La Sagrada Familia

Yesterday we went to arguably the most important sight in all of Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia.  It's a Roman Catholic Church designed by (who else?) Gaudi.  Are.  You.  Ready??

BAM!  This is the Passion Facade.  It represents the passion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

Isn't this place nuts?

I took a video of the front: Ignore Aaron narrating.

Let's go inside.

Confessional:

The interior is supposed to represent a forest.  It is truly incredible.  I took a video from the entrance, but it's pretty bad.  Turn down the volume, it was kinda windy.

Ceiling:

One side of the room is a place of prayer:

We headed out the other side of the church, which represents the Nativity Facade.  As it states in my pamphlet: "It expresses the joy of all creation at the birth of Jesus and recounts the main events in the lives of the Holy Family of Nazareth."

This is a cryptogram:

In the gift shop, they had a poster showing that in every direction the numbers add up to 33:

Wow, someone had a lot of time on their hands.

Wa wa we wa!  Borat, anyone?  Kinda inappropriate to be quoting Borat at a church, sorry.  There was a museum underneath about the making of the church:

Gaudi's technique of hanging things upside down and looking at them in the mirror:

The church has been in construction since 1882 and it's still not complete!  It's expected to be finished around 2026.  They still have a lot more to do, here's a YouTube video of the rest of the construction to be completed.

Completion of the Basilica

There was a lot more to the museum, basically about the materials used and the timeline of events, but I thought it was pretty dry.

Then it was time for our elevator ride to the top of the Passion Tower!  Yes, we paid extra.  Let's go!

Here's our elevator:

It went 60 meters up and we walked the last 15 up to see this view of the city below (that's a total of 75 meters, for all you math prodigies out there):

Then we opted to walk down the million stairs to the ground (rather than take the elevator):

Aaron's way ahead of me!

Absolutely amazing place!  Pictures can't even capture all the tiny details and the massive scale that is La Sagrada Familia.  If you're ever in Barcelona, you have to come visit!  Don't let the price scare you (it's about 20 Euro/person).

The only other thing we did yesterday is go to a quite expensive sushi restaurant around the corner from our house because I've been craving sushi FOR SIX MONTHS!

Aaron had chicken curry rice:

Everything was good, but man was it pricey!  I did feel better after my sushi fix though, so it was worth it!

It's currently raining, so our plans to go to Casa Batllo are on the back burner (for now).  Today might be a day of laying like broccoli and watching YouTube movies.  I'll keep you posted.