I was in Barcelona recently for the 2010 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence. With little free time, I visited some of Barcelona’s famous architectures.

Gaudi’s Sagrada Família just blow me away!

His idea of a gothic cathedral is like seeing my day dream coming true. The little cherries and berries at the top are just ripe for picking under the sweltering summer heat.

Berries on top of La Sagrada Família

Inside the cathedral, there are big sunflowers which I imagine would be lovely to fall asleep while listening to a boring sermon!

I like to think that Gaudi and Computational Intelligence Scientists have something in common; we are both inspired by nature, and we both try to represent them in our work, either through architecture or computer algorithms.  Judging from the on-going construction, both must feel that it’s a never ending project.

Ugly looking Spanish barnacles

Afterward, we went to the famous Botafumeiro restaurant, and ate some Spanish seafood delicacies – including the strange percebes, which are barnacles highly valued by the Spaniards;  Delicious enough for fishermen to risk their lives to gather them from rocks beaten by strong sea waves.

They look ugly like the toes of a Komodo dragon (a big lizard).  It takes some  skills in twisting and turning the toe-like creature, but once you get it out of the shell, it actually tastes pretty good.

We were lucky to have Michio Sugeno as our dinner companion.  In addition to winning the prestigious 2010 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award, Michio is clearly the world’s champion of percebes opener!

Gaudi's Familia with big sunflowers