Barcelona photo galleries
The end of my holiday was approaching but first, I would go to one my favorite cities Barcelona to catch up with friends and hang out.
Saturday April 22nd
I got up fairly early this morning to get the train from Madrid to Barcelona. There now is a high speed rail link that gets from Madrid to Sevilla in two and half hours called the Ave. But there is not such service to Barcelona but I did not mind. The journey to Barcelona was about five hours. I was catching the train from the same place where Christian and I took the train to Toledo.
On the train trip they gave out complementary headphones to watch the DVD movie's being played. I think if I kept all the head phones from the flights, and bus tours and now train, I would have ended up with five pairs of headphones. They must be so cheap to make that are considered disposable items.
I could have flown from Madrid to Barcelona and saved about 4 hours in travel time but I though it was not necessary and nowadays if you can avoid flying, avoid it. I was not in any kind of rush.
I was now on my own; Christian stayed behind as he meeting Warren a few days later. The original plan was to travel for three weeks across Portugal and Spain but I was too restless; I had a lot on my mind; I was having a good time on holiday but I was also being a bit uptight. Once, I decided to come back a week early, I felt much better. When you go on holiday you are still traveling with yourself and the same thoughts you had elsewhere. I was reflecting quite a bit on the last year and my personal life and work. I have various conversations on the go with friends and acquaintances in London about projects and work and I wanted to get back to some of those potential bits of work. I thought about going back to London from Madrid but I don't know when would next get a chance to see my friends in Barcelona.
Sunday April 23rd
Today was a culture day. And I managed to get in two museums.
Centre d'art santa monica
This is a museum on the Ramblas near the sea front. I saw three great exhibits here. One piece was an installation; it was a new kiosk and all the "magazines" were made by the artist Francesc Ruiz. Very clever.
The other featured artists were Lars Arrhenius and Mike Nelson.
In Lars works animation featured heavily; his art style was quite using stick men of a sort. His works are presented in an art gallery and I wonder what to describe his work as; it is art yes but also it is observational about life and society.
The installation by Mike Nelson was called "After Kerouac". I thought momentarily about the title and the reference to Keroauc. I had read "On the road" a few years ago. I entered a large room and the only feature was a corridor which followed the form of a spiral. I entered it; there was all these marks along the walls - curious. Eventually, I am came to a door and I opened it; it was a room full of tires. Brilliant, I smiled broadly. I got the reference to Kerouac now and cars and I realized the marks on the walls were from rolling the tires through the corridor into the room.
Monday April 24th
Egyptian Museum - Divine Words
Barcelona has a small privately run Egyptian museum the Museu Egipci de Barcelona. There was an exhibit on about the french archelogist Jean-François Champollion who manged to translate the hieroglyphics; he established that they are phonetic. On the display, was some of his notebooks. Last year, the BBC did a docu-drama about Egypt that featured the men and women who explored Egypt and translated the writing and of course there was a program about monsieur Champollion.
I thought it would be nifty to see these books; unfortunately for me the museum display was not very English speaking friendly. I keep telling myself that I should improve my Spanish.
Nonetheless, I had a good look around the museum.
Biography of Jean-Francois Champollion
Movie - living and food
I then went to another concept restaurant that I read about in b-guided> for lunch. The idea was that this restaurant was to be like eating in your living room. All the food is served in bowls. I was hoping to see what kind of films they screened here. They did put on a DVD of some artistic film of a woman reclining on a bed or was it a chaise longe (you get the idea). The waitress was telling me how they do regular club nights on weekends. I would like to visit this place again at night. I had a really nice fruit salad for a starter; it was not just fruit but also green vegetables. I had the monkfish as a main course. I thought the monk fish was prepared in a way more suitable for the winter. It tasted very out of season to me; it was quite hot and stodgy with potatoes. It would have been much nicer with a vinaigrette dressing like a Japanese sunomono dish.
Tuesday April 25th
Caixa Forum
This complex was opened as an arts centre in 2002. It was like a one stop shop for culture and I was so glad I went.
I got to see the Persia exhibition which I missed when it was in the U.K. And with an audio guide in English, I was able to really absorb a good part of what was on display. Persia is a historical culture that is very significant but not one that I had any exposure to in school.
And I also took in the Diane Arbus photography exhibition "Revelations". I had been to NYC a few times; this exhibit showed me the past and side of NYC that I had never seen depicted before.
I then went to take in the view of Barcelona from the Palau National de Montjuïc.
Lunch with Cesar
I met up with Cesar for lunch; I had met Cesar years ago while I was at the BBC; we were both attending a training course in interactive TV in Paris. He has since left interactive TV and is now working for a company that makes snack food; the name eludes me. We went to a Tapas bar around the corner from where he works. It is always a pleasure to meet Cesar again; he is very modest about his English but we do have always have very detailed and intelligent conversations.