Two Shades Of Boomer Travel

Even when you go someplace you’ve never been, you’ll find shades of familiar.

It takes a special place, one filled with its own internal music, to make everything old feel new again.

The band in my brain cranked up in Barcelona, Spain when I saw the Gaudi church, La Sagrada Família.

One part Disney, one part Enchanted Forest, and all parts beyond incredible, the church goes where no building has ever been.

Somewhere between Viking dream and melting acid nightmare trip, the structure rearranges what you’d expect man to build. It starts from across the street. Every step, every corner turned, felt like a dream.

Make no mistake, the Gaudi church is an ongoing love affair.  The devout man would say it’s love of Jesus, and it probably is when you see the statues of Jesus on the church.

But it’s more.

Boomers have seen things melt, or heard others talk about the experience. The melting Nazi in the first Indiana Jones movie wasn’t their first.

Select buildings in Barcelona carry an unmistakable psychedelic element. Imagine Peter Max, Frank Zappa, and Sgt. Pepper joining Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. If they met, drank their kool-aide, and designed a building, it might look like Gaudi’s church.

So what was in his drink? Like other visionaries, nature was a main inspiration. That he takes it further than anyone else is a matter of taste.

If you ask the ticket taker outside La Sagrada Família who pays for the on-going building, she’ll say, “Sinners like you.”

Lesson learned? Continuing to experience new places reinvigorates our perception of what we see and breaks the mold of same old, same old.

Take a trip, and make it natural. No one wants to come get you out of a foreign jail for flying your freak flag too high.

Buy a ticket, book a place to stay, then let your feet lead the way. Staying in the Gothic District of Barcelona gives plenty of room to wander.

Just don’t get too lost. And don’t wait too long.