Today was our fourth day in Barcelona. We all slept in until 10AM! It was a little tougher for Amy as she has not been sleeping well lately and she asked if she could take some of my sleeping medicine. I gave her 1/2 of my usual dose. 25mg of Amytryptiline. She conked out about 15minutes after taking it and slept almost 12 hours, not moving once.
We were awoken with the sound of whistling Pete's getting closer and closer. I jumped out of my bed and a deep slumber and said to myself, 'hey those are whistling Petes and someone has kinked them because they are EXPLODING!. I ran to our balcony and looked out into our alley. Low and behold some guy is lighting off whistling Petes (without ear protection and it was loud 30 feet up) and he is leading a procession of 12 foot kings and queens and a giant chicken and a giant lion. Then this stout little dwarf. Also included two bands playing the coolest music and a group of people smacking wooden dowels together while dancing (imagine national geographic special or Rick Steves in Barcelona or something).
Jordan and I put on our clothes and ran down. Amy said, 'where are you going?' Jordan and I looked each other and said, "we are not sure - A man throwing large whistling M80's and some 12 foot royalty escorted by a giant chicken just walked by and we though we would follow them and see where they are going"
She contemplated coming as well but kept trying to pull her socks over her shoes, cursing the 'Elephant Tranquilizer' I gave her last night. "Don't worry Amy, I will get you an espresso" She mumbled, "I am so gorked, I am so GORKED!, Make it a double, no a triple..."
We ran down and followed them around the block and then to the giant, 400 year old church just 300 feet away. We watched some 80 year old eccentric, little Catalan woman sing some song and the band joined in (she had giant sunglasses, yellow hat, funny pants- you know typical Catalan wear). I don't think she was part of the show. honest, I think she just ended up joining the procession, like Jordan and me.
We got Amy several espressos and after much fussing around, trying to find keys, etc, we set off for the Picasso museum. Very, very cool. At 3pm, it was free for everyone and we explored the Born District (where we will stay WHEN we come back next year) and got some very killer gelato. Everyone ordered the cream carmel and Lawton and I got the limon-lima (lemon-lime) but should have just been called lime. They don't actually have a separate word for LIme in Spanish or Catalan, as far as I can tell. Everything is Limon. both limes and lemons.
Well the Cream Carmel was amazing. I blew it on that one. Lawton Seemed happy. Go figure, something cool and full of sugar... It was 85 today, AGAIN! Did I mention that I am coming back next summer.
We visited the Picasso museum. Pretty darn cool. Everyone is familiar with his Cubism, but he experimented with surrealism, pointillism, minimalism, communism and very, very realism. We liked it very much. 1901 he lost his best friend, was poor, starving and depressed. I think he was flirting with Nihilism, because all his paintings were Blue for 4 years. His painting of his sisters confirmation at age 15 is incredible though. would rival the best impressionists at age 15!
Maggie fell asleep on Amy, Lawton and Jordan drug me as fast as they could threw the rest of the museum, "oh dad, you saw that. You won't like that. Hey, dad have you seen this door (not kidding) it was the salida or exit.... No respect. They don't even know Spanish. maybe they are picking up Catalan though.
We walked home, Amy still in a 'fog' that she was blaming on my sleep aid "I will never, ever take another one of those. How do you do it?" (faithful friend for 5 years of nights by the way). She promptly walked over to the bed and crashed for another 3 hours at 4pm until 7pm. Usual therapeutic dose for voices is around 300mg by the way. No wonder psychiatric patients are disabled. They are sleeping all the time...
Amy is smart and kept asking, "see if you can get some Ambien". I was saying, "No way, that is a scheduled class drug they will not let some doctor walk into a pharmacy and ask if he can prescribe his wife this medicine without a script or licensing". Well, I was wrong again.
Me in Spanish to the Catalan pharmacist , "My wife is having a terrible vacation because she can not sleep" He shows me an antihistamine. I told him that I am a doctor and could I prescribe Ambien for my wife?" Sure, no problem. "But I don't have a script", He handed me a ripped blank sheet of paper with someone else information the back, just write it here.
So I wrote the script, "i po qhs prn" #10 tablets (not trying to be greedy) Which is guess is LATIN after all, and within 30 seconds, he throws a box of 30 at me, total price $4 euros including baby wipes. My wife is going to sleep tonight. And tomorrow night.
I rallied the troops and we took the 'Metro' as they call the subway (by the way, if you ask for the 'subway' you get lots of blank stairs but making whooshing sounds like you are a snake underground will get the point across). The subways in Spain are amazing, think German engineering.
We heard of a festival in the Gracia neighborhood which does not mean 'thanks' but rather 'grace', I believe. They should have named it not 'grace' but rather 'unrefined'. this is a working neighborhood north of the Gothic district. The Gracia festal or festival is about blocks decorating their block with lights and art and then a competition takes place with voting on the best decorations. Imagine Blue collar Milwaukee having a festival with lots of decorations suspended above the street. yes, you got it. Tattoos, beer, Foosball and not many teeth and pretty bad decorations.
I wandered around with the kids for a bit and managed to find one of the blocks. We were SOMEWHAT UNDERWHELMED by the creativity of the decorations. What was interesting is that the men playing were playing a game that is a cross between Foosball and tiddly winks (Honest). And these were 60 year old men playing with serious intent as they tried to shoot the puck into the net.
We then walked to the main square and basically the Carnival arrived and you can see one of the videos I shot. The rides were actually great- but it is obvious they do not have a tort system in Spain. The rides often encroached onto the main walkway without any barriers to prevent injury (Lawton almost lost an eye twice). The centrifugal swing with chains dangling off looked like an medieval weapon, NO BARRIERS. Not kidding, and the place was full of drunk people!
All the rides were spray painted with both characters from Disney and Warner Brothers. I have a feeling they are not paying a lot of Royalties.... going from German Subway engineering marvels to a Tijuana Carnival in about 500 feet was very odd. Maybe all Carnies have an international brotherhood... The ROMA were not included though.... The Gypsies are not allowed to blue collar neighborhoods.
I needed to get the kids fed and with my bad Spanish (and worse Catalan) I ended up order $50 dollars worth of frozen fruit with whipped cream on top. The kids were not amused until they brought packets of sugar over. This is another tradition that is foreign to us in the northwest. They put lots of sugar on EVERYTHING. You will be shocked to see how quickly kids will drink milk though when it is laden with sugar... I am not kidding. 5 seconds, a whole glass. Reminds me of beer guzzling days at the frat. Even Maggie Slammed her glass down, yelling "First". Not good.
Now it is 730pm. time to rondeavou I am feeling stupid and my kids are high on sugar. Let's go find mom!
Well we returned to the Spanish Carnival (think Tijuana) and the kids rode around a bit more and then we returned to the Gothic District for some more Tapas, at our favorite tapas bar. See the second video. I think this idea would be incredible in Seattle. It was small, packed and was doing an incredible dinner business. Very fun. The food is great as well.
We have a lovely Irish couple above us (who have lived here for 5 years, two restaurants that are American Cuisine of all things). They have a little dog named 'Christie'. They lived in NYC and San Francisco for 15 years.
Well tomorrow is our last day in Barcelona, sadly. We are off to Andalucia to a little town of Nerja on Tuesday Morning by plane. Barcelona is an incredibly town.
Eric and Amy
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