Bumbling in Barcelona

Twice in the last two days I've been a complete idiot and bumbled my way through this beautiful city, and twice now I've been one lucky idiot.

Incident number 1: it's not as great so I'll get it out of the way. Basically, I ended up walked in a giant triangle around the entire city. Down the whole ramblas to the beach, then across and up into the montjuic parc, then down the gran via all the way to la sagrada familia cathedral. It's worth looking at a map to see what that epic bumble looks like.

Incident number 2: Waiting to meet primo outside of the city museum, I ate my lunch and enjoyed the sun. Simple, right? Wrong. Looked down and realized my beautiful beautiful camera had vanished. Instant panic. For future reference, I'm do not keep my head in a chaotic situation. I ran to the museum. No luck. Ran back to my lunch spot. No luck. Realized that the only thing I'd done in the space between was throw out my lunch. I had THROWN OUT my gorgeous memory filled camera. Except, it wasn't there. At this point I burst into tears. Then a group of Spanish schoolchildren started tapping me on the shoulder and jabbering in Spanish excitedly. I was totally gone at this point, so it wasn't until one of them in the back ran up, waving my dear camera aloft, that I understood. They found my camera in the trash, and waited to give it back. I was so ecstatic that they got infected with my energy and one of them started to cheer. And because one of them did, all of them started to. Including the rest of the schoolchildren in the yard, probably not having any idea what they were cheering for. Yeah. No kidding.

After that I went and gave all my change to st. Rita, patron saint of hopeless causes.

Anyway. The rest of my day(s).

Yesterday (Tuesday):
Boqueria market and the discovery of DELICIOUS spinach dishes to grab for lunch and INSANELY GOOD fresh coconut/banana juice. Amazing. Almost overdosed on fruit yesterday...had like 8 or 9 pieces, total.
Discovery of some cool back alley shops
Museum of city life. Barcelona's formative history in a series of empires: native peoples to roman to Visigoth to moors (cordoba) to carolingian. Cool museum (roman ruins under the cathedral).
Camera trauma followed by restoration of faith in humanity.
Quick stop at some roman ruins
Scarf purchase- blue and green!
Picasso Museum: AWESOME. Loving the mariquitas (that's totally not spelled right at all) because they delineate the segue from academic classicism to cubist craziness.
Coffee outside in the sun
Santa Maria del mar- surprisigly big!
Met w Tommy and primo and study abroad cohort for Indian food

Today (Wednesday):
Exact repeat of boqueria stop for tasty fruit and lunch. As in, they remembered me for how excited I was about the coconut banana drink. Yeah, I'm that cool.
Bumbling walk to montjuic- oh included in the bumble was a hunt for the "font de cat" which i discovered after 45 minutes was, in fact, about 5 feet across with a little cats head in the middle and served as an advertising gimmick for a little cafe in the middle of a giant garden.
The musei national del art Catalan- fantastic. In a incredible old palace with arching stadium sized rooms, no decoration beyond white marble floors and enormous windows. Great collection- represented everything from about 1300 to 1950- and all barcelonan artists! New faves: casas and ribera.
2 hour walk across the city, desperately searching for iced coffee (aka Starbucks, nobody else does it!) along the way. Eventually gave up and stopped at a cafe. Walked out, turned a corner, and naturally found a Starbucks 15 feet away.
La sagrada familia: my jaw actually dropped open on walking inside. Like an absurd little cartoon. I was expecting the crazy architecture, but nothing prepared me for the colors. The streaming multicolored light that just set everything in the cathedral alive. It was unlike and beyond anything I've ever seen before.
Walked back and met Tommy and primo for dinner in the bohemian quarter of the city. Had a nice cafe-on-cute-little-plaza meal while watching dogs play.

I love Barcelona.

One more day, then back to Glasgow!

Much love,
Erin