Gaudi's Gothic Guell (23rd August)

As mentioned in the previous post, this morning started with the very sad news of the passing of Shona's Aunty Yvonne. For this reason it was decided to have a very relaxed day, enjoying some of the sights of Bathelona (not technically how it's spelt... but how it should be pronounced) I'd have said 'the sights and smells' except we haven't been enjoying the smells of this place -Jeremy asked the "Smelliest place?" question a day or two early as we now have a very clear winner! We caught the bus for a 45 minute ride up to Park Guell, which is a very large park. The land was originally bought by Palau Guell to be a subdivision for the elite. He commissioned his friend eccentric architect Antoni Gaudi to design it, but ultimately it failed as only 2 lots of 60 something where bought. The land was then bought by the city and is now a great place to walk through to see a view of the city as well as seeing an large number of Gaudi's works. 'Eccentric' probably doesn't go anywhere near far enough to describe Gaudi - he definitely took his passion for gothic design and ran a long long way from normal with it! It was another hot hot day so we took it at a pretty slow pace and stopped to enjoy a drink or an ice cream whenever the chance presented itself. Back on the bus in time to clean up and head out to a cooking class that we'd booked through the Busabout network. We met up at a local bar and headed over to where the class was taking place, the 40+ people that turned up for the 30 seats a sign that this is a popular daily event! It was a bit of torture being sat in front of some tapas ingredients, but when the lady showed us how to make them (and more importantly how to make sangria) it was all hands on deck to get amongst it. She then produced a HUGE paella pan, which is like a massive wok except it has a flat bottom to go on the flames. She went through the process of making a seafood paella, then dished it up to the waiting masses! Was much much nicer than the paella the previous night and definitely brought Spanish cooking back into a favourable light with us! She explained that Salamana used to do a good paella, but now they have become too big and too commercial and aren't doing it anywhere near as good, hence our experience the previous night. We stayed at the bar for a while and had drinks with some of the girls in our dorm room, meeting interesting people is definitely one of the biggest highlights of staying in shared accommodation!