"Emily, why didn't you just fly into Barcelona?"
Wouldn't that have been nice. Long story short: I got some dates mixed up and booked my return flight to Valencia before I realized my mistake. It was cheaper to take a bus than change my flight.
After 4 hours on a bus, I found my way to the hotel where everyone was staying, called my director to let him know I'd arrived, then went to find food. I ran into everyone else, and we all went to get Mexican (did I mention I love Mexican). It was basically all 50 FSU students in this one restaurant. The waitress didn't know what to do. She said, "Thanks for the business, but next time don't all come at the same time." We explained to her that Americans simply go nuts over Mexican.
Girls excited about nachos
Spent the rest of the night relaxin' at the hotel, which would have happened no matter what other people were doing but ESPECIALLY since they didn't leave for a club until 2 a.m.
Unfortunately, sleeping conditions were not exactly optimal. Thus far in my Spain experience I have found that you don't have individual heating/air controls in hotel rooms. You have the control to turn it off or on, but the WHOLE hotel is either on heat or air conditioning. And for SOME reason, Spain doesn't feel that the end of March (when it is reaching 70 plus degrees outside) is an appropriate time to switch the controls to COOL air. So we either had heat or no air. Kelly and I shared a room. Everyone else's room was fine with the window open. However, our window opened to the center of the building and got nada for a breeze. Needless to say, we slept in a sauna. The first night we put wet rags on our heads and stomach. Summer camp in Barcelona.
Tuesday morning went like this:
8:00 a.m. - Alarm goes off. Snooze. We don't have to be on the bus til 9.
8:02ish - Knock on the door. Kelly gets up to answer. It is her boyfriend Freddie.
"You're up early Freddie. We have an hour."
Freddie, "No. It is nine."
Freddie holds his phone up as proof.
Kelly, "Emily, you didn't change your clock!"
Kelly and I made a mad dash into our clothes, out of the room, down 7 flights of stairs, and onto the bus. Thank God for Freddie...twice. He also gave us his sandwich to eat, which he had made for his lunch that day.
What had happened? ...Ooooh yeah.
I had sprung my alarm clock forward when I was on London time...but I totally forgot to spring it forward again into Spanish time (which is an hour ahead of London). Right when I got into Barcelona I had tried to change my wrist watch (which I have to relearn how to do every time) and I accidentally changed it to military time and gave up...but it was reverse military time (I understand if you don't want to try and figure out what that means).
So when I went to bed Monday night, I looked at my watch to check the time and it said 13:00. I was too delirious to even realize that my watch was correct (even though it was reverse military time), and I went to bed believing my alarm clock that said 12:00.
SO FAR, not loving my experience in Barcelona. And I felt pretty bad b/c Kelly had been counting on my alarm also.
We road 2 hours to a town called Figueras, the home of Salvador Dalí.
The rest of this blog is mainly pictures from his museum and what I remember about them. So you may exit now if you have no interest.
Outside the museum. Will explain the eggs later.
The gold figures between the eggs are the symbol everyone usually associates with Dalí (besides me of course...and don't tell me there is a musical about it or anything like that... Bedknobs and Broomsticks... bahh)
The thing on his head is an atom... more specifically a hydrogen atom, which Dalí used often as a symbol of perfection.
Bread is another recurring theme of Dalí's. Since he and his mother pretty much lived off of bread when he was young, he said that is all an artist really needs to survive. So here you have bread on the head.
And again
Waiting outside for our tour guide
Hydrogen atom of perfection there again
Also this guy is sitting on an olive tree (symbol of life I think), present in many Dalí paintings.
The sprial was another symbol of perfection for Dalí
There was a lot more the tour guide explained about this painting. I believe he said Dalí modeled this painting after Picasso and that Dalí admired Picasso but at the same time thought he was an idiot. Forgive me, it has been a week (a long week) since I saw all this. I would've written some of it down but we moved way to fast through this museum for that.
Drawers (the rectangular things) and below (the little spots) are shells.
Drawers represent our inner most, deepest, darkest secrets. The ones everyone has but you don't tell mommy or daddy or anyone. You'll see in many of his paintings drawers coming out of people.
Zoom on the shells
The shells = more spirals (perfection)
Dalí's museum is not JUST a museum. It is called a theater-museum as it is meant to be more interactive. The museum was started about 10 years or so before Dalí died. So everything in the museum is there because Dalí put it there. He helped create his own museum.
The outside courtyard... which is shaped like a semi-circle of theater seats...
In the court yard there is this car. If you put a euro in, the umbrella on top of the boat will open and the car will rain in the inside. Why did Dalí do this? Our guide said really just to make money. He figured tourists would pay to see something so silly.... This is about when I realized I might love Dalí
The semi-circle faces this stage. This huge painting is on the wall of the "stage"
The head is an egg. From the egg hatches new life. From the head comes ideas, thoughts, dreams, and paranoia come from. On the chest is an olive tree. And the hole in the stomach is also symbolic of something I can't remember.
This painting was amazing. In real life, you mainly saw the naked lady in the middle. But once you held up your camera, all you could see was Abraham Lincoln. You could see Abe in person too, but it wasn't as prominent as it is digitally... maybe something to do with the pixels in the camera...not sure.
Salvador is burried right here.
Not a huge museum. You are up in everyone's business as you look at the paintings.
Another cool painting... can you see the man with the green tie?
What about now?
What about the dalmatian?
And the toro?
The love of his life: Gala.
The boob is exposed because from the boob comes life and Gala gives him life. (And he probably just wanted to paint his wife nakey)
This painting of Beethoven Dalí made by throwing paint at it... I know parts of it he did just by throwing a shoe with paint at it.
A ceiling painting. Gala is in the red. Dali in the blue.
You can see his drawers. What is in them? Nothing. We have come to his home, to his theater. He has shown us everything he has. There is nothing left. (Reiterating this is all from the tour guide)
We saw so many paintings. And so many times the guide would fly by and repeat the themes present in the painting and say, "Nothing new, nothing new." I wanted to say, "Wait...but it's still pretty new to us." But we had to go fast. He also told us to "Open your eyes. Everything you see is not what it seems with Dalí.. and what it seems isn't always what it is." ... like we'd fallen down the rabbit whole or something. But sure enough, every time he said "Open your eyes," I'd see something I hadn't before. Dang. I'm not opening my eyes at all.
He said he had read many books about Dalí and the more he reads the less he understands. How bout that?
This one was my favorite. The left figure is a white American dude. The right is a black man. Instead of arms, he has cotton.
On the block shape at the top is a sagging image of Africa with a tear dripping from it. This whole painting is about America and slavery. (That's why Africa is sad).. there is also a blood drop dripping from the bottom of Africa that you can't really see well here.
When you look closer, you see a coke bottle. Dali painted this in the 40's or 50's ... before coke was the American icon it became... before Andy Warhol did his thing with Coke...before any of that. Also, from the coke.... the black stuff... that is oil. So, Dalí pretty much nailed it. He read our future. I bought a poster of this one.
Dalí did a painting of Mae West.
In his theater-museum he put this larger than life re-enactment of the painting.
You climb some stairs and look at it through a magnifying glass... and it looks just like the painting.
Ants on the face. Ants are our version of butterflies (like when you have them in your stomach) Symbolizing excitement.
At some point someone asked the guide if Dalí did any drugs... he said no. Dalí didn't even drink.
Americans love Coke and cheesy pictures with statues.
G. (well, a backwards G here) G stands for Gala. Gala is all over this museum.
She dies before Dalí and sooo many of his paintings reflect the time when she was sick and after she has died. He loved her so. But Gala was "a little looser," said the tour guide.
Rocks looking like people
Rhino horns... also symbols of perfection... and maybe passion.
View of his tomb from the basement.
We left the museum and did some souvenir shopping. When it was time to go to the bus, Kelly and I walked out of a shop to find Freddie doubled over in pain. His pack had spasmed and he couldn't move. Couldn't even stand up. So two guys had to help him back to the bus. They are looking at me like I am a horrible person for photographing this. But he's fine now. Won't he appreciate the memory? I think so.
He went to the hospital to get some drugs, then spent the rest of the week laid up in bed. Poor Freddie. After his all his good-Samaritan deeds today!
One last view of the museum.
And that was about it for Barcelona Day 1. I ended up really liking Dalí. Someone said maybe we just love any artist who we really learn a lot about. (Since I did the same thing with Michelangelo). But after Amsterdam, I don't think this is the only reason.
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