Last few days in Spain

Following our schedule Thursday was beach day! But we didn’t make it out of bed until noon and it was kind of cloudy. It swiftly became KFC-geese church-finish final paper day. Mackenzie and I tried to see Revolutionary Road Imax, but it was in Catalan. Dane went to the Barcelona soccer game. 50 euro a ticket was a little steep for the less than diehard fans. So we drank cold, to die for, hot chocolate and irish cream baileys out of Mac’s nalgene and mingled with the prostitutes and pot dealers on La Ramblas. Don’t worry, in actuality there was no mingling, just avoiding. Dane got home late from the soccer game to find Mac and I snuggled into what I like to call “the pocket bed” (two twins pushed together to make a queen, thus creating two pockets) with our trashy mystery novels. It felt good to be done with my paper and to just relax for a day.

This is us being silly outside the Dali museum!

Friday was Dali day! We had a quick FIAP reminiscent breakfast of croissants and coffee and got out of the hotel before 10! Hooray! We rode the metro to the train and hopped on illegally. The conductor caught us and made us pay about half way to Figures. Two hours later we made it to Figures and to a cute little kabobs shop for lunch. The woman sent us to a small room upstairs to wait for our food. We read Rick (our handy, yet embarrassingly tourist Rick Steves book) and had a delicious lunch for 4 euro! We got into the Dali museum for 8 euro after flashing our student id. We popped in our ipods and went our separate ways to tackle this huge house built especially for Dali’s work. I found Modest Mouse to be the best music selection to interpreting Dali. It was bizarre in every sense, yet totally fascinating. I have to speculate that drugs and some antisocial tendencies might have influenced Dali. I can’t even begin to describe a fraction of the pieces that captured me. I particularly fell in love with the pieces that were segmented but came back together to make whole images (hmm that doesn’t explain it that well… uh just go there and see it). The ceiling painting with the huge feet was so funny to me. Ahh if there was one thing I took away from this museum it was: just create. Just do it and it may be wrong and it may be bizarre and weird, but just make it. This was probably one of my favorite art museums yet. I can’t say I understood it. But that’s just it. Art isn’t about understanding or getting it. It’s about showing the world how you see the same world they see and evoking some sort of emotion even if it’s a big “huh?” I wish that I could be as confident in my creativity as Dali was. I think his most telling portrait is the one of him holding the starfish up to his eye with his silly mustache, I mean look at him. Ahhh. No words can describe it. It’s just art. And it is true.


Friday night we shopped, unsuccessfully which is probably good. I had a run in with the gargoyle Ramblas statue guy. Dane and Mac gave me money to go stand with him for a picture and so I got as close as I thought was safe. They said I was like 20 feet away but I was close enough to hear him hissing and his fingernails were gnarly and beckoning me. It was a rush. See picture. I am about to pee my pants. We had paella and tapas for dinner. Mackenzie made me eat deep fried squid rings. Mmm the food here is ten thousand times better than the FIAP! We packed and showered and I read Nora (my murder mystery) until I fell asleep. All in all it was a good trip!Mmm delicious paella!

In the morning Mac and Dane left around 7. I got up and got breakfast and checked out around 11. At 11:30 I was in the internet café checking my flight time. It was very much 6:20 that morning. I had a mini meltdown and called home. I’m sorry Ma and Pa I think the worst thing ever as a parent is to get a call in the middle of the night from your hysterical daughter in Europe saying she missed her flight. Oops. But its like Mackenzie said. When you are traveling by yourself you have no one to apologize to. So you just deal with it and move on. It was probably one of the most stressful, but also one of the things I learned the most from this trip. I broke down in the internet café and then I pulled myself together and did what I needed to do. I got myself on the bus to the airport to catch the next flight to London. I met three engineers from Birmingham on the bus to the airport who helped keep my mind off the mess and then helped me figure things out with ryan air and sat with me until they had to catch their flight. Now I have three phone numbers of three young, good-looking British guys! So it wasn’t all a loss. And I will never EVER forget military time for as long as I live.