sunday in spain

sunday morning at the peña house means getting up and ready, cooking, eating and leaving the house by 9:30am so that we don't miss the bus. if we miss the bus, we miss the train and we arrive at church late. but yesterday, we were fine!

the church is called por gracia (by grace) and is near downtown barcelona. it was wonderful to meet the members and have the Lord's supper with them. the service started around 11:15 and lasted for about an hour and a half. then we talked, had lunch and postres (dessert, pastries). i think they usually have café too, but after postres a friend and i took the metro to la plaza cataluña. She has been living here since january, so she was able to show me around for a few hours. i saw some buildings by gaudí--la casa milá and another whose name i forgot. we also walked around el barro gótico (the gothic neighborhood). it is a really neat section of the city, full of old buildings and cathedrals. then we found a little café and ordered a couple of cups of café con leche, which for any of you coffee nuts is a shot of espresso and steamed milk. it's served in a small cup so that the ratio of coffee and milk is 50/50. for any of you sweet-tooths, we added sugar too. 

(i didn't take my camera sunday. this was taken on the bus from the airport last week)

barcelona is similar to other big cities i've been in. there are the statue people, who get all dressed and painted up, then line the streets as statues. there are the guys who walk around playing annoying "instruments" hoping someone will buy a few. there are also all those people who lay things out to sell in plazas, but have all the goods on a tarp and tied together so that they can run away when the cops show up. 

right now, in la plaza cataluña, there is a protest going on. i think it is against unemployment...or something like that. we saw people in animal cages, with tshirts made to look as if they were torn by whips on the back, a guy in rags pulling nails out of a board, etc. all the statues in the plaza had ropes on them so that they look as if they were oppressed. 

so that was fun. 

on the metro ride home, the track had a section closed for maintenance, so i had to get on a bus for 10 minutes. spain's public transport is so good though. they shuttled all the metro people on buses to the next available station, where we hopped right back on the metro. granted, it took at least 85 minutes to get home, when it usually takes 50 or so. 

(train station. also from last week) 

so that was fun, too.