View From The Top...

Gentle Reader, I am a very serious person.  

I have no sense of humor, generally refrain from all silliness, walk with perfect posture, have deeply profound thoughts, and hold highly intelligible and intellectual conversation edged with a raw whit and criticism, all of which leaves people quite in awe of my obvious genius and voyeurism.  (And here I hope that the lack of linguistic inflection does not diminish the sarcasm of the former sentences.)  

In all seriousness though, I must beg you to believe that I am not quite so dopey and irrelevant as the last months have made me out to be.  Poor Ryan, who has been stuck with me every waking hour, has witnessed my rapid decent into this inane mien and it's a daily, vicious, cycle.  

Each morning, as we map out our day's route, I am as stoic of character as ever I was, but, as soon as we step out into the cold, my brain seems to shut down, leaving room but for a single though: I'm cold, I'm cold, I'm cold.  In an effort to distract myself, I attempt idle conversation, but my tongue becomes so heavy in my mouth that it cannot form proper sounds, and my brain can only produce a series of tones that could only be compared to a dying pigeon.  

Ryan, ever the gentleman, nods politely, and lends me his mittens.

All of this happens on a good day.

After leaving Paris mid-January, the plan was to head south until the weather improved and we could visit Eastern and Northern Europe more comfortably.  We had a false-spring in Barcelona, and the sun taunted us for several days in Madrid.  Rome was chilly too, but nothing, nothing compared to the cloudy morning we spend climbing the Acropolis in Athens.

Greece was the furthest South we'd been in ages, and I naively assumed we'd finally find the sun.

False.

So, good days are mindless babbling.  But bad days are no talking at all.

I honestly can't remember what exactly happened this morning in Athens.  Photographic evidence suggests I made it to the top of the Parthenon, and even had the wherewithal to use the fake "lens tilt" setting I'd accidentally discovered on my camera when we stopped to watch the sunset from the Spanish Steps in Rome. But no memory of the place exists until I found myself staring into a mirror in the bathroom of a restaurant, hands crumpled under the faucet of hot water.

This, I can only assume, was a result of hypothermia, and marks my first out-of-water case of this affliction.  Naturally, when I warmed back up to "babbling cold", I felt the need to yabber on at length about this to my nurse (aka my mom) via skype.

This is the worst winter Europe has seen since last year, and when I can manage such an altruistic thought, my heart goes out to all the homeless people dying out in the cold. 

But this doesn't happen very often as I am usually to wrapped up in my own well being to take notice of the plight of others and I'm cold, I'm cold, I'm cold.

The Sagrada Familia...

There are few words, I think, that could even begin to describe the prolific works of Antoni Gaudi.

Standing outside, the under-construction towers seem to lack uniformity and the fluidity of his other buildings.  Five million things seem to be happening at once, to dizzying effect.

 

 Inside, however, this all changes.  A forest of colored pillars rises around you, light streams in through leaded windows, and the ceiling fans out above like a canopy of leaves.  Here, everything comes together in the most hyperbolic* feat of architecture I have ever seen.  I wish my dad had been here to see it too.

 

Before climbing these towers of the Sagrada Familia, I had never experienced any sort of vertigo with heights.  But, built to reach as close to heaven as the nearest mountains, the spindly towers and narrow steeple steps had my knees shaking.  This great cathedral really does touch the sky.

*During the audio guided tour, they continually referred to the architecture as "hyperbolic" which I assumed meant prone to hyperbole.  Later I found this is not true at all, but refers instead to a mathematical term regarding a hyperbola triangle.  Facts aside, I am rather partial to my definition and will continue to regard this architectural style as "prone to exaggeration".

Barca-loca...

Just a hop skip and a jump from Paris, here we are in Barcelona!  Oh, how I love EasyJet.  Until we have such a brilliant airline in the states, I think I'll just stay here, thanks. 

First up on the itinerary:  visiting the legendary buildings of the Catalan architectural wonder, Gaudi.

 Being inside Casa Batlló is like being underwater.  Not only do the gradient blue walls mirror the colors of the sea and the glass stairwell distort your vision like the surface of a pool, but there is the strange sense that every visitor seems to be holding their breath, awaiting with expectation the next extraordinary bend in Antonio Gaudi's marvelous creation.  Traditionally, Art Nouveau is about following forms in nature, best seen in winding floral decorations reminiscent of Islamic arabesque, or Celtic knot work.  Never before have I seen work of this era that follows, so intrinsically, the patterns of the natural world. 

Emerging at the top of the famous apartment building felt like tumbling out of a wave.  Everyone seemed to breathe sharply, and deeply, like they were coming up for air.  From the top, we looked out over Barcelona.  In front of us was the ocean, behind us, Parc Guell and the pine green mountains, and to our right the sun sank behind Mount Juiic, throwing the palace profile of the Catalan history museum and the iconic communications tower into sharp relief.

Bon dia, Barca.

A Little Castle...

I am rather obsessed with architecture and spaces, and if you know me, you'll know that I absolutely love Julia Morgan.  This early 20th century architect studied at UC Berkeley and the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris.  She's designed many iconic buildings around the San Francisco Bay Area and California.  Her most famous work was created for William Randolph Heart in San Simeon.  I always dreamed of living in Heart's Castle when I was young, and swimming in the Neptune Pool.  

A couple of years ago, I stumbled across The Berkeley City Club, a YWCA turned hotel on Durant Street.  This little hotel captures some of the grandeur of Heart's Castle, with vaulted ceilings, elegant staircases, and an indoor swimming pool.

I never dreamed I'd have the means to stay at the Little Castle, but this winter, Living Social, and Groupon-like coupon service had a deal on the hotel.  It was a very sporadic purchase, but I don't regret it one bit!  Ryan and I spent two nights at the Berkeley City Club, sitting on the porches overlooking the Berkeley hills at night, reading in the private gardens, and swimming in the pool!  As we were in Berkeley, we ate very well too.  We visited two new restaurants, Gather and Camino, that quickly became some of our favorite places to eat.