Barcelona: Behold the Beauty

One of the most wonderful things we did in Barcelona BY FAR was visit different houses built and designed by Antoni Gaudi.
Apparently I am out of the loop because I had never before heard of Gaudi before Barcelona.
According to my neighbor, who upon first mention of Barcelona got to talking about Gaudi, informed me that we get the term "gaudy" from Antoni himself. (  Example: "I'm not comfortable with this bracelet, its too gaudy" )
I am going to post  four different Gaudi posts and by the end of them you should understand why that term comes from his name!

Here is the first of four.

According to wikipedia Gaudí devoted his life entirely to his profession, remaining single. He is only known to have been attracted to one woman—Josefa Moreu, teacher at the Mataró Cooperative, in 1884—but this was not reciprocated.^[40] Thereafter Gaudí took refuge in the profound spiritual peace his Catholic faith offered him.

Below are pictures of La Sagrada Familia
These pictures do not do it justice!
The details of it are beyond anything I can describe- but I shall try!


La Sagrada Familia isn't yet finished and it is considered the pinnacle of one's career to be able to contribute to it.

The front depicts the crucifixion of Christ

Gaudi put himself as an observer

The details are amazing

And INSIDE... well, it takes your breath away

He wanted to depict a forest. Gaudi loved nature considering it "a book worth reading".
In the works I saw of his he tried to merge nature and architecture and the results are astounding.
He wanted the inside of the church to mimic the solitude of being alone in a forest while the gentle light being reminiscent of God's presence.

Unbelievable
Last but not least the back of the cathedral depicts the birth of Christ.



There were so many details I literally could have spend 4 hours picking them out.
Details like the genealogy of Christ written on a pillar and a snake wrapping itself around said pillar.
(that was one of my fave's)
Seeing as the cathedral would be one of the first things incoming ships would see he wanted the cathedral to appear as a sand castle.
Everything about it is symbolic and beautiful.
If you are EVER in Barcelona this is a MUST see.
The pictures fail in comparison.
It honestly is a worshipful experience. 

Taking thoughts captive

I won't be the first to say it, and then again, I probably won't be the last:

Sometimes marriage is more rolled eyes and holding your temper than romance.

Sometimes the house WILL NEVER! SEEM! CLEAN!

Sometimes you contract a bout of "food poisoning"? from Chilli's? and have to lay on the couch not even putting a dent on the many to do's for the day

I can't remember where I read it but I wrote it down on a scrap paper beside me:

The art of trading negative thoughts for positive ones.

It sounds kind of gimmicky. And sometimes there are things that a positive spin won't cancel out.

I refuse to be that Suzy Sunshine girl, out of touch with reality telling people to "turn that frown upside down"

But for the petty things in my day, which have the tendency to really bogg me down - It has worked.

My sweet husband took time off from what he was doing yesterday to help me BAKE for a baby shower b/c I was sick/ stressed out. It was a pretty selfless act that need not go unnoticed. (Also due to the stomach thing I contracted...from... Memphis pizza Cafe? the smell of chocolate sickened me- which you can say  is a MIRACLE in itself that I went more that 24 hrs not craving chocolate!)

I have a house filled with things I love, many people have lived with far less.

I got to lay on the couch last night...sick... while my sweet puppy dog loved on me and I got some extra reading time in.

Plus, despite the random stomach gargles I feel somewhat better today...

I'm not saying that YOU can be a happier person in these three easy steps! But I will say there is something to focusing on the positive,
But then again, I'm not the first person to say it....

Pop Culture Posting

Well Tez found out that there was an INDONESIAN FIGHTING movie out at the Paridiso....

You had me at Indonesian...

You had Tezar at Indonesian FIGHTING....

He literally made me watch the trailer on his computer in Starbucks...twice.

Needless to say, guess which movie we ended up seeing on date night?!

Pretty violent, I'll admit it.... but also, soooo freaken awesome!!!

A reviewer said that it was like a martial arts ballet and I felt that was an adequate description.

I'm not really a kung fu type of girl but BOY did this movie make me want to THROW DOWN and fight bad guys!

I might even cash in the kickboxing groupon I purchased a while back b/c I have caught the FEVER!

Now, the movie is in Indonesian so there are subtitle's ya'll... I understood maybe four words with what little Indonesian I'm learning but the good thing is: KARATE needs no subtitles!

Last but not least Tez and I have been all about some Walking Dead lately.

Once again, I am NOT a scary movie girl....seriously...I STAY AWAY. It gets in my head.

But the first season is on netflix and my coworker has adamantly told me to watch it.

The first episode sucked us right in and we are hooked!

Let's just say that I'm a fan even though it does get in my head...

I have already had like 3 dreams about being involved in a Zombie-apocalypse

And needless to say last night I not only dreamt about a Zombie-apocalypse but a KARATE FILLED

zombie-apocalypse.

I've got to start watching chick-flick's again....

Leaving [Part One]

Sometimes life throws you curves and you can't help but freak out a bit....

Sometimes when you get what you've wanted for a while, it seems much more scarier on paper!

It's moments like this when I take comfort in the fact that a little girl walked through a wardrobe into an unexpected land, full of adventure and surprise.

Or take comfort in the story of a hobbit who while not looking for adventure had adventure find him and after a worthwhile journey returned to his hobbit hole never to be the same again.

I know it's silly that these are fictional stories but I think their theme is one that is applicable today, even now.

Since I was a young girl I was drawn to stories like these.

I snuck the Narnia tales with me to read in the hall of Sunday night church,

my copy of the Hobbit worn and frail from being read over and over again.

These are stories of people doing great things b/c they took risks, and I heard a call.

I also take great comfort in that fact that in any journey/adventure I am on in this life I am never alone and there is a greater Author weaving together my story. He's done a great job so far, why should I doubt Him now?

It's moments like this when I like to reread an excerpt from an author who, I sometimes feel, writes inside my head.

I soak in the words and let them settle for a bit,

and I feel what I felt when I first read them- adventure far away on the horizon, leaving- a mere daydream.

And now that time draws nearer and leaving is inevitable

I find comfort in the thought that when I last read these words leaving was a hope, a butterflies in the stomach "if only".

And now, I have no choice but to follow that dream and trust

so I remember that fire I felt awaken my soul from the stories I read of dragons and fauns with parcels and trustworthy lions

the fire that once again warmed my heart as I reread these lines:

...life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath:

I’ll tell you how the sun rose

A ribbon at a time . . .

It’s a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn’t matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

This passage was an excerpt from Through Painted Deserts.

Barcelona [the food]

The sign reads: Barcelona where being a glutton can't be helped!

I kidd

If I had to pick one of the best experiences I had in Barcelona it would be....well...EATING!!

I had heard that Barcelona was the "food capital of the world"

I had heard of people speak of the experience of eating great food

(usually a movie involving a sexy foreigner talking about food affecting the senses)

I have even been to Brazil where a big part of the culture is hanging out over food. Where dinner can last up to 4 & a half hours (I am not making this up...it happened... and I love it)

But in Barcelona, it aaaalllllll made sense

Unfortunetly I didn't get many pics of what we ate

(they were on the lost camera...still not over it)

But I did get some pics of our first two meals and BOY did it just keep getting better from there!

I kind of have to make fun of how Tez is posing in the above pic....

If you don't know know Tez, you don't know that my husband doesn't consider anything a meal unless it has meat in it.

Must I reference the time I made "vegetarian spaghetti" and he cut up a hot dog and added it to the dish??!!

But even I went ga-ga over the meat.

It was delicious!

Tez was so proud.

But seriously, the dishes were WORKS of ART

And they weren't HUGE but the way the used such few ingredients and combined them into the most wonderful tastes... they have it down to a SCIENCE there, people...it seriously was a party in my mouth every meal. That's the only way I can adequately explain it, I don't care what you think...

There was something for everyone to love:

2 words:

TRUFFLE OIL

I had never experienced it before.

Truffle oil makes EVERYTHING better.

I soon began ordering anything that had it in the description.

(And I am still trying to loose the pounds I gained on that trip!)

(WORTH IT!!!)

Last but not least....

Oh sweet nectar of life

My mouth waters looking at those...

If the food was a work of art these babies were love at first sight.

In Barcelona I imagined myself glamorously drinking a morning cappuccino on a street cafe.

And boy did I indulge in EVERY chance I got!

There are no words.....

Catching up [Part Deux]

Soooo last summer Tez and I met his family in a little town called Barcelona.

I know... the woes of being married to a man whose family lives half way across the world, you have to meet them in the middle of the world... somewhere...

I KIDD.

Other than Tez being the love of my life and his family being the sweetest in-laws a girl could ask for, traveling with them is icing on the cake. I , kiddingly, tell my girlfriends that they just HAVE to marry a foreigner for traveling reasons alone ;)

This trip was fun because I got to see Tez' step brother and hang out with Tez' cousin Iris. Tez' brother had lived in Barcelona for a while so he was able to be an awesome guide and Iris was a sweet companion. You'll get glimpses of them in the video.

This trip was taken last summer (august-ish) and I honestly meant to blog about it but there were just SOOO many pictures, and then I accidently left my camera in a taxi there which had the MOST AWESOME pics of when we rented bikes and rode them through the alley's and streets of Barcelona to the beach and we, of course, never saw that camera again. Thankfully the camera I lost before that (which was why Daddy Gani bought me a new camera) was found at the hotel so that was good but SERIOUSLY who does that happen to?! (Classic Tati I just felt sooo irresponsible and awful! Not to mention the pics and camera were AWESOME)

Apparently I still really need to move on and get over it...

Nonetheless I never blogged about the incredible trip and then the hubs made a video and as I was thinking about traveling I figured I would make due on a blogging promise made way back when and show you a little something about our trip. So here you go, maybe the next couple of posts I will write about some sites we saw b/c they were just wonderful. Consider this video a taste:

Oh yea, two things before you view it:

a) I sound a little pretentious on the video when Tez is asking me questions more than likely due to the fact that I was sick of being recorded!!! But now that I see the method behind the maddness, in the future, I will gladly participate in Tez' question asking

b) Yes, we highlight some people's dance moves in the video not in a we can dance better than you way (b/c this Puerto Rican sure CAN'T DANCE for NOTHING) it was just fun to people watch

All right here it is:

Didn't he go such a good job?!

What a talented husband I have!

Catching up

Hi friends!

So sorry i have been incognito these last couple of weeks... life has been CRAY!

but allow me to update you a bit:

Ran that 'lil 5K I was talking about! Didn't stop once and I'm not gonna lie I am proud of myself!

Not so proud of the fact that I somehow injured myself and literally limped for two days after that and didn't even try to run on it until a week later... Yup... what a wimp...you win some you loose some!

I do believe running with friends/accountability was key for me

Still plan on running and nope... never a half marathon....we're looking into another 5k in May...

Last but not least, some big things have been going on here at our household... I had to give my job my month's notice which was a very sad thing...big changes occurring in the future, no i'm not preggers! But we have an awesome trip planned:

i'll leave you with some visuals...

If all goes accordingly that will be me come May...

and, yes, I do plan on being dressed like that,

(of course Tez will come with)

let the Wanderlust begin!!!