A quick note about this: If you're reading this and you're not me, God bless you. These posts are helping me remember some of the details of this whirlwind trip and they are 100% for me. If you're enjoying them too, that's awesome. I just needed to publicly acknowledge that these are not intended for public consumption. But if you're here, welcome.
Day 6 started out gorgeous as always. There were a couple of mornings that it sprinkled rain on us as we started our run out of the hotel, but the rain immediately stopped and the sun always came out. The weather for the entire trip was gorgeous. Lows in the 60s and highs in the 80s. On this run down to the industrial side of the port, I noticed a bunch of these vehicles waiting in a customs type area. They were packed completely full of people and belongings inside and on top. There was no one to ask but I assumed these were not vacationers. It appeared to be more of fleeing their home situation.
After breakfast we met as a group and walked to the Picasso Museum. The walk seemed more scenic as we all had time to get used to the larger things and now we had time to see more of the details. I mentioned the sculpture graffiti earlier and this was one of the examples.
This was another.
So Picasso. I'm a long-time fan. As a public school art student, one of the artists you could count on learning was Picasso. I dug in a little more and read a couple of book about him in high school. I know all the things about him that we no longer associate with good behavior, I was just under the impression that we never associated those things with good behavior. Now that modern culture pretends to care about such things, people seem eager to cancel artists like Picasso. Let's be real here gang, there were no angels in the art world. Picasso was no better or worse than your Van Gogh or your Monet. A couple of people mentioned Picasso's behavior to me as we walked and I was having none of it. None of us are saints and if Picasso had not been 100% human and flawed, we probably wouldn't have been such an important artist. Anyway, that's a conversation we can have later. I was excited to be going to the Picasso museum.
A few hundred other people were also excited to be going at exactly the same time. That's Ashley viewing one of the first self portraits in the exhibit. I was with the second group admitted (because of crowd control) and I almost immediately lost everyone.
A page from Picasso's sketchbook.
There were some really nice works from different parts of his life.
But to get a clean photo of a particular work, you may have to wait quite some time as people zoomed in front of you or got a selfie.
This one was funny because it was from his pigeon series. The pigeons in Barcelona were hardcore. One pooped on Katherine's arm at the end of our first run and several almost flew into my face while running. On the street they didn't run from you or fly out of your way. It was more like they'd shove you down and see if you had any food they could take. It was interesting to see Picasso's connection with Barcelona. There was a theater on the same block as our hotel where he worked on costumes and set designs. There was a painting he did from a balcony down the street depicting the Columbus statue. There was also one of his old coffee shop haunts called 4 Gats. More on that later.
While I enjoyed the art, I was not super impressed with the work shown. The only real, monumentally important work was Las Meninas and we mostly only saw many of the studies he did while reworking that one. Impressive and cool, but not the thrill I was expecting. I am aware that my lack of thrill may not have been only about the work shown. It was claustophobically packed with humans and at this point I had probably reached the limit of art I could view. I consciously put things in neutral and walked the entire museum alone. One of my social coping mechanisms on the trip was to lag behind the group and walk alone when I needed some space. As I did that in the Picasso museum, I also people-watched. I found myself focused on other people and their behaviors instead of the art. I watched how they interacted with the artwork. This was around the point in the trip where I started to think a little more outwardly. I brought some paper and post-it notes with me to create little "you are beautiful" type drawings to give to people but we had been so busy, I had not drawn many new ones and I had not thought to give any out. As I focused more and more on strangers today, I knew it was time.
This must have been most of the second group to go through the museum. Everyone was finished and tired. I hit the gift shop to grab a couple of small things and saw a lady that had been near me in almost the entire museum. We kept moving past each other and getting in each other's way. I had no idea if she spoke English or Spanish or something else. I heard so many different languages inside. But I felt that I had to encourage her, so I mustered my courage and asked her if she spoke English. She said yes and I was able to tell her she was beautiful without a language barrier. She lit up and thanked me. I slipped away and never saw her again.
The research people led us here after the museum. I missed the significance as we walked but when we arrived I understood that this was one of the oldest somethings and they had a wood fire going inside where they roast their own coffee and nuts. Apparently I totally missed the part where they sell chocolate.
As I said, my brain was starting to be somewhere else and as I stood outside the old store waiting for the rest of the group to come out, A lady flew by on her bicycle with a little dog in the basket. It happened so fast, I missed my chance for a photo so I took off in a sprint to catch up. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say when I caught her but luckily she stopped to talk to a friend and I was able to get my photos without having to explain.
Then it was finally time for lunch. We found a nice place nearby. I had a really good chicken and cuddlefish paella and a mango drink I was never able to pronounce.
A hot girl summer? I'm having a not girl summer!
We walked around after lunch to explore and do a little shopping. We found this cool building covered with eyeballs.
As we walked, I took in more of the street art. I took lots of photos.
So many photos.
We happened upon this little outdoor display of artwork, another great surprise.
As you might expect, this one caught my eye.
The graffiti nearby was a little better than some other areas.
Then we realized that this was an outdoor extension of the gallery next door. The gallery was called Maison Cactus and the art director was a guy named Corin. We went in to check it out and met the guy and talked with him a bit. He also paints butts but in a slightly different way. He has models come in and he paints their butt or their breasts and uses them to create monoprints on paper. I told him about butt drawing monday and he said he wished he had come up with it. We wished him well and headed out for more shopping. I had a mango flavored snack and it was delicious! As we walked to the hotel, we saw dark clouds and a bit of lightning. After a quick rest and phone recharge, we gathered the larger group together and headed to the outdoor market to scavenge dinner and chocolate treats.
Emily had bought some chocolates earlier in the week and knew the lady selling them. The lady lit up when she saw Emily had brought her entire posse to buy more.
The lady gave us all sorts of free samples as we selected our candy and checked out and she thanked us profusely.
I tried not to think about the flies and germs collected on all the food during the day.
This was dinner. Croquettas with potato chips. We got a choice of sauces drizzled on top and I chose barbacoa, the first bbq sauce I'd had in a week. The croquettas were cold but tasty. We all gathered in the hotel lobby to finish our walking meals. Sean and I grabbed more expensive water outside before turning in to eat our chocolates in peace. We had a good conversation about life and did some catching up on our sketchbooks. I made a point to write as much as I could remember from each day just before bed or first thing the following morning. Those records are the only way I'm able to write these posts.
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