September 10th, Sunday: Day 12

Today was a very cold day in September, and when we woke up, we could hear the wind slapping the side of the hotel. The group knew we were in for a very cold, windy and miserable day. But we looked to make the most of it, so we woke up and got ready for the day ahead of us. When we woke up, though, Tyler punched the alarm clock and broke it.

The alarm clock Tyler punched

 He was upset that we had to wake up and head out at such an early time. The management facility sent us a bill to replace it but it was only a small fee (because the alarm clock was cheap and they had multiple in the back) and we did not get mad at Tyler. We all got ready for the day and headed down to get free breakfast provided to us by the hotel. After we ate a hearty breakfast of cereal, yogurt, and complimentary fruit, we made some coffee/hot chocolate to go. Andre got stuck with driving duty today but we let him play music on the way to our first destination for the day: Sports: Camp Nou. Tyler and Chris both fell asleep because we cranked the heat up and it was cozy and dark in the car. We started to see tall buildings more frequently and we realized we were getting closer when we started to see signs that read Camp Nou. As Andre drove closer we started to see the magnificent stadium from the side, but since it was so big, we concluded we were still far away from it. After a while driving, we found the huge, empty parking lot in the southern entrance of the giant stadium complex. The stadium itself was home to the team F.C. Barcelona, or Futbol Club Barcelona. As we got out of the car, we woke up Chris and Tyler up. As we walked to the stadium, we realized it was absolutely massive and it kept getting bigger as we walked towards it.

Camp Nou from the outside

 It was even bigger than some football stadiums! We couldn't wait for our private tour of the stadium! When the gates were opened for our tour we got to go up into the stadium. The person there told us some things about the great stadium, like its seating capacity of 99,000 people!

Our view of the field from high up.

The stadium was absolutely huge! Our guide also told us some stuff about the history of the magnificent stadium that we were spending some time at. She told us that building began on March 28th in 1954 after F.C. Barcelona needed a bigger stadium when they signed better players and grew in popularity. Construction was finished and the stadium was opened September 28th, 1957. When we toured the stadium, we got a good look at the grass fields below and how carefully cut and taken care of they were, and we were absolutely astounded. We even got to go down onto the field!

Our view of the field

History/Culture:After a couple hours of our tour we headed back to our car for the second part of our day today: the park of Montjuic. Montjuic is a hill in Barcelona, literally translated to "Jew Mountain" because of its possible Jewish population at one point and its cemeteries with Jewish relations. It was a collection of must-see buildings and complexes, like the old remnants of the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was also home to very old churches, botanical gardens, and fortresses. We weren't allowed to go into the Summer Olympics facilities because they weren't maintained and weren't in very good shape. We did get to go to the Juan Miro museum, the idea was based in 1968 by Juan Miro and the building was opened by him to inspire young artists to experiment with contemporary art. We looked at some of the pieces and not a lot of of them made sense to us, like a piece called 4 Wings by Alexander Calder. 

4 Wings by Alexander Calder

 After spending some time there, we headed to the Font Magica. This was a fountain designed in 1929 for the 1929 World's Fair as a technological masterpiece. It was a very pretty illuminated fountain that had a lot of history behind it. The fountain was damaged during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939, but it was repaired and it is still operational to this day. After Font Magica we headed to the cliffs of Montjuic to see the great sights of the harbor in which Montjuic overlooked. The view was absolutely stunning, the bright blue water we gazed over looked absolutely amazing. We took lots of pictures but after that we got back to our car and drove home. It was getting late and we were starving because we ate only snacks on our travels through Montjuic and Camp Nou, so we ate and went straight up to our warm beds. We looked forward to our last few days in Spain!