Spring Forward

March 29th --We had good intentions of starting today early with some major sites to see. Losing an hour of sleep in the middle of the night caught up with us though. Europe doesn't Spring Forward until the last Saturday of March, so we all slept later than usual. It worked out fine though because the weather was still a little wet and chilly this morning. By the time we left the apartment, the rain had blown through. We decided to do Rick Steve's guided walk starting from Placa de Catalunya. We headed down Avinguda Portal de l'Angel which is named "Gate of the Angel" for the gate in the medieval wall, crowned by an angel, that once stood there. As we were walking along, we came to a fork in the road with a blue and yellow tiled fountain. This fountain was once a freestanding well. In the 17th century, it was the last watering stop for horses before leaving town. We went to the left in the fork and headed for the Cathedral de Barcelona. We arrived at the Cathedral during church service. We have visited several churches throughout Spain, but never at service time so it was really neat to see one take place even though we couldn't understand a word of it. We were still able to feel the emotion though. Also, there was a piece of paper at the entrance, in English, with 5th Sunday of Lent bible verses. Since service was taking place, there were parts of the Cathedral that were roped off so we went into the cloister first. In the cloister, we saw a tiny statue of St. George slaying the dragon. Jordi (George) is one of the patron saints of Catalunya and apparently the most popular boy's name here. That statistic is ironic considering the first person we met upon arriving in Spain was Jorid who met us at our Madrid apartment. Anyway, something fun to see in the cloister were the 13 resident geese that used to function as an alarm system. Any commotion and they would honk, alerting the monk in charge. As we were finishing up in the cloister, the church service was letting out so we were able to get a closer view of the choir loft and the high altar. It was perfect timing for us to see all that is involved at the Cathedral de Barcelona. After finishing up there, we walked to Barcelona's highest elevation called Mount Taber. A plaque on the wall says "Mont Taber, 16.9 meters"..not a very high "high point". We stepped into the courtyard to see a surviving corner of the Roman Temple which kept a protective watch over Barcelona. Leaving Mt. Taber, we passed a modern monument to a 300-year old massacre that is part of Catalan culture and history. On Sept 11, 1714, the King ruling from Madrid massacred Catalan patriots, who were buried in a mass grave on this site. It was interesting that the Catalan's have been remembering 9/11 for nearly 300 years. We then made our way to the Picasso Museum which houses the best collection in the country of the work of Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and since he spent his formative years (age 14-21) in Barcelona, it's the best collection of his early works anywhere. We saw works of:
Age 12-14, 1895-1897 when his artwork is realistic and serious;
Adolescence Year when he was developing his talent;
Early Success when he won 2nd price at a fine-arts exhibition for his Science and Charity print; this got him the chance to study in Madrid;
Barcelona Freedom 1900, he quits art school and no longer paints portraits of his family;
Paris, 1900-1901, arrives in Paris at 19 years old and invents Cubism;
Blue Period, 1901-1904, the bleak Paris weather, the suicide of his best friend, and his own poverty lead him to this period of painting many blue prints;
Rose Period, 1904-1907, he is lifted out of his funk and into a happier "Rose period" with his Retrato de la Senora Canals (woman in pink) painting;
Cubism, 1907-1920, his invention of the Cubist style is seen in a photo where a man is holding a bowl of fruit;
Eclectic, 1920-1950, he begins painting beefy women and painted a bull/horse symbolizing both feminine and masculine;
Picasso and Velazquez, 1957, he painted more than 50 interpretations of Velazquez's print Las Meninas (in Madrid's Prado). This was neat for us because we had already seen the Velazquez painting ourselves in the Prado Museum.
As a wrap up, we walked through 41 ceramic works Picasso made in 1947. It is just amazing to us to think that Picasso died the year before we were born. When we think of Picasso, we think of him as someone that was painting a long time ago. It was great to see that he was so talented at such an early age, how his mood was portrayed through his paintings and that he was still just as talented in his later years.

The Cathedral and museum pretty much filled up our day so it was time to head back to the apartment and figure out dinner. Dinner tonight (I can hardly write anything about food anymore after my mom informed me that we certainly DON'T miss a meal, which she is right about...what would traveling be like without experiencing all kinds of food) was good right up until dessert. We got take out from a restaurant right next to our apartment. The owner was so nice to give us some small pastries for dessert. Well, one of them tasted like...I hesitated to say it, but it tasted just like bathroom air freshener, if there is such a thing. The next thing out of my mouth was "give me some curry chicken to take away the bad taste in my mouth." This coming from the girl who wouldn't even touch Indian or Thai food before. Apparently, I have "sprung forward" in my tastes and likes!