Your final easy installment: Zaragosa Expo

Zaragosa was the original reason for our trip to Barcelona, so I can't skip this last Spain post. It's been delayed due to a surprise (for me) anniversary trip to Prague (I know! I feel the same way! It's just that Easy Jet has cheap flights and Josh thought our 5th should be specially celebrated! I'll get into that later). In the meantime, we've been posting some old posts that have been lying in wait.

Anyway, Anthony was a designer for an exhibition at the Zaragosa Expo 2008, a worlds fair-like event with a focus on water and sustainable development. He and Queenie booked the trip to Spain with the intention of visiting the Expo. We then booked our trip based on the fact that friends from NYC would be within a budget airline flight away from us. And thus... we all spent a hot afternoon wandering around northern central Spain learning about water (well, not really. We didn't do much learning exactly...).

Read the rest...

Already high on the carbon footprint scale with all our flying, we chose to keep up the good work and rent a car for the trip. It's a 3 hour drive from Barcelona, and the car cost less than two train tickets. As the trees thinned out and Utah began to appear out our windows, the temperature warmed up, too.

But who am I to complain about heat right now? It's 62 outside as I type this in Newcastle.

The Expo was unlike anything I'd been to before, although I don't know that I need to attend another any time soon. Over 100 countries had individual exhibits, each its own room in a series of very large, open buildings, and these varied from well done and interesting to imported cheap souvineer shop in a box. Many had a water theme, although some didn't seem to grasp the concept at all. Of course, that being said, we flew through any that had actual real information on the walls; we weren't there for educational purposes.

We started off in a building built just for the expo... and then couldn't find our way out. This photo makes it look cooler than it is. You walk in and up escalators and then back down going round and round the building via ramps. The thing is... there's actually nothing in the building and if you decide you aren't interested anymore, there's nowhere else to go and you just might end up getting shushed and yelled at in Spanish by Expo personel.

The reason we came was to see Zaha Hadid's new bridge and the exhibit in it and directly in front of it. Here's the bridge:
So as Q, Anthony, and I headed to take photos, Josh took a seat...
Anthony and Queenie at the exhibit:
And then here's us right before the bridge entrance. We're looking at some statistics about water availability and usage. Very well-presented and interesting to look at... Must have been some really smart people who designed it.
Inside:
Anthony's name was even listed on the exhibit (below). We were so impressed.
On our way out of the bridge, Josh spotted a place he wasn't supposed go... and promptly went there.
Check out their surprised expressions at that crazy door:
We decided to wait in line for at least one amusement-park-esque exhibit. It ended up being a really bad "4D ride" about extreme weather. Oh, and it was in Spanish.
(I think Queenie looks nervous.)
We did think that the entire place lookedmuch, much better at night.
All the buildings and exhibits were lit quite nicely, and I think the cooler temps didn't hurt. For example, this huge and completely random statue we passed by during the daylight suddenly became photo-worthy:

Huh. Guess that's it. Sorry to end on that random note. Definitely, go back and check out that photo of Queenie and Josh. That's a good ending any day.