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So....
I got a first class seat on the way here!! It was waaay nicer even than I had imagined - there was a three course dinner that started off with assorted nuts and then continued with soup, shrimp (eww), salad, bread, spinach pasta, and then cheescake for desert! And then there was a really good omelet for breakfast. The seats reclined almost all the way, so I slept for about four hours! So then I took the bus in and it dropped me off outside this epic (and pretty labyrinthine) department store called El Corte Ingles that was 9 full floors of shopping! The guidebook said there were free maps, so I navigated all nine floors looking for an Information desk only to find that I had overlooked it on the first.
Once I had my map I just started walking in search of free wireless internet so I could see if I had any couchsurfing hosts. I walked a really long time trying to find a sign outside a cafe, but none of them had one, so I went in a few and asked the people and they looked really confused... I guess it's not as common
for restaurants to have wifi here? Or maybe it's because I pronounced wifi the regular English way (while Spanish would sound like wee-fee), but then I followed that up just asking for internet, which definitely IS a word in Spanish. One then took me outside and pointed to an internet cafe, so I just went there to find that I still had no host. So I spent an hour sending out more couchrequests and continued walking. I stumbled upon Gaudi's La Pedrera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Pedrera) and realized just how tired I was when I noticed I didn't really care.
So I decided to cut my losses and looked in the guidebook for youth hostel listings and found one that sounded really cool and was relatively close (http://www.alternative-barcelona.com/ACYH/Welcome.html). And then it turned out to be really stressful finding it because, along with my passing interest in groundbreaking architecture, my sense of direction had been completely lost. Add to this the fact that this hostel doesn't have a sign since it's apparently located in a historic building and you have a pretty cranky lost American. I started using my ipod to try to pick up wireless (since, like a dum-dum, I hadn't downloaded
the free wireless database), and luckily found a cafe which did have wireless internet, so I was able to find out (again) that I had no host and find the exact address of my hostel while sipping a pretty weak latte. I came up and checked in (it's 25 euros a night, which is, unfortunately, way more than free) so I could take a shower and a nap. I woke up at around six and was sending out more CouchRequests when a group of people from the hostel were leaving to go to a concert, so I went with them. But when we showed up the band was playing All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun and, not wanting to pay 5 euros to hear versions of songs I can hear worse in the US, I left with two Israeli girls from the hostel. We walked around for a while and were gonna find something to eat, but couldn't find anything that looked good for cheap, so we waited a few hours for tapas. Most people in Spain don't eat dinner until about 10, so it's hard to find good, authentic restaurants even at 9! I think my body
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All those escalators were hard work! clock was all messed up, since I didn't even feel that hungry once we got our food even though I hadn't eaten anything that day, but I tried some olives (I still don't really like them) and ordered some manchego, which turned out to be a sandwich that was pretty disappointing. But at least I learned that the word bocadillo means sandwich. After that we all came back to the hostel and went to sleep (after I sent out still MORE couchrequests).
This morning I woke up at 5 AM, and was about to get up when it turned out that my ipod alarm was going off and it was 10 already. I still had no hosts, so I'm staying in the hostel again tonight. I took a shower, got dressed and headed straight for the nearest art museum, the MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona), whose permanent collection was closed until July for maintenance, but they were having a temporary exhibition of Gil J. Wolman and Konrad Fischer. Both of these turned out to be pretty disappointing - Konrad Fischer does pop art, which I've never really found that interesting, and Gil J. Wolman's whole style was to
Cat
This cat kept popping its head out and then hiding again! Then I felt like kind of an idiot taking a million pictures trying to get a good one! paste newspaper headlines together or write on the canvases, but all the words were in stupid French. It really bugged me that they didn't even attempt to translate, even just to Spanish, since I saw some French people look at a couple of the paintings and start laughing. There was a film he made in 1951 that was really just a variably flashing light projected onto a weather balloon while some crazy guy yelled something (again in French). There was one thing that I really liked that they had that was a collage by Antoni Tapies (whose own museum I'm going to see tomorrow) called Rinzen that consisted of a bed and sheets and stuff hanging upside-down, as well as some weirdly-arranged chairs outside on a balcony. It was supposed to be pretty depressing, and it especially was since it was cloudy and raining.
Next I went to an adjoining museum that was also on my combo-ticket, the CCCB (Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona), whose exhibit was about comparing and contrasting Barcelona, Valencia, and Palma. It seemed to be mostly things about what's wrong with these cities, but was actually fairly interesting. On display were kitschy souvenirs and restaurant menus, and it was really weird seeing those out of context and being asked to step back and consider what they symbolize. So that part just added to my occasional tourist-guilt. Then I took a metro adventure to the next museum, the MNAC (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), which is the main museum. It's housed in an old church all the way at the top of a pretty tall hill (complete with outdoor escalators!) that overlooks the city. I hadn't realized that, and it was really exciting approaching the building and realizing that THAT was the museum. For the Romanesque exhibit, they reconstructed several old churches inside the building so you could see the frescoes and stuff, which was really cool. Their depictions of the Last Judgements are far less terrifying than Italy's, too - it looks like here if you go to hell you just develop flabby skin and look like you have the flu. Then there were exhibits tracing art (mostly Catalan) up to the 20th century - I was getting pretty arted-out toward the end, so I skipped through a bunch of rooms with Impressionism (sorry, Nikki Bunn, I still think Impressionism is pretty boring!) to go straight to the weird stuff, of which they have fairly little. But what they had was cool, and I'm saving the super weird stuff for tomorrow. I'll go to the Picasso Museum, the Joan Miro Museum, and the Antoni Tapies Museum (which the guidebook says is less accessible than the rest... yessss!), all of which are included on my combo ticket which I got for 22 euros!
I still haven't found a host yet, so I think I'll only stay a few days in Barcelona, and then head south, since these nights in this hostel are gonna add up!
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kim
non-member comment
oh my
I LOVE THIS ONE! did you take it with a timer or did you ask some poor spaniard to take it for you and perpetuate the "fat (not really) lazy american" stereotype?