Last night before we went to the Palua de la Musica, the most FABULOUS piece of architecture I’ve ever seen, I went to get cash and the machine ate my card. My cash card. So I walked into la banco and politely explained the problem. They were sympathetic but not the least bit concerned about getting my card back. I was with Debby and Ron, Jim’s former partner, who has known me since I was 21 years old. When the bank manager told me to call California to solve the problem, I found it necessary, unfortunately, to pull a Bonnie Garvin. Needless to say, I had my card back first thing this morning. Bloody hell! They empty the fucking machine every night. What’s the big deal? NONE. But I had to resort to obnoxious major attitude to get it. I was embarrassed to do it in front of friends, but Debby and Ron were incredibly impressed and complimented me all the way back to the hotel. I have to put in a BIG plug for Hotel Colon. They were so incredibly accommodating, kind and helpful. Dealing with our mini-group can’t be easy!
Then the Palau de la Musica. The pictures will speak for themselves. We saw “La Traviata”, a wonderful production but not my favorite opera. But it didn’t matter. The experience of being there was SUCH a privilege. We spent the day yesterday, at the Picasso Museum which, no big surprise was amazing. I didn’t include many pictures because it seemed ridiculous. Nothing I was going to show was going to capture Picasso if you haven’t seen Picasso’s work. I was mostly interested in his early work, his portraits, which were far more classical than the Picasso I think of today. I read somewhere he’d become very cynical about people and their reaction to his work. He allegedly said something to the effect that the uglier and more distorted he made his subjects appear, the more money he could charge.
After a gorgeous dinner prepared to us by Joseph, an adorable chef who lives down the road – and delivered, we spread out across the MASSIVE house in Girona. The villa we rented is like a small hotel. It’s unbelievably gorgeous and insanely cheap. In addition to swimming pool, 8 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, there is a sauna, jacuzzi and steam. The place is so huge we keep getting lost. And although we’re just outside Barcelona and will return for some more sights, we want to explore some the fabulous hill towns and see the sea.
The dogs have been so chill and everybody is enjoying them. They spend most of their time in the laps of one of the six of us, getting stroked. What can be bad?
We rented a van and left Barcelona for Girona this morning. Six of us and 200 bags plus the mutts. To be continued…
Glass dome ceiling
