expiration date 

after playing in the playground for a while, along with other tourist kids, we started walking to the Hospital de St. Pau along the Avinguda de Gaudi. the avenue is full of old people sitting around and basking.

that’s the point where i decided that i can no longer bear the pain of wearing my heel boots, and changed to flats. praise the lord!

we took the bus from the hospital to Parc Güell. the bus was very crowded and full of teenagers. i guess, with this weather, everyone heads for a park and basks.

as soon as we got off the bus, we stopped by the first house we saw: a pink house! aina wanted to live there immediately.

the house wasn’t designed by Gaudi, but it was Gaudi’s home for 20 years, and it’s currently serves as Casa-Museu Gaudi. we didn’t go in, so the pictures were only of the outside.

we then walked to the park, entering from the back, instead of going in from the front gate.

the park itself is a fun place to be. the style is, of course, naturalistic Gaudi. there were so many interesting nooks and cranny, kids are entertaining themselves there. aina, along with many other kids — and adults, just had to climb up to the holes in the walls.

as usual, Gaudi’s mosaic work was beautiful. according to Maddy, the mozaic tiles in the park were mostly from recycled materials. that’s pretty amazing considering how much tile-work were used for the whole place… i guess Gaudi was thinking ahead of this time, eh? :)

the park was packed, though. on the main terrace of the upper deck, there was a very long and wavy bench circling a large gravel field. the bench holds the record of the longest public bench in the world… and it was full of people. it was THAT crowded, and, there were still buses of tourists arriving at the parking lot.

we walked around for a bit…

then we settled at the main terrace, squeezing ourselves to sit on the bench while aina got busy running around chasing birds with other kids.

…until she ran too fast, tripped over herself, fell down and hurt her hand.

we left the park by bus again, and had afternoon tapas at Tapa Tapa, not far from the hostel.

the small dish of paella made me want more. so, once we got back to the hostel, we asked if they could make a reservation at L’Arrosseria Xativa, the paella restaurant in Gracia that we intended to go to yesterday, but was closed. after a short nap, around 8-9pm, we took a train to the restaurant.

there was no one there. we were probably too early for dinner, since from what i heard, people in Spain go to dinner well after 9pm.

but the food was awesome…

for more pictures, there is Parc Güell photo album to browse. and the rest of today’s pictures are in the flickr’s 12 march 2012 archive archive.

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addresses:

Parc Güell
Carrer d’Olot, 13
08024 Barcelona

L’Arrosseria Xàtiva Gràcia
C/ Torrent d’en Vidalet, 26
08035 Barcelona
phone: +34 932 848 502