[Kirsten]
I realized today that I have become something of a Rick Steve’s fanatic, which kind of means that I am turning into my mother and father. For those of you who are not familiar with Mr. Steves, he is a travel writer based in Edmonds, WA, who has brilliantly made a career out of traveling ‘through the back door’ in Europe and, consequently, has produced a series of amazing guide books. Seriously – the way he writes, I feel like someone is telling me secret after secret about this city, and it has become addicting.
Anyway, poor Brian, he’s such a good sport - almost every step we took today was orchestrated by Rick Steves. Each time either of us would propose any inkling a of plan (or we walked into a new room at the Picasso museum), I felt myself reaching for the book, until finally, over café con leche and a discussion during which I literally opened the book 7 times, I verbally instructed myself to stop. I’d like to try to lighten up on the book tomorrow, but I don’t know if I’m ready yet – he’s just so good!
[Brian]
While waiting to get into the Picasso Museum, we listened to one of the many, high quality musicians on the street; he was Brazilian.
I notice there are a lot of Portguese and Brazilian singers performing here. I always make a point to support them with a few cents because they add so much to the auditory experience of being in BCN. If they are exceptional, we'll buy a CD.
Today, at the Picasso museum I ran into a great guide. His name was José Cabello García all the security guards at the museum seemed to know him. He was giving pretty explicit details about some of the art to an Italian group and kept the discussion lively. I think I would like to try and get him working for our program next year.
The Picasso Museum included some new, erotic pieces of art which were amongst the pieces I found the most interesting in the collection – very graphic stuff which is the kind of thing he may have painted on bathroom stalls as a young art student. I wasn't allowed to bring my camera in so I can't grace this blog with his sketches.
The museum did a great job at showing the different stages of his life and how the art reflected those stages (example: during a two year period of depression most of his works were painted in blue tones)
One of our favorite plazas of the day - Plaza de Sant Felip Neri - which doubles as a playground for an elementry school.
[Kirsten]
One of the greatest things that happened to us today occurred unexpectedly. We were on our way home (we like to come home to ‘recover’, as Brian says, before tapas) and had just arrived at the South End of the Ramblas to catch our train when we heard some wonderful guitar music. Not too amazing at that point, as we had been hearing wonderful guitar music all day in front of various tourist hot spots. However, there was obviously some accompaniment, and a small crowd was gathering to see what was going on. So why wouldn’t we? We joined the crowds just as a regular-looking young man (not more than twenty) dressed in comfy khakis and a brown t-shirt began to wave at people to come closer. As we stepped a few feet towards him, he lifted his arms and suddenly we realized – a ha! Flamenco! He proceeded to do a solo flamenco dance as the music played. He did a fantastic job, and Brian and I both really enjoyed the music as well. We’d really like to see more flamenco, so we’re going to try to find a show for either tomorrow or Monday evening, before heading down to Sitges.
