Güell, sort of

Here's a picture of the people I'm spending a good slice of my time with these days. Left to right: me, Alicia (one of my morning grammar teachers), Xian from China, and the two Marianas, both from Brazil. The four of us have been in class together for over a month now, though various other students have passed in and out. Today we went on an excursion to Park Güell because Alicia has an appointment with a dentist tomorrow during class time. We persuaded her to persuade the "jefe" of the school to let us go for an excursion this afternoon to make up the time. (Rather than have a substitute in--who wants that?)
We've just started level C1, which is billed as "superior," but really just means that we have superior knowledge about how badly we speak Spanish (or how badly Xian and I do--the Brazilians are better than us and have a lilting accent that's really fun to listen to in Spanish). But we all know more than enough to get by, which made this excursion giddy fun. We flitted through the park on a picture-taking spree that turned out way more pictures of us than of the oddly beautiful surroundings.
I want to go back to the park though. There's a lot to ponder. For example, a shiny stained glass alligator splayed out over a staircase. A gingerbread(ish) house. A lot of bright mosaics. And those muddy swoops and chunks that somehow look more natural than the trees and rocks around.
I don't think I'll ever be able to do Gaudi justice in photos. Here's another stab at description: bright sprightly joy in a thin veneer over ugly. It's a little circus-clown spooky. Or maybe fairytale eerie: equal parts sweet and garish, and sometimes unsettlingly true (if you can get away with calling architecture "true").