Two Museums

Tuesday, June 25th

Barcelona was one of the places I used airbnb to find a place to stay. In this case, I was renting a room in a couple's apartment. Maja and Miguel have three rooms they rent. They are the nicest people. Maja had suggested that I do the hop on hop off bus because I was going to the Sagrada Familia on Wednesday. These buses are great because they take you to all the places you want to go and you can get on and off as you want to. The bus in Barcelona has three routes. I decided to do the main city route and the beach route today with a couple of stops for museums.

 

My first stop was the MNAC. It's the national museum of Barcelona. The building on its own is massive and impressive. The art is all from Spanish artists and it basically takes you through all the eras of history with the art.

 

 

 

 

I really liked these guys. They were from a wine cellar of a bar and they show various stages of drunkenness.

 

When you're traveling alone you have to take advantage of mirrors. Mirrors in cool furniture made by amazing Spanish furniture makers.

 

 

After the MNAC, I rode the bus around more and then went to the Picasso Museum. While Franco was in control of the country, during the civil war, Picasso refused to return to Spain. But he had a friend still in Barcelona and he had that friend help set up this museum so that people could experience his work.

The museum had an exhibit of of portraits by Picasso. It was funny to see the progression when he was young he was more idealistic about his looks then as he got older they were more representative of how he actually looked. He was amazingly talented from a very young age. There was a painting for which he won a national award at the age of 12. When I was 12 I could make decent bubble letters.

 

He did a study late in his life of painting Las Meninas by Diego Velasquez (?). He basically kept recreating different portions or the whole painting in different styles. It was really interesting to see his interpretation of the painting and to see such a well known classic painting in Picasso's cubist style.

 

After the museum I did some wandering through stores. I found a bakery with the most amazing croissant. I also found a fantastic pottery shop. I wanted to buy the whole place. Then I stumbled on this cool vintage store which sold vinyl. I didn't buy any, I promise. Barcelona is a cool city.

 

I ate dinner at Meson David which was recommended by my 36 Hours guidebook. I had tortilla espanola which is my all time favorite. Then I had combinado Gallegos, which was supposed to be a traditional Catalan dish. It was jamon, chorizo, and oreja. Oreja is ear. I only at one piece of the oreja. It was kind of just fatty and didn't really have a flavor. But at least I was adventurous!

 

Also, there was a couple that came in after me and sat to my left. The girl in the couple was American. They saw me eat my tortilla then they saw the waiter bring the other dish. The girl had only heard me speaking Spanish and clearly didn't have the ear to tell I wasn't Spanish and she said "whoa, going for round two!" I suppose I could have really embarrassed her by letting her know I understood, but instead I just laughed to myself. How self-centered to think you're the only one who speaks English.