grandpa’s properties were sequestered by Genaralissimo Franco millions of years ago, there were some real estate left for them to claim. Ha ! So now I can say, we have some real estate pr0perty in Spain. He he he… Maybe , after subdividing it among great grandpas descendants, we’d be left with one pot of soil each. Hopefully, one square foot planted with one olive tree. That would be nice, too.

Sorry, I ‘m just musing.

Back to Barcelona.

The city of Barcelona is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia. Spain has several autonomous communities, much like the US has 54 states, with its own state laws, and capitals. Catalonia though has 2 official languages, Spanish and Catalan.

.To be honest, I can’t distinguish anymore which photos are those of Barcelona’s and of Madrid’s. But the one above is definitely Barcelona. Our tour manager, Ruben, who was a Spaniard begged us to go shopping in Spain. That time, Spain had a 25% unemployment rate. So, we went shopping.

.That’s me in black tee , slippers and shorts, already carrying a shopping bag.

The place is a pedestrian mall at La Rambla. La Rambla is located in central Barcelona. It consists of a series of short streets, one of which is the pedestrian mall where the photo above was taken.

.Courtesy of Wikipedia below…… that tree- lined street is one kilometre long.

.I’m wondering how different Catalan language is from Castillian ( Spanish ) . In Catalan, it’s Placa?, in Spanish, it’s Plaza. Chair is cadira in Catalan and silla in Spanish. Clean is net in Catalan and limpio in Spanish. And do you know that Barcelonians are offended when they are referred to as Spaniards? I was told that when the 1992 Olympics was held in Barcelona, the Barcelonians wanted to let the world know the event was being held in Barcelona, not Spain. Hmmm, Spain has a political problem. And it isn’t just Barcelona. Spain is right now having a terrorist problem with the Basque region that wants to secede from Spain.

Above is the Barcelona cathedral. Gothic style.

.Architectural details.

Whoa ! I really did put on so much weight here. Chubby cheeks.

The photos below are of Sagrada Familia Church . This church has beenn under construstion since 1882, and still not done yet. It is funded by private donations, but they plan to finish it by 2026, the 100 year death anniversary of the Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi.

.The church has 3 facades: Nativity, Passion and Glory. The one above is Nativity.

.The Passion facade

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Above is supposed to be the miniature model of the church. To be honest, I don’t like it. To me, it’s just a massive oddity, or to be blunt, a massive monstrosity, and to think, it’s a house of God. Oh, well, there’s no accounting for taste. Each to his her own, y’know? No offence to those who like it.

There were other places we went to, like places where some 1992 Olympics events were held. They were on top of a hill and following photos were the views of the city of Barcelona from there. The Olympic structures were, uhm, just buildings.

.Oh, by the way, Barcelona faces the Mediterreanean Sea.

Photos below are some random places and buildings that I took.

.Walking tour of the city below.

.The guy looks a bit emaciated, doesn’t he? We thought the guy could use a few Euros for a dinner of tummy -filling paella. So, we dropped enough Euros into the hat.

Lovely wall !

.I don’t remember what we were gawking at, but I figure it would be interesting, too, to show our backs. To be honest, I feel I’ve become somewhat jaded at this point, about 20 days into the tour. Remember ABC ? lol! ( Another Bloody Church ) Well, there’s another one…. ROB ( Random Old Building) Don’t get me wrong. I loved Europe. It’s such a marvelous and magnificent place. And I hope I can go back , and see more of Europe, especially the ones less travelled. I want to see Pompeii. I want to go to Naples. I want to see Eastern European countries, like Hungary.

There we are, waiting for our motorcoach to take us back to our hotel.

.That’s it for Barcelona.

Oh, wait…. right now, I’m watching Pres. Obama’s Inaugural Ball. The First Couple are dancing right now. * Ah I’m ,so in love with you … la la la , I love this song. And It’s so cool to be First Lady. Can I dare dream about that? Be First Lady, I mean ?