Today officially started at 6:40. On a bus. Oh joy.
After dragging ourselves through a shower at 5 a.m. (!), we moseyed down to “American”—one of the few restaurants in the hotel that remains open for 24 hours—and ordered breakfast through our lovely waitress, Ness. Ness works from 11 until 7—the drunk shift. We didn’t envy her.
At 6:30, we boarded the bus that took us to the airport where we’d start our helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon! We thought we were going to be the only people on a bus built for 30 or so until a transfer bus pulled up, and our bus rapidly filled up.
Our pilot was Nate, who was pretty fun and knowledgeable. And happily, only our group was on the copter. Nate distributed us by weight, so Kevin got the front seat, but really there were no bad seats. This was our helicopter.
And this is us with Nate.
And just after takeoff.
Aside from the history and geography at the area, we talked with Nate about UFOs (he hasn’t seen any but is interested in the subject and hopes some day to see something he can’t explain) and the strangest thing to be revealed by the low water level in Lake Mead—a small Navy plane that had crashed in the lake in the 50s but that was kept secret until last year.
I know it’s a cliché to say, but pictures really do not do the Grand Canyon justice. Yes, you can get a sense of the colors, the play of light and shadow, the plant life, and all that from pictures, but the sheer scale of the place and the sense of the power and time it took to be born is overwhelming once you see it in person, especially from above.
The helicopter ride wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it!
A quick apology for the photos. It was hard to hold my camera steady with the zoom lens extended, so some are out of focus. Additionally, WordPress has changed their interface (or something is wrong with my theme), so some basic functions seem to be hidden, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to delete the bad images. I’ll try to take care of that on the drive tomorrow and also add some of Mark’s iPhone pics, which are better.
We got back to the hotel a little after 10, but since we’d all eaten breakfast at 5:30, we were hungry and headed out to explore and get an early lunch. We first tried a kind of Italian food hall called “Eatily,” but Mark and I couldn’t find anything that sounded good. While Kevin and Jeff ate there, Mark and I wandered the strip for about an hour then just ended up at Hard Rock Cafe. It was easy, and there was no wait. I had a vanilla milkshake. I also had a pretty good pulled pork sandwich, but the shake was the main attraction for me. It was around 1:15 when we got back to New York New York. The boys texted us to say they were going to the pool, but we stayed in the room and napped or read for a bit.
We had an early dinner and then went to a Cirque du Soleil show, KA. It wasn’t the best Cirque show I’ve seen, but it was still enjoyable. I’m really happy Kevin and Jeff liked it. I picked it out but didn’t know what their reaction would be. Afterward, we people watched for a while, and I had another milkshake.
Tomorrow, we drive to Springdale, Utah and get ready to hike Zion National Park. This should be interesting. At least the pics should be better.
Today was another travel day—the drive from San Diego to Palm Springs to Las Vegas. We stopped at a viewing area but didn’t stay too long because it was cold and windy, as evidenced by Jeff’s hair.
It rained for most of the drive, which delighted Jeff (it’s dry here right now) but made me feel like I was back in Ohio. Definitely unlike Ohio, however, was the astounding number of enormous boulders. There were thousands of them as big as small cars scattered everywhere. The landscape for much of the drive looked like a giant child had dumped a toy box full of them all over the place. None of us could really figure out how they got there. Glacier retreat seems unlikely because they are so distinct from one another. Maybe tectonic activity? I’ll have to research that.
It was a bit of a challenge to take pics from the back of a moving Toyota FJ, but I did manage to get a few.
We stopped in Palm Springs for a quick tour and then lunch. Many of the homes were screened from the street by tall shrubs, but we did get to see a handful of mid-mod homes. It’s a nicer, homier city than I thought it would be, and I could see myself living there as long as I had friends there, too. I wouldn’t want to move there (well, anywhere, really) without a social network of some kind. Mark has always been much better at making friends than I, but we’re such homebodies now that it would be a challenge for both of us.
We had lunch at the Chicken Ranch, which was pleasant enough. The food was good. The staff was friendly and attentive. Despite the rainy drive, the weather in Palm Springs was perfect, so we ate on their patio. I decided to have gelato for dessert, and because it took longer to bring it than it should have, they gave me a double helping! There was more than I serve myself at home, and you know how large my bowls of ice cream are. The four of us ended up sharing it—a wonderful salted caramel.
The restaurant fronted a cute courtyard, so I took a couple photos of that, especially a really fun sculpture of Don Quixote. Mark also made a friend.
I have no idea how I managed to take this photo, but it’s kinda fun.
We did finally arrive in Vegas around 5:00 and got checked into our rooms.
After about a half hour, we went to dinner at Chin Chin in our hotel. Mark and I split a tasty dish of orange chicken, but after dinner, we decided not to explore tonight. We’ve got an early day tomorrow, so we called it a night. He’s already in bed, and I’m heading that way. I hope to have some fun things to report tomorrow. Until then, good night.
Mark and I flew to San Diego yesterday to begin a tour of the southwest with our friends, Kevin and Jeff. Other than the fastest, simplest check-in we’ve ever had (thank you TSA Precheck) not a lot to report about the journey. Air travel just sucks.
We arrived around 5:00 yesterday, hung out at the house for a bit, then went to a Mexican restaurant, Ortega’s, for dinner. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find anything to eat, but I ended up with steak tacos that were deliciously spicy. And I discovered a new drink— horchata. Yum! Milk or some kind of creamy base with vanilla and cinnamon. I understand that there are a lot of varieties, many including rice, and I’m sure I’ll love discovering them all.
Just a photo of Kevin and Jeff’s back yard (where we got married in 2014) before we get on the road.
Okay. So I never got around to typing up our last day in New Orleans. I had intended to do it on Sunday, the day after we got back to Columbus, but our mail had a nasty surprise from the IRS that drove pretty much everything else out of my mind. Turns out that their demand for $10k in back taxes, interest, and penalties was mostly due to an error on the part of one of my clients, but it still was unsettling. It was only several days later that I remembered about the missing post, and then several more days before I could get to it. (Fortunately, work seems to be picking back up after a couple lean years.)
So what did we do. Truth is, it was a pretty light day, but a good one nonetheless. The group split up again with Mark and I taking a street-car ride to New Orleans City Park. It’s an enormous place—I mean truly gigantic—and I’d love to go back and see more of it. In two hours, though, Mark and I were only able to see the sculpture garden. (Look in the center bottom of this map to see how small of an area that is in the context of the larger park.) I say “only,” but it was well worth the visit. It was a wonderful sculpture garden, of which Mark and I photographed only a small sampling.
After the sculpture park, we really just went back to the hotel and started packing up for our Saturday flight home and hung out with the boys. We had dinner reservations at The Italian Barrel. We sat outside, and other than the noise of the occasional suped-up car, it was a really nice evening. The meal I had—pumpkin ravioli—was probably the best of the trip. (It was much better than it looks in the photo on their website, where it looks like the sauce started to congeal and, oddly, bleed butter at the same time.) And the desserts! Here are what James and I had to cap off our meals.
My Tartufo Al CappuccinoJames’s Chocolate Profiterols
So that pretty much wraps it up. My overall impression is that I’d go back to New Orleans to see other things that we didn’t have time to do on this visit, but I never need to see Bourbon Street again, and I don’t think I’d stay in the central business district again until the city fixes its sidewalks.
Yesterday, while Dan and Alex and James and Tom went to see, as Tom has called them, “piles of dead people” in historic cemeteries, Mark and I walked through the arts district centered around Julia and Camp Streets. We saw a lot of good art and some that was less than good (the installation of irregularly shaped walnut boards layered with Pantone-colored shapes springs to mind; it looked like an IKEA catalog—”You can have this lovely walnut-veneer table with an inlay in this yellow or this blue or this pea green….”). By far, the best art we saw was the show at Lemieux Galleries featuring the art of Aron Bella, “Kelp and Potatoes: Musings of Ireland.” Obviously, I can’t put up pictures of the copyrighted artwork, so go take a few minutes and take a look at the offerings of the galleries, which you can link to from the arts district website.
The only tale I can tell about the sojourn was that in the first gallery we visited, Mark and I were enjoying the offerings of the 26 artist represented, when without warning, I suddenly started getting very hot. I was sweating down my back and wondering if I’d pass out. Mark, however, said he was fine. I’d never experienced that kind of overheating except when I had the worst case of flu I’d ever experienced. I’d sweated through my jeans and shirt then. My mom says its the only time she’d ever seen anyone actually turn green with illness. Other than being overheated, though, I felt fine. Mark and I went into another gallery, and the discomfort didn’t let up, so I told him I needed to get something cold to drink and to sit down. Ten minutes later at a nearby Starbucks, I was fine. It was very weird. I’m attributing it to be touched by a demon or some poor soul roasting in hell. (I suppose that knowing we were going on a ghost tour last night planted that in me head.)
I didn’t really take any pictures in the district (lazy day), but Mark did, so I’m posting his photos here and will caption them.
We had lunch on the patio of Flamingo-a-go-go (https://flamingonola.com). Nice setting, friendly staff, decent food, good music. Mark had a gumbo/jambalaya/red-beans-and-rice combo and strawberry shortcake for lunch. I had a pepperoni flatbread and key-lime pie (not shown). We had lunch on the patio of Flamingo-a-go-go (https://flamingonola.com). Nice setting, friendly staff, decent food, good music. Mark had a gumbo/jambalaya/red-beans-and-rice combo and strawberry shortcake for lunch. I had a pepperoni flatbread and key-lime pie (not shown).
And here are some random shots through the neighborhood and our walk back to the hotel.
Just random shots through the district and on our walk back to our hotel. A building with ferns growing out of the mortar. (We see this everywhere here.) An interesting copper dome on what I think is an Orthodox church. A couple of the many murals. Emeril Legassé’s restaurant. The old cotton exchange building. A statue of Louis Armstrong that looks nothing like Louis Armstrong. (It actually reminds me more of the laughing-man work of Yue Minion, which Tony, Jan, and I first saw in a B&B in Cambodia.) Our hotel (The tall building; our balcony is the second one down on the far right.) One panel of a bronze door.
Dinner last night was at Landry’s. We learned our lesson from previous nights to make a reservation. Our waiter was fun, and I think most of us enjoyed our dinners. I just had a hamburger. I’ve been overeating and feeling a little miserable all week, so last night, I learned my lesson and only ate half. We gave the other half and my extra fries to a homeless guy who seemed very excited to get it. Here are James, Tom, and Dan at dinner.
We followed up our dinner with a ghost tour in a carriage. I can’t say it was the best ghost tour I’ve ever been on, but it was okay. It was nice not walking for a change—we’ve been doing oodles of that—but I think it was a bit expensive for what we got. Even so, it’s always nice to have a night out with the boys. While we were waiting to start, Cosmo, the mule pulling the carriage parked behind ours, decided he wanted Alex’s attention.
I didn’t know until last night that only mules are used in New Orleans because they’re stronger than similarly sized horses and handle the heat and humidity better than horses.
After our tour, we stopped and checked off another NOLA must-do box—beignets at Cafe du Monde. They were good, but to be honest, they’re just fried dough that you can get at any festival in the Midwest and coated in powdered sugar—a LOT of powdered sugar. Mark and I didn’t realize that each order included three beignets, so when we ordered four, we actually got twelve. This morning, there was so much powdered sugar in the bottom of the bags (of course we couldn’t eat them all) that Alex used a teaspoon of it to sweeten his coffee.
I’ll post today’s adventures either later today or at the airport tomorrow as we wait to fly back to Ohio.
Today, I awoke at about 5:00 a.m. to the sound of the TV and the smell of bacon. Alex had gotten up early and made breakfast. I had Pop-Tarts because I didn’t see his note until after I’d put them in the toaster, but that’s okay.
After last night’s tornadoes (thanks for checking on us, Jennifer, Jan, and Kristy), the day dawned cool but sunny. Mark and I had planned to go to Julia Street and the arts district, but Dan and Alex planned to go to the zoo, and James and Tom agreed to join them. We decided to put off the arts district until tomorrow, so we all piled onto a street car and rode down to the Audubon Park and Zoo. The perimeter walk around the (quite large) park is shaded by ancient live oaks covered in ferns. It was really the most pleasant walk we’ve had here so far.
Some of you know that I’m not a big fan of zoos. Putting animals in artificial habitats that are much smaller those in which their species typically reside seems inhumane to me. However, my impression was mostly formed by a visit to the Columbus zoo twenty-some-odd years ago. I recently attended a wedding there and was surprised to see that for many animals, things had improved, so I was willing to give the Audubon Zoo a shot. I still can’t quite unsee the pathos in the eyes of the elephants in particular, but I also recognize that zoos do important work helping species survive the destruction we bring down on them.
Ok stop preaching….
On our visit today, I did get to see some pretty/funny/interesting animals that seemed quite at home. That’s what the rest of this post is about, other than to say we have reservations tonight for dinner at Estrella—a place we tried unsuccessfully to get into two nights ago. Now, on with the show.
Sorry for no post yesterday with describing Sunday’s adventures. Yesterday was Mark’s and my 27th Anniversary, and we spent it exploring the city with our friends. By the end of our day, I’d walked 25,000 steps and wasn’t up for typing. (That sounds like I walked on my hands. LOL. That much foot time did a number on my back, so I wanted just to settle into a soft seat and take it easy.) Now I’ll try to bring us up to date.
I know I promised photos of our hotel suite, but since our bed’s not made, I’ll limit myself to a photo of the living/dining/kitchen areas. This gives you a pretty good feel for general flavor of the place. Contemporary glam is perhaps the best description. Behind me is a wall of windows looking out onto our balcony. Behind Mark are two bedrooms, and beyond the kitchen is a hallway that leads to the third bedroom and to the door into the suite.
Dan, my feet, Mark’s foot, and James’s feet in our living/dining/kitchen area.
Like Saturday evening, Sunday was another day of wandering and exploring. We started with breakfast at Two Chick’s Cafe, which a happy, inviting restaurant with good food. Our waitress was a doll with a beautiful Caribbean accent. I had a chicken and gouda omelet that was very tasty. I must have needed salt, though, because the salted butter on my white toast was divine! Here are James and Mark horsing around at our table.
Didn’t your mother tell you not to play at the table?
After lunch, James—who lived in NOLA a century ago—guided us on a long walk down to the Mississippi. Boy, Memphis could learn a lot about developing their waterfront. We looked at a lot of bad—but also some good—street art around Jackson Square. We thought about getting beignets at Cafe du Monde, but the line was ridiculous. (In fact it was ridiculous every time we walked by the cafe in the last three days, so I have yet to taste the famous treat.) I’m now thinking I might get a take-away beignet from their walk-up window.
The highlight of our walk on Sunday was the river front (and laughing, which the six of us tend to do a lot when we’re together, especially at Dan’s expense). Here are some photos of the walk. (And I’m sorry about the image format. WordPress has changed the way it allows me to add images, and I can’t figure out how to add multiple images at one time without putting them in a gallery or spending an hour adding them one by one.)
I think on every trip, you miss one opportunity—either through your own error or just back luck—and yesterday I missed mine. We stopped in the kind of men’s clothing store that just doesn’t exist in Columbus, and I found a fantastic, floral-print shirt. It had every color in the rainbow and would have been fabulous with my peach pants. Unfortunately, it was the last they had, and it was just a bit too tight on me. Now I’ll spend a year trying to find it online in my size. Lol. At least I saved $80.
We continued down Magazine Street and, after several false starts (thanks to Dan and me—mostly me) found a Mexican restaurant that was actually quite good. Unfortunately, I can’t find in on the map. I think it might have been La Carreta, but I’m not sure. We decided then to walk up to Lafayette Cemetery, but because it was closed for renovations, we could only look in through the openings in the outer wall. Maybe next time I’m here I can go inside. Here are some photos from Monday’s wanderings.
After the cemetery, we decided to split up—one of the great advantages of group vacations. James, Tom, and Dan returned to the hotel. Alex, Mark, and I decided to take a trolley ride for about an hour through Loyola and the zoo area. Mark took this picture of a trolley car passing us.
Even though I’m the only who’s never been to New Orleans, I think we all agree that it’s a filthy city—at least in the Central Business District and the French Quarter. In terms of trash and dust and grime, those areas are at least as bad as New York City. Unlike NYC, though, the sidewalks are a walker’s nightmare. If we get home with no broken ankles, I’ll be surprised. It seems like every paved walkway has been tree-heaved by as much as 10 inches or patched with plywood. (Really? Plywood on the ground in a city like New Orleans?) Every bricked walkway is like a mouth with broken teeth. Even in front of the Hyatt hotel, if you’re not watching the ground as you walk, you’re likely to step into a cavern and face plant.
Having said all that, though, I have to say that the garden district is lovely—just what you expect a venerable old lady like New Orleans to be. Beautiful old live oak trees overhang the streets and sidewalks offering dappled shade; broad boulevards pass trolley cars happily up and down their spines. Enormous, well-tended homes smile at each other.
Alex decided he needed a break when we got back to the hotel.
Alex in the outdoor lounge at the Marquis Hotel
So that brings us more or less up to today, Tuesday.
One of the things I like to do on trips is find used book stores, though it’s a pastime that I don’t share with most of my friends. NOLA has plenty of used bookstores, including a couple within walking distance of our hotel, so this morning, I struck out on my own while James and Tom went to a quilting store and Dan and Alex attended an owner’s update—a presentation for people in their vacation club updating them on the club.
The two bookstores I visited were Beckham’s Bookshop and Crescent City Books. Beckham’s had a bigger selection, by far, and was like something out of a Harry Potter book. It was dark and dusty and musty and creaky, and the proprietor was a somewhat, um, “off-putting” isn’t quite the word. He was ancient, and I’m sure he’s beloved by regulars, but I got the impression that he didn’t have the energy to be gregarious. While Crescent City was much smaller, it had more of my old friends on its fiction shelves, so in some ways, I was happier there (and cleaner when I walked out). I bought one book at each store: Victory by Joseph Conrad and The Childhood of Jesus by J. M. Coetzee.
I returned to the hotel to pick up Mark and Alex and Dan, newly released from the vacation-club owner’s meeting cum sales pitch, and we went out for lunch. Dan picked a tiny little hole in the wall—Jimmy J’s Cafe—with, again, good food but also a friendly, helpful server who was fun to joke around with. They only serve breakfast food, but of course, for Dan and me, that was just fine.
Dan and Alex wanted to head back to the hotel after lunch since we’d walked so much the day before, but Mark and I were eager to look for galleries in the area. We found a fair number, but really most of the art was “tourist” art—easy to crank out or way over the top or too “pop-y.” Almost all of them represented only one artist, so we saw very little diversity within each gallery, and all of the galleries seemed to have figured out what sells to out-of-towners looking for moments because there wasn’t much more variety among the galleries. We’re hoping that the galleries on Julia Street will be more to our taste.
I didn’t have my camera with me today, and it was grey in anticipation of a big storm arriving this evening, so I don’t have any pics from today, but now that the tornados have passed (yes, tornadoes in south-east New Orleans tonight), tomorrow should be a nicer day. Mark and I are planning to go to the aforementioned Julia Street and perhaps get me a new hat. I’ll take some pictures then.
Dinner tonight was a bit chaotic. We learned yesterday that we can’t just go someplace for a bite. Everything is booked up, so we end up in some mediocre dive eating grilled chicken sandwiches. With the storm tonight, however, we decided to order in. That, however, became a problem because with the storm rolling in, almost all restaurants had stopped making deliveries. James and Tom found a Chinese on UberEats, and Alex and Dan found a sandwich place through DoorDash. Mark and I ended up eating cereal and leftover pizza.
Right now, James is watching a song-contest TV show, and Alex, Dan, Mark, and Tom are playing Mexican Train. See what I give up for my readers? I’m writing this instead of eating brownies and playing dominoes. Lol. Mmm. Brownies.
We got in a little after 5:00 p.m. yesterday, and after an hour or so to settle in, the six musketeers went out to Crescent City Brewhous for dinner. Not a mudbug in sight. Having had a big lunch at P. F. Chang’s at the airport in Atlanta, I just had a giant pretzel for dinner (no mustard, no cheese, no pickles, please). It was actually a fairly nice place, though there was some drama when we arrived.
Unbeknownst to any of us, they were requiring vaccination cards. We’re all vaccinated and boosted, of course, but James had left his card in the hotel room. Unlike me, though, he can sweet talk chicken right off the bone and didn’t have much trouble. I, however, could not find the photo of my vaccine card on my phone. I knew it was there, but last fall, I’d taken pictures of 492 scraps of genealogy papers that my mom has amassed, and in that sea of pictures of paper, I couldn’t find. I’m embarrassed to say that I snapped pretty abruptly at Mark when he interrupted my frantic, frustrated search. In the end, they let us in without proof of vaccination, but me being me, I couldn’t let it go until I found the damn thing.
A jazz band was playing up in the front of the restaurant, and though I don’t normally like live music because I have trouble hearing and conversing over it, they were actually quite good and added more to the experience than they detracted from it. They opened with the theme song from any 80s TV show that none of us could quite put our finger on. Dan thought the song was “Just the Two of Us” rather than a theme, and it was close to that, but that wasn’t it. I’m still trying to figure it out.
After dinner, we walked down Bourbon Street, which is pretty much what I expected: a lot of drunk people, obnoxious music, and junk stores. It was also overflowing with trash, which was surprising and disappointing. I’ve checked that box and don’t need to do it again. On the plus side, we occasionally passed people dancing with abandon and saw a Dixieland (?) band of about 12 young men just walking down the middle of the street playing their horns and drums.
We’re getting ready to go out for breakfast, so I’m going to pause now. Pictures of our chic hotel room and of our walk tomorrow.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Pretzels, not Mudbugs
Today, Mark and I are starting a vacation in New Orleans with our friends, Dan and Alex and James and Tom. We’ve got a leisurely layover in Hatfield-Jackson—the only place to which my travels take me where I can still get this:
I miss you, Caribou!
I’ve brought my camera and expect to start blogging our travels again after 28 stay-at-home months. (Thanks, Covid.)
Apparently, I’m the only NOLA virgin on the trip. For most people, New Orleans is about food. An acquaintance of mine in our building who travels to there regularly to visit family offered to share with me his list of the best places to eat. Obviously, he hasn’t know me very long. Is there a McDonald’s near the hotel?! I refuse to watch anyone eat mudbugs (crawfish). The thought of it reminds me of a dinner with a different group of friends.
We were in Cap City Diner, and Jimmy, who was sitting next to me, ordered lobster. The server brought out our meals, and we all tucked in. I was enjoying my chicken when Jimmy exclaimed, “Ooh. It’s fertile!” and scooped up lobster eggs from his plate. It was all I could do not to splatter the table with used chicken breast.
I am looking forward to beignets, though.
I think I’m most excited to tour the galleries in the arts district, wander around looking at the architecture, and taking a good ghost tour! (And maybe I’ll have my past lives read.)
Posted inNew Orleans 03/2022|Comments Off on The Best Reason to Fly through ATL
Monday was our last full day in Barcelona, and the entire day was focused solely on seeing La Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. I can think of two places in the world picture of which completely awed me and that I figured I would never get to see in person. I toured Angkor Wat in 2011, but I had first seen in a book that I pulled down from the shelf in my mom and dad’s living-room closet. I saw Sagrada Familia for the first time in 1992 during the Barcelona Olypmics. I remember long shots of the city from high up—probably from one of the hills that Barcelona floods around—with this unearthly, fantastical, enormous building towering over everything around it and thinking, “What is that!?”
About 20 years ago, acquaintances of Mark who knew I was fascinated by the basilica picked up a booklet about it for me while they were in Barcelona. I still have that booklet, but now I have my own memories and pictures. It’s more unearthly up close even than it was in those long shots on NBC. I’m happy to share some of them with you, and I find it comforting to thing that if I ever develop dimentia, these pictures will be a reminder to me that I did finally make it there.
The first group here is outside the basilica.
The details above are part of the Nativity Façade, which is what you see in the darker (i.e., older) stonework in the first image.
Jesus is publicly flogged.
Peter, remorseful after denying Jesus three times.
Judas’s kiss of betrayal. Note the devil in the form of a snake. That block of numbers is Gaudí’s magic square. Almost every combination of four contiguous numbers adds up to 33—the age of Jesus’s crucifixion.
Even though the images are morbid and depressing, I have to say that I found the sculptural style breathtaking. Many more sculptures in this style adorn this Passion Façade.
One of two pairs of highly allegorical bronze doors.
This is one half of one of another pair of bronze doors, these ones covering in text. (As a typesetter, I couldn’t resist.)
These are inside the basilica.
A close up of one of the allegorical doors.
An enormous bronze plaque with the Lord’s Prayer in many (49?) languages. The English is in this picture (see if you can find it), but there’s also Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and many that I didn’t immediately recognize.
I saved the following image for last. It’s my favorite feature. All of the color you see is just natural light streaming though the stained glass windows and hitting the nearly white stone. It was awe inspiring to see in person.
The shots below are taken inside the towers. We were able to take an elevator probably half or three-quarters of the way up one tower then cross a bridge into another tower and walk back down. The guide told us there are four hundred steps down. I counted 299, but given my propensity to miscount and my frequent stops to take pictures, I suspect he was right.
In the model below, the areas in white are yet to be completed. The plan is to be finished by 2026—the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death. However, that seems pretty unlikely, mainly because extending out from the white façade on the left of the model is a planned pedestrian bridge/plaza over and extending beyond the adjacent street. Unfortunately, an apartment block sits on that space, and the residents are fighting to save their homes. I can’t say I disagree with their fight, but I hope some compromise can be found and that the residents can willingly and happily be relocated to new homes.
After all that, our day sounds kind of anti-climactic, but it was good to have the time to process what we’d just seen. We really just walked around the city a little more, soaked our tired feet in the (very cold) rooftop pool, ate dinner in the hotel bar, and turned in before our trip home.
We got up early on Tuesday and taxi’d to the airport, where I discovered that the only Starbucks was just outside the international concourse. I could see it! I could have thrown a stone and hit it! But I couldn’t get to it without leaving the concourse, and getting in was a nightmare the first time. It wasn’t worth a second try, so I just sulked.
I watched a couple movies on the plane. (Moulin Rouge surprised me by being excellent.) I got confused where I was when we landed in Philadelphia (jet lag), then arrived at our condo at 11 p.m. Twenty one hours of travel, and back to work the next day.
