This is in the attic of Casa Mila, but it shows how Gaudi calculated stresses. You’ll need to click through to see the whole image.
oh, that’s really cool!
There are tickets for park guell with and without a tour. Which would you recommend?
We went without a tour, but with a guidebook to see what we wanted to see. I’m sure we missed a bunch, but after having a guide for the rest of the Gaudi experience we were content to wander on our own. The most interesting part for us was figuring out the public transport, but it’s pretty easy with your phone.
A guide may help you skip some lines, but we didn’t wait there. Read up on the options, if you have specific things you want to see a guide might be worth it.
I don’t know enough to have things i want to see. 
Maybe a your would be worth it. It maybe it would be annoying to have to walk with a group.
We enjoyed wandering around the park, because, you know, it’s a park. For that reason alone, I’d want to be on our own. We hung out for a while on the Serpentine Bench, that paths are super fun, and the crowds are concentrated in the restricted zone so the rest of the park is mostly free of people and full of little gems. We didn’t go in any of the building tours.
Well, one thing not to do is to go out with your wallet in a funky little zip pocket and not zip the pocket. I don’t think i was pickpocketed (my phone would have been a lot more accessible to a pickpocket) i think my wallet fell out of my pocket into the street.
I’m here with my husband, who has all different credit cards, and i wasn’t carrying my passport. But boy is this a pita. My medical payment debit card didn’t want to cancel without my proving my identity via a long serious of questions including stuff i don’t know and can’t look up here, like when is the last time i used it and how much i paid. Eventually a supervisor decided he could mark it lost. And i tried to order a new driver’s license, but the website timed our while i was borrowing my husband’s card to pay for it, and then it wouldn’t let me start the transaction over because it’s already asked for a new card.
Sigh.
Other than that, how’s your trip? Have you tried a Damn beer yet? Sounds like you need one, or two.
Other than that, it’s been great. There’s a drought, which sucks for lots of reading but the weather has been perfect for touristing. I went to Montserrat yesterday, and did some light hiking up among the bizarre hills. I also saw the black Madonna and one of the more eclectic museums I’ve ever been to, everything from paintings by Monet to Torah scrolls to Russian religious icons to Greek pottery, all in a couple of rooms. This morning we saw the sagrada familia, by Gaudi.
This is not the first hiccup. On the flight over, i sat down and got settled, and a woman came by and told me i was in her seat. We had both been issued boarding passes for the same seat! I ended up staying there. I think they found her another seat, but I’m not sure.
About to dig into lunch at one of the many little street cafes.