#mountjuic

MNAC and magic fountain, Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona Summer 2016

So today has seemed really long, but it´s been a really good day as well. I woke up early to go get in line to go into La Sagrada Familia. Even though it´s a monday and raining out there were still other people waiting in line by the time I got there, and it didn´t even open for another thirty minutes after that. I didn´t have to wait long though, and the little bit I did wait was well worth seeing the inside of the church. Unlike a lot of the other curches I´ve been to recently the inside of La Sagrada Familia isn´t filled with paintings. It is however beautiful in it´s own right. Rather than getting it´s beauty from paintings, the church is beautiful from it´s archtuiecture (not that other ones don´t have nice architecture too). The way the whole place is shaped is simply incredible. the pillars and the ceiling all look a bit bent and twisted and curving. It kind of looks like a futuristic alien church. If you´ll allow me a Lord of the Rings reference, while I was there I thought to myself that it looked like a mixture of the architecture in Rivendell and the mines of Moria. The church is graceful like the former, but monolithic like the latter. The outside of the church is impressive, but I think the inside matches it when it comes to beauty. Anyways, after that I walked back to the hostel and said by to my new Indian friends. From there I decided to go up to MountJuic. Montjuic is like this big hill/mountain on the side of Barcelona where they held the olympics, and have a castle. I took the metro to Plaza Espana, and from there walked up the steps past the Museu Nacional dÁrt de Catalunya. I would have go in but it was closed. Instead I walked around the back and through some beautiful gardens and eventually reached the olympic stadium from 1992. Oddly I ran into some Israelis at the stadium which was cool. The structure of the stadium itself was big, but I was honestly not that impressed, as I´ve seen other big stadiums in my life. From there I kept walking up Mountjuic, and I eventually got to a Botanical garden. The garden was rather big, and quite nice, but in comparison to some other gardens I´ve been in lately it was also somewhat underwhelming. I may also have been tired and cranky at this point. I kept walking up the mountain, and eventually by taking a few short cuts just climbing up a wooded slope, I got to the castle. It felt like I had been walking for ages. The castle itself was nice, and the weather had taken a turn for the better and was warm by the time I got there. I walked around for a bit and while they call it a castle, I think it could more accurately be called a fortress. It´s not as ornte as a castle would be. The views from the top of it though are excellent as they overlook both the sea and the city and surrounding mountains. I found another group of Israelis chilling out at the Castle too. Once I was done at the castle I began walking back down to the city itself. While walking I came across a park where there were a bunc of roops on which to climb. One part of it was a net like thing that was suspended some four feet off the ground. I was tired so I climbed on to it and lay down to rest my legs for a few minutes. I actually fell asleep on the net for a few minutes because it was effectively a hammock. After I woke up from my ten minute nap I felt a lot better, and kept walking downwards. I got to another park area where there was a rope that you could swing on between platforms. I did it a few times which was super fun, especially when some older women saw me and decided to try it as well. After that I kept walking and eventually found the metro which I took back to by the hostel. I chilled back at the hostel for a bit, and got some water and apple, and just generally lounged around for forty five minutes, and then went to meet a friend from home named Natalie at a restaurant nearby. I hadn´t seen Natalie in a while so it was really nice to talk to her and catch up. It´s stranged how many people she knows from home that are studying abroad across Europe. It seems like my entire age group just decided to all go abroad at the same time. Props to them though, because it´s awesome. I just wish I could be a little more unique...That might be the spoiled part of me talking though. After dinner I grabbed dessert, showed Natalie how awesome the hostle is, and then walked her back to the train. Now I´m back at the hostel, and relaxing. I do believe I should go to sleep earlier tonight. 

Castillo. Palau de Montjuic, Barcelona (Agosto 2013)

taken by Harry Schuler

While filming for a Fitness video, I took 2 images, thats numero uno. Used a Canon 60d with the 17-55mm f2.8 at f8.