Lorena's Epiphany

Spain Travel Journal: Barcelona 05

August 19, 2009 at 3:10 pm Leave a comment

/.Word to Mini-Skirts./

I feel surprisingly safe walking alone at night in Barcelona.. and in a mini-skirt.
There are people out everywhere and even the subway is busy after midnight.
Don’t worry.

/.Dali’s Mustache./

Even more mysterious than Dali’s surrealist paintings, are his sculptures. I whizzed past most of his earlier works of mountains and figure drawings. Sex has always been a recurring theme in his work (ie. “The Mastrubator”) and you can witness as it becomes more surreal.

His sculpture of a distorted elephant in motion made me stop in my tracks. The elephant looks so elongated and bent up, it appears to be melting. You hardly recognize it is an elephant, except for the tusks and skeletal forms. Tim Burton would like this.

My favorite sculpture was of a large stadium with a bull hanging into it. The bull fighter appears victorious with butterfly wings and an audience of miniature Dali’s (the man, not the art) applauding him. You instantly recognize him through his mustache. How did he ever come up with that brilliant trademark?

Gotta love Dali's sense of humour

The sculpture is also very colorful and detailed. Fused into the walls of the stadium are human arms and legs, disproportionately larger than the rest of the figures. Peering down from the sky above the stadium, is Dali with a cock-eyed expression. The perfect ironic twist, I thought. They actually built a large scale model of this sculpture, but you could only see pictures of how large it really was.

Dali lived in Spain and I heard it is very much worth seeing his house. Some of his paintings truly come to life.. or was that Miro’s casa? You’ll have to check on that.

/.New Eyes./

I’d left all my shopping for my last day, but the shops were all closed! Only small boutique shops in Bourne are open on Sundays.

Disappointed, I decided to hop on a Trixi tour of the Gothic Quarter. The Trixis are bicycle guided coaches that take you around the city. They run almost completely on the driver’s mechanical push, but feel like you’re in a taxi.

My guide-driver was very nice and would stop every few miles to tell me the stories of different locations. Even though I’d done the bike tour too, this one was a lot more personal and I was able to see things I hadn’t previously.

From Barcelona originally, my guide-driver resembled a longer-hair version of Gael Garcia Bernal (my second favorite actor). He apparently left Barcelona for the mountainside for a while, only recently returning. When he got back, he saw Barcelona in a different light, discovering new things he hadn’t noticed before.

Gael Garcia Bernal - Mexican actor

I felt the same about Lebanon when I first moved back a month ago. My sister would roll her eyes as I would point out the vernacular of the city. I couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly sit at home in such a buzzing, beautiful country. When I lived there as a teenager, my world was tiny. Restricted. Now I come back, hungry to explore the possibilities. The hidden jewels. The culture so unique to who I am.

Ok. I drifted off a little there. Back to the tour.. Gael (let’s call him that for simplicity) customized my tour to pass through the more artistic parts of the Gothic Quarter. There’s so much graffiti in Barcelona that is mere scribbles. As much as I love graffiti, I can’t stand the “Juan loves Maria” types. Who cares really?!

Towards the end of the tour, we passed by the Chocolate factory – which I didn’t even know about! (unbelievable!) I must’ve sounded like a little child, when I requested he drop me there after the tour. I was so excited to see all the chocolate!

/.A Bite About Chocolate./

Did you know…

- The first culture to grow chocolate was the Maya, more than 2000 years ago. (How did anyone live before that?!)
- Chocolate in Nahuati native language is “Cacahuati” (Doesn’t sound too appetizing)
- The Aztecs used the cocoa beans as currency. A rabbit cost 10 beans. A slave 100 beans. The services of a prostitute 10 beans.

The chocolate museum wasn’t the Willy Wonka-sort I’d imagined, but educational. I kept waiting to walk into a pool of melting chocolate or see chefs mixing huge pots of melting goodness.

They do give you an edible chocolate ticket when you come in.

Entry filed under: Floating. Tags: art, Aztecs, Barcelona, bull fighter, chocolate beans, chocolate factory, currency, Dali, Gael Garcia Bernal, Gothic Quarter, graffiti, Mayans, mini skirt, mustache, returning home, sculpture, Spain, tour, Travel, Trixi.