After breakfast we walked around the millions of stores sprinkles along the streets. We got to go inside some beautiful churches and see some new parts of the city. I love how many parks there are here! And they're big parks too. It's like NYC but bigger. After killing some time we went to our meet up for our bike tour! Our tour guide was this cute girl from New Zealand. We went all around the city and we made some new friends too. This guy who had just graduated from UGA was on the tour. He was traveling by himself because he had some time before he started his new job in Atlanta. What a small world! The bike tour was a great way to learn about the city. It was also fun to bike after doing so much walking every day.
Things I learned from bike tour:
Pic 1- People threw their waste pots into the streets and it made for quite an unsanitary town. The Jews started washing their hands before and after meals and they weren't getting sick. The queen (queen Isabella I think) decided that they weren't getting sick not because they were hygienic but because they were cursing everyone else. The logical thing to think! So she started killing them off by pouring hot wax on them by the wall of the castle. Those who lived were burned alive.
Queen Isabella also had a speculated affair with Christopher Columbus! They met and began canoodling before taking off on his expendition. Being the loving partner that she was she offered to fund his adventures! She gave him slaves from the prisons for his crew and boats from her fleets for him to use. He left and find treasures and land and came back to tell her about how rush he wasN what he failed to remember (or read) was before he left Isabella had him sign a little slip of paper that said "hey everything you find is mine". So although he wasn't the owner of everything he found, he was still happy because Isabella continued to fund his voyages. Later both him, Isabella, and Ferdinand (I think that's the name of the king) all died of symptoms similar to syphilis. Be safe kids!!!
Pic 2 - This is a museum where we learned about Catalan culture. I'm going to butcher it because I don't remember it as well but there was a dictator who oppressed the people so now there are separatists flags specifically for the Catalan people. The dictator was friends with Hitler and Mussolini and died a natural death. He was hurried outside Madrid and never punished for the way he treated the people in the Catalan region. So the Catalan people are PO'd that they never got an apology and that no one recognized their oppression. I forgot how the museum ties into that though...
Pic 3 - The Arc de Triomphe! This is in a beautiful park. So when they were trying to figure out what structure to build here they had architects from all over come and pitch their ideas. There was one man that came and pitched an idea but the Catalan people hated it and sent him away. He took his designs to Paris and built the Eiffel Towet there instead of Barcelona. There are (I think) 10 Arc de Triomphs around the world. They are built for soldiers returning home from war to march through. This was not the reasoning behind Barcelona's Arc, they just liked the way it looked.
Pic 4 - This is a cool fountain and I was too distracted to listen to why it's important! I did hear her say the top isn't real gold, they just painted it gold for the '92 Olymlics.
Pic 5 - This is an old bull fighting ring. Bull fighting was banned in 2010 because of the cruel treatment to the animal. They would starve the animal, cover their eyes in Vaseline, drug them, and stab them before the fights. They use the stadiums for concerts and stuff now.
Pic 6 - La Sagrada Familia has too many cranes. But it's really cool! We didn't get to go inside but the outside was very pretty to look at. Gaudi gave himself 200 years to finish it but the government thinks they're going to finish it in 9 years. So time will tell!
Pic 7 - Barcelona has a man made beach. They had to ask Egypt for sand because they didn't have any!
After the bike tour we walked around trying to find a few dinner spots and eventually found a restaurant with some Italian food. It wasn't the best but it also wasn't the worst. I got pizza and Ryan got pesto gnocchi. I'm excited to eat REAL Italian food soon!
Tomorrow we don't have much planned so we'll just be taking on the city.
Ttyl!!
Emily
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