"Bed and Two Bedside Tables Ferociously Attacking an Violoncello"

We had another early bus out of town that morning. This bus was early enough that it made some sense to wake up a little early and try to catch the sunrise over the bay. Unfortunately, it was cloudy. At least we tried.

From Cadaqués we took the bus inland to Figueres, birthplace, childhood home, and, now, site of an entire museum devoted to Salvador Dalí. My flight was at 4:30 that day and we made it to Figueres at 10:30; we had plenty of time.

On the walk from the bus station to the museum, we found the first sign of Dalí:



Brilliant!

As you read this post and see all the wacky crazy pictures, remember that this is Salvador Dalí:



I am a little bit jealous that he can do that with his mustache.

Anyway, the museum is called the "Teater Museu Dalí" or "The Theater Museum of Dalí". On the museum Dalí said, "Where, if not were in my own city, should the most extravagant and solid examples of my art remain, where else? The Municipal Theater, or what was left of it, seemed to me to be very appropriate for three reasons: first, because I am an eminently theatrical painter: second, because the Theater is in front of the church where I was baptized and third, because it was precisely in the lobby of the Theater that I had my first exhibition of paintings". The building was, in fact, a former theater practically destroyed in the Civil War in the 1930's.
Here it is:




Again, remember that Dalí designed the place himself and oversaw the construction.




The museum was really crowded; it seems to have become a bit of an amusement park almost. Still, it had a lot of crazy stuff and really interesting paintings.



Abe Lincoln?



Maybe not; look closer.



The Poetry of America:



The Mae West Room, an installation modeled after an earlier painting:


(I didn't take this one.)

We were here just the day before:



"Bed and Two Bedside Tables Ferociously Attacking an Violoncello":



Oh my oh my. There was a lot of other stuff there too, like holograms and sculptures, but I always feel weird taking pictures in an art museum.

I was really struck by the a powerful impression of humility in the following reoccurring image, though I'm not sure what to make of it the larger context of the works in teh corridor.




Overall, I was very impressed at the way Dalí had shown mastery of a number of different styles of art. In his later years this turned into some very inventive and very unique creative works, like his holograms or his reflective cylinder things, like in the picture at the top. He was a goof-ball, a genius, a weirdo, and a man with a great mustache; the kind of guy I'd like to read a little more about for, at the very least, a good laugh.

I laughed a lot at this museum.

From the museum we trained to Girona. I grabbed a tortilla sandwich (which had no potatoes!!) and caught a bus back to the airport. Mang-git decided to stay until early Monday morning to catch a cheaper flight back to Munich. I had class early Monday and didn't want to sleep in an airport, so I bit the bullet and took the slightly more expensive flight home.

While walking to the plane during boarding I uttered the word "endlich", which means "finally" in German, which ended up sparking a conversation with the German guy waling next to me. His name was Thomas. I would soon discover that he lives in Rotes Haus in StuStadt and knows Mimi, one of the girls from the program. Small world.

After the flight Thomas drove me back to Munich from the airport, which was really nice of him and a great opportunity for me to try and speak some German. I've gotten to the point where I speak very good "party German", a term I devised for the basic phrases one needs at a party like: "I'm from Cleveland", "I study engineering", "I've studied German since January 2007", "I like Munich, there's lot's of cool things here", "Beer and sauerkraut are my life blood", and so on. Beyond that it gets tricky. On a long car ride the conversation inevitably goes beyond "party German" to a place that's frustrating and difficult for me. On the bright side, it is good practice and maybe I'll get good, eventually.



Spain ended up being a really good trip and a solid adventure. I'd really like to go back and explore the country some more, especially if I had brushed up on my Spanish beforehand. It seemed like a really great culture and a really beautiful country. It's a shame that I had so often, in the past, brushed Spain off as a backwards and boring place; it certainly is not. Instead its a country full of wacky and impressive arts, siestas, and delightful landscapes.

¡Me gusta España!

The Rugged Coast

After a night of not much sleeping on the beach we trudged back to the hostel to collect our bags and valuables, then took the Barcelona Metro to the bus station. From Barcelona we rode/slept our way to Girona where we caught a bus to Roses where we caught another bus to Cadaqués, a nice little out-of-the-way town on the Mediterranean and former vacation spot for the ever eccentric Salvador Dalí. The bus ride from Roses to Cadaqués wound through the mountains and down to the coast along some narrow and winding roads in some very beautiful country. The ride reminded me a lot of my travels through the hills in Palestine and Israel.

And then, we were there.






Cadaqués on Costa Brava. The town was fairly small yet welcoming and fairly laid-back. There were French tourists all about. We worked our way from the bus station to the center of town on the coast to check into our hostel, which for the same price as the hostel in Barcelona was really just a hotel.

After settling in at the "hostel" we assembled ourselves a European "bum lunch" or cheese, bread, salami, and wine and walked down the southern cliffline to the little island you can see on the left side, connected by the bridge, below:





We hung out in the sunshine and the breeze eating our lunch and admiring the rocky cliffs and the great view of Cadaqués:



This is us:





Please note two things with these pictures: 1. It was very breezy up there, making my hair look a lot bigger than it actually is, and 2. I have had a haircut since Spain.

I really liked the looks of these rocky cliffs and they were really fun to climb around on.





After lunch we decided to go explore the other side of the bay and maybe see about swimming.

On our way back through town Salvador Dalí poked me in the eye! He's not even alive anymore!



The northern half of the bay was also nice, but not as scenic. Even still:




There was no swimming to be had in these waters either, unless jellyfish don't bother you. They bother me. Oh well; the water was pretty cold anyway.

Before dinner, as Mang-git and Brad slept, I went to explore the town some more.




I went into their church.



It's funny as I look at that picture now and think "that's pretty standard fare here in Europe, for a church anyway".

I'm not sure when these were from, but it made me think of Karnival.



And finally, the church by night:



All in all a very worthwhile side trip on our Spain adventure. We all went to bed early and exhausted.

Let's Just Sleep on the Beach

Quickly, before I dive into Friday, I want to share an exciting current event. In two weeks I will take advantage of two holidays at the beginning of June and visit my friend Ofra, who has recently arrived in Berlin from Michigan to do some sort of job or work or something. While there I'm going to attend a German language staging of "The Producers". Look:



This is the first time this show has come to Germany, after having already shown worldwide in places like Moscow and Tel Aviv. Before last Sunday's premier there was much speculation in the German press as to whether a musical with dancing Nazis and singing Hitler, staged in one of the theaters where Adolf had a "Führer's Box" installed for his personal viewing, would sit well with a German audience. Apparently it's gone over just fine, though I will have to see for myself in a bit.

Back to Spain!

On Friday we were rather rudely awoken at around 7:00 AM by one of our roommates, a very very drunk and rude French fellow. He stumbled into the room, red Spanish beer in hand, and started laughing at the top of his lungs at one of the other guys in the room who was noticeably very overweight. Someone else ran to get the front desk person but by the time he arrived our French friend had passed out. Ridiculous.

We didn't have a room in the hostel for later that night but they very nicely allowed us to stow our stuff in their locker room while we spent more time in the city and figured out what we would do later.

In the meantime we decide to venture south and check out a ridge along the southern coast of the city. We found these along the way:




This was once the Bullfighting Ring. They don't really do that here anymore; it's probably a soccer stadium now.

The 1992 Summer Olympics were held nearby. This was the torch:



Our ultimate destination was, however, the Catalan Art Museum, shown here:





Like most other old and impressive buildings in Europe, this one was paradoxically under construction.

Inside we saw art! It was way to big and closed to early for us to see all that it had to offer, unfortunately. Brad liked this a lot:



I think it was something along the line of "Baby Jesus Triumphs Over Death".

I was most impressed with the random auditorium/gladiator ring at the back of the museum. It was huge:


Maybe they have concerts there.




Artsy!



View from the steps of the museum. As I mentioned earlier, it sits on a ridge/hill.

We wandered back to town to eat and make plans for later. On the way we found another Gaudi:




We met up with our Canadian friends one last time for dinner before we ran off to our new "lodgings".

I say "lodgings" because our plan was an interesting one. The next day we intended to visit a town well north of Barcelona and to do so we needed to catch a 9:00 bus from the Girona airport, from whence we came. To get to Girona we needed to leave at around 2 hours ahead of time from Barcelona. With these times in mind and knowing how easy it is to stay up until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning in Spain (at least!) we decided it might be interesting to catch a few hours of sleep on the beach. That's right, we decided to sleep on the beach.

In late summer, when the evenings are warm and the days are warmer, this would have been really awesome. It certainly was interesting, but it was very cold. This was me:



The real problem was the cold sand, which pulled a lot of heat from the body. Luckily, we only intended to sleep there for 2 hours. I can generally sleep on most anything and this evening further proved that point.

Sure, it sounds a little dangerous and fairly stupid, but we were in it for the adventure. We also made a point of locking all our valuables in the safe at the hostel, which we could access at any time, and thus had nothing of value on us as we slept there that night. We're also three big guys, one of whom, Mang-git, works out spars all the time. Dangerous, maybe, but we were at least mildly prepared. Regardless, during the night Brad awoke to a weaselly little Spanish man feeling his pockets to see if he had anything worth stealing. Of course he didn't. Brad and Mang-git both ran this guy off with little trouble. I, of course, slept through it all.

We left the beach at 5:00 or so to collect our bags and catch a bus out of town.

The pictures for tomorrow are great! Just wait.

Barcelona is a Gaudi City

Oh goodness Oh goodness.

On Thursday we woke at a reasonable hour for our complementary free breakfast. It was worth every cent we paid...

From the hostel we set off in search of bicycles upon which we would see the crazy architecture of Barcelona. Here's us in action:




Biking was so much fun! There weren't really any designated lanes for biking so instead we rode on the sides of the busy streets, which is so exciting. I really felt like a part of this bustling city as I sped through intersections and past cars. Sure, it's a bit dangerous and maybe somewhat reckless, but these word are synonymous with adventure, and that's what really counts.

Barcelona is full of buildings designed by Spanish and Catalan architect Antionia Gaudi. His works generally have unusual organic and wavy forms and he periodically used detailed colorful mosaics as part of the facade or other decoration. Basically, he's about as crazy as any other Spaniard. I, of course, mean crazy in a positive sense, as in: creative, unique, awesome, and going beyond the norm. Basically, the kind of "crazy" I aspire too.

I have been told that all Spaniard are a little crazy. I should like to test this hypothesis.

Anyway, we biked around to see a number of his urban works.

The Casa Milà:




Casa Batlló (I think):




This Church was designed by Gaudi's mentor:


It was closed for Mass when we showed up, unfortunately.

The most prominent of Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona is "La Sagrada Familia", a cathedral and symbol of Barcelona along the lines of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State building. As cathedrals go it is pretty interesting looking:



By the way, it is, in fact, still under construction. Construction began in 1882 and is scheduled for completion in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi's death. In terms of construction time it definitely joining the ranks of other European cathedrals.


1882!




From what I'm told, when completed the cathedral will have 12 of these towers, each one representing one Apostle, around an even larger central tower.




Look at the fruit on the tips there! Apparently that's typical Gaudi.

The cathedral is laid out like a cross and has three prominent thematic facades with sculptures. The oldest facade, Nativity, was constructed during Gaudi's lifetime and under his supervision. The first picture up above is the nativity facade. The Glory facade is still under construction but the Passion facade is pretty well finished. Check out some details below.



The Ascension:





The sculptures on this Facade were done after Gaudi's death by an architect with a slightly different vision and aesthetic. This side is somewhat controversial among the Gaudi purists.

From there we rode our bikes uphill to check out the city from a distance.



I found a cactus!



And here's the group, triumphant atop the ridge. You can see La Sagrada Familia between my and Mang-git's heads.



And off again, to another Gaudi highlight in town, Park Güell. Here's the entrance:









All over this park were these wonderfully colorful and detailed mosaics like the ones in the ceiling here:



I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to oversee the construction of something like this. Everything is so artistic and painstakingly detailed and there is no way that he did it all on his own. That says to me that he had a construction team that he could trust to stick to his vision and his aesthetic. With all the stress I've had in the past with small team projects I can't imagine constructing something like this without dying of a stress heart attack.





I read later on that this little guy got bashed in by some hoodlums in 2007 and had to have it's head reconstructed:





We rode back to our hostel from there, making a stop along the way to eat a late lunch. I really enjoyed the ride back because we were riding downhill through town. So fast!

With the time we had left on our bike rental we rode over to the beach to hang out for an hour or so. I didn't take any pictures of the beach, which was really stupid in hindsight. Oh well.

The water was really cold, being early May, but we still jumped in. Thank goodness it was sunny.


Later that evening we returned our bikes, showered, and met up with our friends for more tapas and Spanish wine. Here's a picture of Brad, Julie, Sarah, and I:



I think Mang-git had gone back to go to bed before this, that's why he's not in there.




This is taking so much longer than I wanted, sorry about that. I have so many more great Barcelona pictures and stories still to share, so stay tuned.