Today was bizarre building day. First thing in the morning we set off for the Sagrada Familial - a church that has been in construction for something like 130 years, which was designed by Gaudi. We caught the metro there, a slightly interesting experience. It is another holiday day in Barcelona today so the streets were deserted and everything was closed. Only the turists (like us) were walking around - so we got to watch some english tourits try and fail to buy tickets and then say "bugger that, I'm walking". We actually conquered the tcket system and before long were at the cathedral.

The first thing we did was visit the museumy place underneath (mainly because it was warm), that had all these drawings and models of what the church will look like when it's eventually finished. We saw a 20 minute film english - unfortunately I slept through half of it, due to the comfy chairs and heating and darkness - mmm, it was a wrench leaving that seat to wander around the actual historically significant bit. The cathedral currently only has three sides (the last one hasn't been built yet), and two of them are entrances representing life and death. The death one was quite cool. It was all dark and angular with what looked like a sudoku carved into the wall (maybe it has some odd religious significance). Inside the cathedral the pillers were amazing, they were sculpted to look like trees and at the top they had branches. that joined together at the roof. We decided to climb up the towers, a dizzying excercise as it was hundreds of metres of spiral staircases. At the top we had a nice view of the rest of the church, especially the little spires with all this carved fruit at the top (I told you it was odd).

After a rather frugal lunch (as all the shops were closed) we walked to the second of our bizarre buildings, a house designed by Gaudi. It was ridicualously expensive to get in, but we figured it was worth it as the inside was amazing! Everything was warped and curved, the windows, the roof, the staircases. It was like a giant mushroom, or the inside of a fish or soemthing our of Alice in Wonderland. My favourite room was the drawing room which had huge windows with stained glass opening out onto the street. We climbed up through the house until we reached the attics, that were like being inside a whale, all white curves like a backbone, then the roof with its strange mosaic chimneys.

So that was some of what we did today, tomorrow we leave Barcelona for Montpellier for 4 nights, to see Chloe! On saturday night Chloe is taking me, emma and laura to a french party - should be interesting... I may have internet in Montpellier and then we go to Paris where we do have internet - and then home!

adios for know, kate