barcelona, day 3

us, at the park guell



paola wanted to go to the zoo, so we did. apparently one thing that barcelona is famous for is this white albino gorilla (every place we go to has postcards of it). i thought it would be neat to see it too. so we went, but to our dismay, the gorilla had died in 2003. it turns out that it is also the only known albino gorilla ever (certainly, there have been more, but no person has ever seen another one)! some locals (somewhere in africa) found it and turned it over to the local zoo, which was a subsidiary of the barcelona zoo, so then it came here back in the 1960s. they had it mated, and it has four offspring that have survived (perhaps one day they will produce another albino gorilla). knowing that it was the only one ever, i was that much more impressed. another interesting thing about the zoo here is that they dont keep such a distance between the humans and the animals (the safer ones, at least). we saw some kids feeding the elephants leaves (the elephant had to reach a far way with its trunk, but got the leaves nonetheless). they also had dolphins in a big tank at the zoo, but we didnt stay to watch a show.

paola was most impressed with a gorilla exhibit there. there were no gorillas at this particular place (they were elsewhere in the zoo), but there was a lot of information about the albino gorilla, and some spanish pioneers in gorilla study (before americans jane goodall and diane fossey). she reminiced about how she should have persued biology, or zoology to study animals. she liked the idea of living with gorillas to study them. i reminded her that there is nothing that is stopping her from persuing such a career now; how difficult would it be to go back and get an undergrad, degree in such a field, then persuing such a career. once one starts saying, “i should have,” or “i could have,” or “i wish that,” then that person might as well call it quits now, because as far as i can tell, we are never slaves to the surrounding situation, and are free to do what we want.

from the zoo, which is in a big pretty park like central park, we walked up and saw the barcelona arc de triomf. from what i can tell, just about each city has something or another like this, either from ancient times, or more modern times, or whatever. this one was made with red bricks.

we took the subway up to the parc guell, which is a park that gaudi designed. it was all the way up a big hill, and we had to walk up most of it (there were some escalators, though). it has been described as something that would have been a good home for a doctor seuss character (indeed, a lot of gaudi’s more interesting buildings can be described in such a way). it was very crowded with people, and seemed very empty of structures, since it was such a big park. there were a couple of neat buildings, and artificial cavelike structures that were neat. there was also the fountain at the entrance that has a famous sculpture of a lizard. it was basically just a large park with some neat structures thoughout. although we felt let down when we were there, it was a neat place, and gaudi didnt finish it, so i should be a little more fair....

on our way back, i wanted to see the casa punxta that i was unable to photograph yesterday. we saw it, and i think the sunlight was hitting it a little better anyway, so that was good. i also walked back down to the casa mila to take some more photos there that i was unable to yesterday. we then went back to the hotel and relaxed. we later had a little dinner, and called it a day.