Here I am with my cruise-crush and dancing partner Kevin. I forgot to put this is yesterday's post, as I took it later that night, after the magic show. He's a little short, but that's OK. Plus I found out that last day he's only 23. I thought he was more like 28. I felt like a cougar.
One really cool thing our captain did, which the parent company Azamara liked so much they say they're going to make it a part of all of their cruises, is to have a representative from each country that worked on the crew to come up, say what country they were from, and say a quick greeting or something like that, and then all stand on stage. It was meant to show how we could all get along and work together. It was great and very emotional. When a crew member got on board that I knew, I'd of course cheer louder. The lady from Brazil who served on the activities staff (she was technically the fashion consultant) was one of my favorites (darn, I can't remember her name). And I think the only American other than the cruise director, was Kevin. He had a great American flag tie. He said he wasn't sure if he should wear it, but decided to. Other people around agreed it was great. It was a great moment that we could all be together and not worry about strifes. The crew member from Pakistan standing right by the crew member from India.
Captain Theodoro and me. He's a very nice and personable captain
We finally sailed into Barcelona. Our final excursion was to go around town and then to the La Sagrada Familia. Driving around town, we went by several places that were host to the Barcelona Olympics. One personal highlight for me was when we went by the diving pool. I would have liked to stop and got out and take pictures. That's the image I have most from those Olympics, seeing the city of Barcelona from the diving platform. Definitely the best diving venue I've ever seen in the Olympics. More things should be open air.
There's a lot of strange architecture in Barcelona. During one vista/picture stop, we saw a building in the distance that one guest described as a bullet. The tour guide said, "we say it looks like many different things," hinting that it looked a bit phallic.
We made it to the La Sagrada Familia, which is a beautiful church that was started over a hundred years ago by the architect Gaudi, and won't be complete until at least 2026. It's all privately funded and is just enormous. There is so much symbolism on there, it's amazing. The pictures don't do it justice, and it looks a lot prettier in person. From a distance, I didn't like it, but it's amazing up close. Each side depicts a different period in Christ's life. This side is the Nativity. The other side is the crucifixion and death of Jesus. But the styles are completely different.
You've really got to see it up close
This is the other side. A lot different looking.
We next made our way to the Museu Picasso museum. Picasso lived in Barcelona the early part of his life (before moving to Paris), and this museum houses a lot of his early works. I like to say his pre-drug period. He was actually a very talented classically trained artist, and you can see he did many great works of art before going into his famous Cubist movement. It was interesting. I'm not the biggest fan of his work, although I do like Guenerica (although that wasn't there) and this painting below, which my parents had a print of (you couldn't take pictures inside the museum at all).
Picasso wasn't really my mom or my thing, but we did enjoy the trip to the museum. We then walked around the area and made it over to the Gothic Cathedral La Seu. It's built over the chapel of a previous cathedral (which St. Peter's in the Vatican is as well). It was very different architecturally from what I had seen previously, which made it interesting, as by that time we had all seen so many cathedrals who would think there would be one that would pique our interest.
The pictures of course don't do it justice. There is a court of geese inside the cathedral grounds which is interesting and this area for the choir which is very different. Very unique and I would like more time to study it sometime.
I forget what this place was, but it was just along the street as we made our way from the Cathedral to our bus.
Our tour finally came to and end. We got to see a lot in the afternoon and evening we were in Barcelona. That night we went to a few last night performances, saw the Kristen Lee Trio one more time, but there were a lot of people who were gone. Since we were overnight in Barcelona, there were plenty of people either checking out the night life, or going to bed early, as we all had to be up early to catch our flights and other connections. I think a lot of the crew had the night off and were going out to enjoy the town. As they were most of the young people aboard, I really wanted to join them, but instead I went around saying goodbye to the ship, and finally went to bed, ready for the next morning and our trip back home.
One more post to come about the trip.
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