Basking in Barcelona

Sun sun sun! The weather here is beyond beautiful. I wore a skirt without tights today for the first time in months and I was a little traumatized by seeing my own pasty whiteness. Oh, Irish heritage.

Anyway, today (Monday):

Rick steves handy-dandy self guided tour from the placa de catalunya to Barcelona cathedral, which was great except for the whole tourist-to-the-extreme part where I literally walked with the book open.
Barcelona cathedral- gothic and massive. Factoid: the patron saint if Barcelona is eulalia, who at age 13 was tortured 13 times by the Romans, and never gave up her faith. It is for this incredibly morbid reason that the cathedral hosts 13 real geese in the cloisters.
Casa mila- gaudis last (and arguably most insane) house. It was basically like walking into a surrealist painting. Or a dream. Everything is undulating and whimsical (apparently studiously based on items of nature, like bones and vines and pine cones). Very very cool. Plus I discovered that he was part of the art nuveau movement, aka a contemporary of mucha (my buddy from Prague)! Gotta love the continuities.
Rick steves walk down the ramblas to the ocean- markets and vendors galore! I stopped at the boqueria market and got delicious delicious strawberries for 1 euro. I think I'll try to find lunch there tomorrow.
Met up with primo and Tommy for a local dinner. The reason we knew it was a local place, going in at 7:30 they were just firing up the kitchen.

Oh and funny sidestory for today: I got a salad at a backalley place for lunch, and I walked in and panicked at the language barrier. I started by asking "parli englese?" which is Italian, and then after ordering in rough, rough Spanish, responded "oui" to whether I wanted to take it away. Then I said "sorry"! Four languages. Such a failure. My brain is very very confused.

So that's today. Tomorrow, the Picasso museum!

Much love,
Erin