...that makes sense, right? I learned a lot of spanish in Spain -- for real. Anyway, day one was split up. The first half was about errands! We woke up early, packed our dirty laundry, and walked over to the nearest laundromat. A trendy place, where trendy people clean their cloths. It was a bit expensive, but we were desperate and it was still cheaper than Switzerland (the mantra "hey, it's cheaper than Switzerland" became pretty common in Barcelona). After a couple loads, and some quarreling between Lucia and I about whether there was soap in the machine or not, we stuffed our clean cloths in some plastic bags and headed out in search of a sim card! We found it -- but they only took cash...of which we had none. I ran over to the ATM to get cash, we payed the guy, and we were on our way -- to frantically find antiseptic, and bandages....
Aside time: So before we left for Europe I bought a brand new pair of Top Siders! They were super comfortable. They looked great on me. They were destroying my ankles the entire trip. Apparently I have a habit of occasionally knocking my foot into the opposite ankle while taking steps. This is normally fine -- except Top Siders have metal rivets on them. This is normally fine -- except the rivets on this pair of Top Siders were not flush with the leather. This makes for an excellent skin scoop. Basically every time I knocked one foot into the other ankle, it would scrape, cut, or gouge me. This particular time while looking for the ATM was particularly bad, and I didn't put the shoes on again for the rest of the trip. I have since exchanged them for a new pair which are not defective. Thanks J-Crew!
All bandaged up, and pretty embarassed, we made our way back to the hotel where we met up with Lorena and Maurizio (Lorena's cousin from Italy who had arrived while we were doing our laundry). Once Lucia and I got ready, we headed out for part two of the day!
Our first stop was lunch at a tapas place which was air conditioned, and delicious. It overlooked a pleasant square and Santa Maria del Mar (a church in Barcelona). After we finished eating, we decided to head into the church. It was beautiful, and unusually warm on the inside. Typically churches of this style and size are quite cool on the inside, so this was strange. This is also where we met up with Ari, and another cousin (I don't remember her name right now, we'll call her "Maeby" for her resemblence to the character on Arrested Development).
Once we wrapped up at the church, Maeby went off to do her own thing for a bit while we went to the Picaso Museum! This is ended up being my favorite art museum of the trip. The temporary exhibit showed the progression of his self portraits. The reason I liked it so much was for two reasons. 1: it really showed the progression and influences of his work in a pretty systematic and explicit way. You really could see what influenced him, and how it affected his work. 2.) it had a ton of stuff he did in a wide range of styles. He was an AMAZING painter in all styles. I had no idea that he did anything outside of weird abstract art. It turns out he did, and it was ridiculous.
When we wrapped up in the museum, we all went back to our places and decided to meet up for dinner at xyz place at xyz time to get Paella!
So at xyz place and time, we met up (me, Lucia, Lorena, Maruizio, Ari, and Maeby) and mosied over to dinner at La Fonda (no, not this Lafonda). Lucia and I split a mixed Paella (seafood and pork), and it was rreeeeaaaallllly good. That's really all I can say, I wish I had it in my mouth right now. Delicious -- and cheaper than Switzerland =)
And I almost forgot! We wrapped up the evening with some delicious gelato! The guy behind the counter was hitting on Lucia, and it was awkward for a moment before he realized we were together.
That was day 1! not a bad day considering we spent the first half doing laundry, and tending to injuries.
