La Sagrada Familia

A couple days ago I went to finally see La Sagrada Familia (The church of the sacred family), a.k.a. Guadi's incomplete masterpiece. The outside, which is pretty much complete, is incredible. The detail and architecture are unlike anything I have ever seen before. You can see some of it in the pictures, but it is impossible to capture with a camera. I paid the 12 euros to go inside, and I could tell that it will be amazing some day. At the moment, it looks like a huge, empty, under-construction church. I could tell that the architecture and design of the inside were great, but most of the building was hidden behind screens and barricades so tourists don't get hit with falling boulders or sparks from the welders. I thought it was very worthwhile seeing, but I would like to go back in 50 or 100 years when they finally finish the damn thing.

I will be away from the computer until Sunday, as I am taking a trip up to France and Andorra with Mom, Liz and Jake. Hopefully you will all be able to carry on without me.

Observation of the day: My sports teacher is the coolest person I have ever met.
We spent the last two days in my sports class talking about 'football hooliganism.' Basically, if anybody has seen the movie Green Street Hooligans, it's a lot like that. For those of you who haven't, crazy fans of all the soccer clubs in Britain and throughout Europe kind of joined together into gangs in the 60's and 70's so that they could fight each other before, during and after matches. So Dawn tells us that these soccer gangs are becoming more and more like real gangs--drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc.--and the cops are trying to crack down on them. Dawn, my teacher, was studying for her master's in sports sociology or something like that, and she and three other women were a part of a undercover sting operation to try to bring these gangs down!! Apparently, her job was to become the girlfriend of one of the higher-ups in the gang and then feed info to the police about what was going on. She said she had to shave her head, get some fake Nazi tattoos (a lot of the hooligans were skin heads or neo-Nazis), change her name, and couldn't talk to anyone she knew for nine months!! The best part was that her "boyfriend" ended up going to jail for like two or three years because of the info Dawn provided. And that is why she is the coolest person I have ever met. Pictures below.