Barcelona #3

We start the day by grabbing a taxi and heading up to the big Montjuic park to see the Palau Nacional Musue d' Art  De Catalonia. We take a few photos and walk down to the Spanish Village which is a little like Disneyland.

A view of Barcelona from the Art Museum on the hill.

View though a fence...

The Spanish Village is called "Poble Espanyol" which translates to "Spanish People"...they have cobbled up representative architecture from many regions, but the real purpose is to extract maximum tourist Euros from restaurants, dress shops and chocolatiers....

I thought at first that I wouldn't like the place, but they threw in a nice modern art museum with lots of Picasso stuff...The picture below is a light fixture from a belt shop since no pix are allowed in the museum.

Lots  of cute little kids in the Poble Espanyol...

We take the L3 from the Placa Espanya three stops to the bottom of the Rambla...This guy is singing "dance me to the end of love....I give him half a Euro...he's singing it in English so the sounds are approximately right but if you listen the words aren't even close....we ran into that in Paris where everyone in "La Swing" restaurant took turns singing "Summertime"...Your daddy's rich and your momma's good looking...

"Summertime" was written by Gershwin whose use of the pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) in the context of the A minor tonality and a slow-moving harmonic progression that suggests a “blues.”

We wander the twisted streets of the old city looking for the big cathedral...eventually it turns up..

Tomorrow I will leave the sports coat home...it was about 70F or 21C and  very warm in the sun...

Gaudi designed the music hall...we will try to take the tour in the morning...the rest of the pix are of the hall...there is a percussion concert Sunday I'd like to do....

Saturday my nephew has invited us for lunch...he and Marta and the kids moved here from Florida a couple of years ago...

Barcelona #2

It's another holiday in Barcelona....there are roses and books for sale on every corner...they are celebrating the death of Saint George in A.D. 303...his name in Spain is Sant Jorgi.

IIn Catalonia, there was a dragon attacking the kingdom. Scared to death, the inhabitants decided to give two lambs every day to the dragon to satisfy its hunger and prevent attack on the village. But when the animals became scarce it was decided to send a person, chosen by drawing lots, and a lamb. When a family member was devoured by the dragon, the family received a rich compensation from the Kingdom's Treasury.

The people get tired of no member of the royal family being sent and therefore decide that the princess should be sent to the Dragon. On the way to the cave of the dragon, the princess found a gentleman or knight of the name Jorge and he slayed the dragon by stabbing his sword into it and rescued her. From the blood that flowed from the lifeless body of the monster was born a red rose which the gentleman handed to the princess.

The king offered the gentleman all the riches imaginable but he preferred that the riches be allocated to the inhabitants of the kingdom. In addition, a church was built in his name, from which flowed miraculous water that was able to heal the sick.

Therefore, in Catalonia, Balearic and parts of Valencia, it is customary on 23 April for men give away roses to women, like the knight who addressed the princess. The women give the men a book

By the end of the day, some four million roses and 800,000 books will have been purchased. Most women will carry a rose in hand, and half of the total yearly book sales in Catalonia take place on this occasion. I buy Carol and Anne pretty roses in very tasteful arrangements.

In the morning I take some shots of the Sagrada Familia designed by Gaudi and then hike uphill to the Park Guell which he also designed.

The park is full so I can't get in, but I get some nice pictures anyway.

Barcelona #1

This balcony is visible from our balcony.

Barcelona is a lovely city with proud architecture.

This is another shot from our balcony.

Gaudi is everywhere.

Life is But a Dream

Hillsborough River State Park, Florida

Mrs. Phred and I took Mom on a canoe ride yesterday. She's 86. As far as I know, this is her first time in a canoe.

I made a Sockeye salmon spread for sandwiches, with eggs, onions and mayonnaise for our picnic on the river. I brought Mom a bottle of chocolate milk to wash it down with.

The river is beautiful. It's undeveloped with ancient cypress and Spanish moss. I forgot the camera. There were some great reflection shots on the still river, great lighting and lots of interesting air orchids and reptiles.

I'm going though the 10,000 shots I took last year for the 2010 Firecloud Calendar. It's a tedious process. I'll probably pick out 200 shots I really like, then winnow them down to thirteen for the actual calendar. That includes one shot for the cover.

So anyway, the pictures here are from our trip to Spain in April, instead of the river. Just a few I liked the most. The flowers are from the Rock of Gibratar.
Today the doctor took a two-inch diameter cancer off my chest. It wasn't one of the really dangerous ones, but no SCUBA or swimming for about three weeks.

He asked if I had fallen in the last year. Thinking back, I did tumble down the hotel stairs in Madrid and land in the marble floored lobby. Then there was the time a few days later when I stepped off a raised sidewalk in Gibraltar and tumbled onto a bunch of broken concrete blocks.

I damaged my camera during the falls and had to buy a new one in a Radio Shack in the little town of Fort Davis, Texas. They didn't ask for ID for the purchase. Apparently, the don't get much debit card fraud in Fort Davis or they maybe hang the ones they catch.

Because of the training I got in learning to fall in the Air Force, I am immune to injury from falling (probably up to a drop of 17 feet).

Row, Row, Row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

Gaudi: Nut or Genius?

Antoni Gaudi was awarded the title of architect in 1878. As he signed the title, Elies Rogent declared, "Qui sap si hem donat el diploma a un boig o a un geni: el temps ens ho dirà" ("Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius. Time will tell.")

Our hotel in Barcelona has lined the hallways with black and white photos of the walkways and arches of the park that Gaudi designed. I fail to understand what I'm looking at ubtil I return to the hotel after visiting the park. I missed my chance to imitate some of these otherworldly shapes and images.

Here are a few more Gaudi photos. I vote genius.