¡Aniversari!

¡Aniversari!

Birthday (in Catalan)!

After a few days of dinners with my parents, they departed with 10kg of my junk, and I attended the final (sob) Primary school dinner, which was lovely, filling, sad and lengthy (about 5 and a half hours). Then I jetsetted off to Barcelona for Katherine's birthday. As you do. 

Sarah was there and Nada joined us off the back of her InterRailing summer trip. The general mishmash of dates, times and room bookings meant that, as well as countless email exchanges with Katherine, the hostel had a folder on our stay and began calling us the 'Bibby Family', Katherine obviously being the matriarch of our unit. 

I arrived, and naturally, got lost in Plaza de Catalunya finding the right Metro entrance.I did, however, sign the petition supporting the vote for independence (9th November 2014, save the date) much to Katherine's delight, and I got a free pen that later broke, much to mine. 

Our first stop was the Contemporay Art Museum, where we were given stickers with MACBA written on to stick to ourselves. The gallery was very inclusive for blind or partially sighted people, although one must admit that an art gallery wouldn't be the first stop for someone with such a condition. There was a section with braille signs, where you could touch reconstructed sections of original works. I wasn't too hot on the art, although there was a piece involving a giant bear, white beanbags to sink into and break dancers practising outside the gallery. 

I, already having bought my ticket by accident before everyone else decided they didn't want to, visited the Centre of Contemporary culture, which was great! There was a special short film section where you could sit in squashy chairs and chose from their short/alternative film archive. I watched 'A Chairy Tale' (Norman McLaren, Canda, 1957) about a chair that doesn't want to be sat on. There was an exhibition about data, modern communications and the internet, which had a room with 24 hours worth of Flickr photos (over a million) on the floor. The best bit was the Metamorphosis exhibition about animation, particularly stop motion. It started off wonderfully, lots of clips of stuffed animals to watch, and also the animals themselves, and sketches to peep; then it got a bit weird... The last section I didn't even look at, past the fact that it contained dolls, which was enough to put me off. This was as creepy as I could take:

Later at the hostel while I was making dinner in the communal kitchen, one of the hostel staff, a German girl, barred me going to the sideboard and looked at me; I had an internal panic thinking I was breaching some silent communal kitchen rule. Then she said 'MacBa?, Is that your name?'. I had forgotten my gallery entrance sticker was still firmly attached to my chest. 

On the second day we popped into the Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter, but overran time wise and then had to RUN off the metro up the big hill (it has escalators in parts, it's that steep) to get to Parc Güell for our slot at 11-11:30. I can confirm cardio is still not my strong point, but that we did all make it in. Parc Güell was created as an ideal housing estate for rich people by Güell, an architect, and Gaudí, the famous mosaic artist. I would like to point out that a certain, famous tiled bench featuring in countless postcards bearing Gaudí's name is not actually his, but was designed by Josep Maria Jujol.

The butterfly tile that featured rather heavily in the gift shop.

We also explored the gardens, which are quite underrated and later in the public non-paying area, we listened to musicians and I joined the other children who were catching giant bubbles. 

The main mosaic covered bit with the famous dragon, which we though was a lizard.

View of the city and the Sagrada Familia from the 'Three Crosses', a hill in the park

In the evening we visited the Picasso museum, after waiting in line for an age due to it being free for about 4 hours on Sunday only, which was quite good and then we counted down Katherine's birthday by the Magic Fountain before luckily managing to nab the last metro of the night home. 

On Katherine's birthday we had a trip to the beach in Tarragona, a town an hour away by train. The beach was lovely, such clear water and all locals sunbathing. We ate our picnic lunch and then 2 of us had to hold up a towel around the other one to get our clothes back on. Most hilarious 15 minutes of the day, discounting all the times Katherine nearly drowned and we advised her alternatively to be 'Claireboyant' and to 'respect the sea', and the time when a young boy crashed against Katherine's legs and she thought she was going to drown HIM.

Happy Birthday Katherine! Obligatory bday pic outside the Sag Fam!

The next day Nada and I trekked on the train to Figueres, Salvador Dalí's birthplace and now home to his self designed museum, which has eggs on it and lots of gold figures.

The museum itself was very impressive, if confusing. Some 'rooms' were just small alcoves with a single painting in, and the floor 'levels' were not really levels; it was also very busy and there was little in the way of staff supervision, although what was really needed was crowd control. People were knocking against the art, there were finger prints on the glass covers where people had touched the art; art doesn't last forever people, be careful!! There was an awkward moment when, after seeing a tapestry of the famous melting clocks, I asked one of the staff where the actual painting was, only for him to reply 'Museum of Modern Art, New York'. There was, however, a section of his water-colours about Christmas trees, one of my favorites, his own private art collection and the Wind Palace room with this glorious ceiling mural:

Dalí is genuinely so good at drawing feet.

After battling the crowds and attempting, then giving up, trying to understand the art, but having enjoyed ourselves immensely, we headed to the toy museum. We got to see a teddy bear that belonged to Dalí's sister, which Dalí and García Lorca had had touched!! There was also a section where we could play with toys, the best bit obviously; turns out I'm actually pretty good with ball on a string in a cup and I knocked down some other kid's tower (they weren't there anymore), which the woman supervising us approved of as I built my own, superior/taller, tower. We also found blocks that looked like Castellers (people who build Castels, human towers, which are part of a great Catalan tradition). 

See the tower in the background?

To top off the week, we ate at a Nepalese restaurant, very filling, and exchanged presents and then we used the temporary tattoos I had brought!!! I had bought them for the big summer trip and finally got to use them. When we applied one on my neck, Katherine had to hold the dish sponge on me and I could feel the torrent of water being squeezed from it; despite my squeaking protests, Katherine thought I was exaggerating, until she saw my wet t-shirt. I also managed to get 'love' tattooed on my finger after it wouldn't work on Sarah's wrist I just randomly stuck it on my knuckle and it, well, stuck. 

I left the next day, to pack up my own life, as Katherine was doing as I returned. It is very odd to think now I am the only one left abroad...