So the reason I chose to go to Barcelona in the first place was because I was meeting my dear friend Dan, who is studying in Sevilla, there for the weekend. The first two full days I spent in Barcelona, however, I was by myself. It was enough time to become oriented with the city, decide out what I wanted to do by myself, and figure out what to save for when Dan joined me.
Day 1 wasn't too eventful - I bought my train ticket to Paris (Berlin is my next stop, and I planned to take an overnight train to Paris and then a train from Paris to Cologne and then to Berlin from there). Afterwards I went to the tourist info center to get a very much-needed map of the city. I also picked up some brochures that I don't think I even looked at after I left the info office.
I checked the free map I had picked up to see where the contemporary art museum was and headed in that general direction. I figured that since I had failed at seeing contemporary art museums in Paris and in Nice, and had somehow succeeded at seeing art museums I didn't really care about, I should probably try and see the one in Barcelona.
After wandering around the city for a while, taking occasional breaks to sit on park benches and think about things, I did find the museum. It was very much a multi-media - focused museum, with many films and separate rooms specifically for showing them. I watched an entire 31-minute film called "Hydra Decapita," which I only elected to sit through because of it's name. I followed most of it, then fell asleep for the last five minutes and have no idea what to make of it. Oh well.
That night was the football (soccer) semifinal game between Barcelona and Madrid - a huge rivalry. I obviously don't know anything about football (American or otherwise), but I had planned a night in to catch up on blog posting and Skype, so I sat in the common area to do so.... and was caught more or less in the middle (okay, I was actually sitting at a table pretty far away from the TVs) of FCB Central. Not to spoil the surprise, but when Barcelona won the room went CRAZY! Eventually everyone went out to the bars to celebrate, but even as I was going to bed at midnight the streets were still full of people yelling and cars honking their horns in celebration. Pretty exciting!
The next day I decided I was going to see the Picasso museum. Again, I wasn't entirely sure where I was going, but a check-in with my map every so often kept me more or less on track.
Before I found the museum, I came across two big open markets ('mercats' in Spanish). The first was on La Rambla, and it is known as La Boqueteria. I don't remember the name of the other one, but they were both more or less the same and were both more or less awesome. Every kind of fruit, vegetable, olive, cheese, animal part, nut, or olive oil you could ever want was sold there, and all by local farms and businesses. I didn't buy anything on that day, but I certainly did the next two days!
As I was wandering the streets of Barcelona in an attempt to locate the Picasso museum, I turned a corner and found myself facing.... wait for it.... a chocolate museum. A real-life, honest-to-whomever chocolate museum. So, obviously I went in just to see how much tickets were and if it would be worth it to go in. For €3.65, I determined that this was something I needed to do.
1. My ticket was a bar of chocolate.
2. They had chocolate sculptures.
3. They had real-life chocolate sculptors working on new sculptures.
4. They also had a cafe at the end where you could buy coffee, tea, soda, etc.... and also some kind of hot chocolate drink that had basically the same consistency of fondue. Amazing.
After feeling pretty good about my discovery, I found the Picasso museum. I found it to also be a worthwhile visit - the museum holds about 1700 of Picasso's works, spanning from his early years all the way to his death, and included his paintings, ceramics, lithography, and a complete timeline of his life.
Unfortunately, most of the writing in the museum was either in Spanish or in Catalan (a Latin-derived language with heavy Spanish and French influences); the pieces that included descriptions in English seemed to be the really obvious ones, like "Two Women Sitting." Thanks. Couldn't have figured that out myself.
I changed hostels that night, since I couldn't get four consecutive nights in the hostel Dan and I had decided to book. One of my roommates was a nice Welsh guy named Garrett who was in Barcelona to escape the Royal Wedding craziness that was to occur the next morning. We both left to go find dinner at the same time, so we teamed up and found the probably one place within a mile of the hostel that was a) still open, b) cheap, and c) had enough food to feed two vegetarians. We split a plate of olives (day #2 of having olives for dinner) and both ordered "huevos e patatas fritas".... fried eggs and French fries. How incredibly Spanish. Did I also mention this was a sushi restaurant?
The food actually ended up being very good, so we left feeling satisfied enough to stop at a bar on the way back for another drink rather than going off to find a second dinner. I had a really delicious glass of red wine whose name I would have never remembered if I hadn't written it down. Hopefully Northside will have it!
Tomorrow: Dan arrives!
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