As soon as we got into Barcelona we were all very impressed with our hotel. It was a very nice place and it had a pool! I got everyone’s room numbers and made the usual prank calls. Andrew did not have príncipe Alberto en una lata and I had no idea how to follow that. I loved the phones. I used them for my alarm clock and everything. But anyways, the first thing we did was to go out to the beach. We were actually 45 minutes out of Barcelona and we had 90 minutes before the bus was going to leave. I was going to change but it was all windy and cold so we just decided to walk out and watch the others. A few people had gotten in when we arrived and were all on the sand shivering when we walked up. As I said, it was really windy and there were a lot of people…paragliding?...I don’t know if that is what it is really called.
We walked along the beach for the time that we had and grabbed a bunch of sea shells. A lot of them had little holes so Kyte is going to use them for jewelry. Anywho, the main point of meeting in Barcelona was the plaza of Columbus.
I decided that Spain capitalizes on Columbus way too much. Everywhere you go in Spain they are trying to make a big deal about how something important happened there. I know that that was the port city where Columbus came back to and met the King and Queen but I didn’t bother to think about that when I was there. It wasn’t until I just started writing that that I even remembered what Barcelona had to do with Columbus. There were some pretty good Lion statues there at the plaza for picture taking.
I thought that this statue was interesting.
I wonder if any native was ever really that appreciative of a Spanish Padre. We went down the street called Las Ramblas. It was an amazing street of performers and art and all that good stuff.
I love art. I know a lot of this is pretty lame and commercial but I still really love it. We headed to the Picasso museum. It seemed kind of weird because it was back in some poorly lit alley but it was really cool inside.
I thought it was a really interesting museum. One of the coolest parts was the special exhibition. During Picasso’s lifetime he amassed a large amount of art from his friends and also the normal course of an artist’s life. When he died he made the condition that it would be donated to France if it were to all remain together as a whole. It is usually there but was brought over for a temporary exhibition. We went to see Picasso’s art but were pleased to be able to see the art he owned as well. We were able to learn a lot about him through the taste he had in art and artists which he considered as friends. But, speaking about the actual museum, I was once again amazed to see how much art one person could produce in a lifetime. I had, only days before, seen his exhibit in the Raina Sofia and while there I was shocked about how much he had painted. When I walked through an entire museum with art he had done I was floored. It is surprising as well to think that most of his art was not “traditional” Picasso style. Very few of the pieces in the museum were what I would have thought. We talked about how it probably was because most of the more famous “Picasso style” paintings were privately owned. They did have one room that was devoted to many renditions he made of the “las meninas” all done in “Picasso style”. They were all really really cool. It was also interesting to see them after I had been to Santiago and learned a lot more about the artist. I had seen the painting in the Prado in my first week in Spain but it didn’t really mean much but now that I know the characters of the work and the meaning of the Cross which he painted on his chest. Art is a lot cooler when you actually can read stuff into it. We couldn’t take pictures inside but it was really cool.
We went looking for dinner and found an amazing sea food paella place. I love paella. That was it for that day.
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