Kazan — summer 2012

All night long when I would wake up and absently rub my forehead, I could feel skin peel off. And this morning I have low grade nausea and a low grade headache. I think I have a bit of sunstroke. Been some years since that happened.

Last Christmas in Canada I stubbed my toe something fierce, which resulted in an enormous bruise under the left side of the big toenail on my right foot. Now it looks like half that toenail wants to slough right off. Since only half of it is coming off, I have to wonder whether this will be problematic.

Picture below. I know you want so see it.

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I returned to La Sagrada Familia so I could see the interior. Purchased both an entry and an elevator ride so I could get the view from high up as well. This particular blog template is not particularly suited to larger photos, so I've put my photos together in an album that you can view here.

I don't use the word 'genius' often, but I do think that Gaudí was a genius. The vision of this place is astonishing.

Now let's go to the emotional side.

The interior of the basilica is, if anything, more astounding than the exterior. Groined arches make an incredible interior space, and the play of light through the windows produces a feeling of something that I can only label ‘glory.’ It’s rare for a building space to make a distinct emotional impact on me, but some places have. For instance, the restrained plainness of the interior of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson produces stillness in me. The Benedictine Sanctuary of Perpetual adoration, also in Tucson, produces the desire to pray. I once heard the theory that a church should produce a vision of heaven in the worshipper, and until today no place has even approximated that for me. But this place... it produces a feeling of beauty that makes one think of the promises of heaven, a place where beauty and peace and glory are melded together in a way that make eternity desirable to the heart. (That last bit is significant. Would you really want eternity as your sixteen-year old self? That would be, most likely, a frantic existence. But an eternity of beauty and peace and glory is a different thing entirely.)

There is a shop attached to the church, for entry to which, amusingly enough, one has to line up. There are droves of people in the basilica, but the size of the place and the viewer’s respectful attitudes mean that noise is not an issue. Still, with the many people and the sideline commercialism and the steep entrance price, I found myself wondering whether God could be found here.

He can.

I entered the main worship area. There was no place to kneel, so I sat, folded my hands and closed my eyes. The sense of the presence of God was immediate. As sometimes happens, my heart bypassed the discipline of adoration and went straight to confession, the sins of the preceding year crossing my heart and mind. I am as yet unsure how to get past them, but I'm asking, and that is the type of prayer that God is wont to hear.

I had purchased a 5-day “Barcelona Card” for my stay, which gives me unlimited access to the major public transport services and also free entrance to dozens of museums and nearly two hundred discounts. Among the free entrance coupons was one to Le Museu de xocolata. I had to go. Here is the entrance.

Once inside my coupon was exchanged for a ticket, and the ticket was a dark chocolate bar (73%) with an ennumerated wrapper.

The museum itself is an odd little place. There are mock-ups of various bits of chocolate history making, some video and audio, and a hallway of famous Catalonian chocolatiers, a microhistory of the industrialization of chocolate making, and many devices that are used in the production of chocolate. And then there was something I entirely did not expect: multiple cases of chocolate art. By which I mean statues and dioramas made of regular chocolate and white chocolate and painted chocolate. There was a diorama of Don Quixote having fallen on the ground after tilting at the windmill, with Sancho Panza looking on in laughter, which was about 2½ feet tall. There were chocolate cartoon characters, includi Tom & Jerry, Asteryx and his huge side-kick. There was a chocolate Sagrada Familia. There was a chocolate Pietà (übertacky, offensive). They were all quite amazingly produced.

The museum empties into a chocolate shop, where I decided to have their hot chocolate.

This was the thickest hot chocolate I've ever had. See the video; I'd say it was a bit thicker than the standard Hershey' Chocolate Syrup.

The original drink of hot chocolate had chiles and spices in it and was not at all sweet. Some day I'd like to find a place that has such a thing. That would be interesting!