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.
I had been reading the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book he talked about 'priming'; this is where something is suggested to you in directly that will influence your thought and reactions. It would seem the title of the piece gives you a clue as what to expect that is if you have read Keroauc.
http://cultura.gencat.net/casm/
It was a very busy day outside but the museum was practically empty; I was by myself looking at many of the exhibits. It is very rare that I find myself in a exhibit by myself in London in comparison.
Maritime museum
I took in the maritime museum and it is quite an impressive place to visit. I was mainly attracted to see the "Pirates" exhibition which turned out to be a disappointment; there was not much to see in the Pirates exhibit; it more heavy on text which I could have read without going to a museum. The museum itself had quite a section describing what it was like when Barcelona was a major ship building city and the guilds that a maritimer would belong to.
There is a replica of a slave galley and what a horrible life it would be to be galley slave; I really did not know until I listened to the audio-guide; the slaves would be shackled to their seats on the boats for months at a time; it was said you could smell a slave galley before you could it see because they smelled so bad. It made me wonder what would happen the galley slaves; how long could you endure such a terrible existence?
http://www.museumaritimbarcelona.org/
Cuines Santa Caterina
I was curio
us to try out a restaurant mentioned in the b-guided> magazine. This one was located not to far from the cathedral in central Barcelona; it is a market of the same name "Santa Caterina". I went at lunch time and the place was packed. As, I was by myself, I got seat at the counter by the open plan kitchen fairly quickly once I got through to the reception. I stuck mostly to the oriental cuisine on the menu; I had some tempura, sushi and yakitori and I went for some fine chocolate cake for desert. It turns out Carlitos had worked here for a while and he later told me he did not think the restaurant was that good. But it is quite a place to go for the decor. The menu is quite novel; it is laid out like a grid with the type of cuisine the side and the type of dish along the top.
I noted that the kitchen staff was quite multi-ethnic : African, north African, Filipino, Japanese, Thai and of course Spanish. Since I have been coming to Barcelona, I have seen how the city has been changing; there is one street now that almost completely full of Pakistani shops and restaurants. I noticed a Sikh Gurdwara on another street on this visit.
Raquel and Carlitos
I would later meet Raquel at "La Confiteria" and catch up. We took a stroll up to Las Ramblas; today was Saint George's day and I am told people often buy books as presents on this day. Raquel wanted to check out some of the books on sale.
We then had a beer and did some people watching near the Ramblas.
Raquel is a hair dresser and we stopped by the salon; Raquel had been in Brazil for the month of April and she was showing me her photos on her laptop.
We then met up again later to have dinner at the new restaurant where Carlitos was now working; I think it has only been open a few weeks. It is called "Bestiari". When I first met Carlitos he was running a restaurant called "Les Guides" with another chap who did the cooking; he eventually took over as the chef; in a past career, Carlitos was a an industrial designer. For dinner, I had eaten things, I had never before : goose egg and kangaroo. I had a starter of a fried egg on top of some skinny french fries. I had the kangaroo as the main course. And I am glad to say the food is quite good. One thing, I really do like about Barcelona is the decor in restaurants; people will go the distance here with attention to detail to make interesting spaces. And to eat in such a place, it does not break the bank. Bestiari followed the trend along one wall is a giant mural of various beasts and people. The image here is just a small section of the mural.
This was Sunday night and even then the restaurant did not empty out until well after midnight; we than took in a late drink or three and met up with some friends of Carlitos and Raquel. There was Luna the little dog who was out with her owner Nuria. Luna was trying to take a nap with all the hub bub going on the in the bar.