Strangely Attracted to Puzzles

Today Russ, Carter and I went to our early morning appointment to see Gaudi’s most famous work, the still unfinished Sagrada Familia Basilica. As crazy looking as it is on the outside, with basically four different styles of facades, the inside is amazingly symmetrical. The stained glass windows are glorious and the various colors of the columns are harmonious.

Of course Gaudi gets most of the credit, although he was not the first architect on the job, nor will he be the last, but the craftsmen who have carried out his drawings are the unsung heroes. The number of artisans it has taken to work on the building since 1882 could hardly be counted. The work continues with the goal of finishing the Basilica in 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. From what I can see it is going to take every waking minute to meet that deadline.
Thank goodness there is plenty of money pouring in from the throngs of tourists. At an average of 24 euros each and the tickets are constantly sold out there seems to be no shortage of funding. Carter especially liked watching the Asian tourists, who made up a large portion of the visitors, because they walked around filming the entire visit. Carter said, “When the hell are all these people going to watch these movies?” Good question, but I’m sure God knows they took them.

I took plenty of photos. I was strangely drawn to a sixteen square stature of random numbers. I did not know what it was, but I took a picture of it nonetheless. Sadly I took the photo at an angle that I could not see all the numbers. Later, in my tour of the museum underneath the temple I found the key to what the number statue was. It was a cryptogram, kind of like the precursor to sudoku, where in many directions a row, column, square or other pattern of four numbers always adds up to 33, the age of Jesus. 

It never fails that if there is a game or puzzle in something I am going to find it and study it whether I know it is a game or not. I probably could have spent hours in the Basilica looking for all the symbols and meanings designed into the building, but then I had other’s with me who were not as enthralled with figuring out the puzzle. Well, I also was surrounded by many short people holding up video cameras spinning to ensure they caught every angle. Maybe they like puzzles too and are going to go home and watch their films on endless loops looking for the hidden meanings. Maybe not, they probably have 650 hours of other videos from their whole trip to watch. Probably they just never will watch any of it.