Highlights-Barcelona-last full day before the cruise
I ran 7km this morning. I had a Korean Rice Dog for an afternoon snack (calling this a highlight is stretching it). I met a friend for supper. The conversation topics were the contributions of Islam to spirituality and how Marx, Freud, and Darwin have all been used as arguments against Christianity. I suggested that he shouldn't get too worked up and enjoy his pasta.
The Cat-Fernando Botero
Notable Items
Running in Barcelona is typically a pathway for me to get lost. I can’t run in the older parts of the city without getting lost because the streets are a labyrinth (no minotaurs, I hope). I usually run in the port area, but can miss turns there too and end up in warehouses. This day I went straight north until I realized that I was climbing a hill (in a port, really?). Barcelona is surrounded by hills.
I had my hair cut today. I peeked in the shop window from the street and saw the barber using his phone. Ha! No waiting. Actually, it appeared there would be waiting because he told me the shop wasn’t open. I asked when he would open. Instead of telling me, he asked if I wanted a haircut. This was either a failure to communicate (in Spanish) or progress, depending on your perspective. I considered it progress because we had moved a tiny step beyond The shop is closed. I think I broke him down (or the lure of money was too great). He opened just for me.
I went to MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona). This was one of those modern art museums with incomprehensible exhibits that challenge you in two ways. First, to ask yourself, “What the heck am I looking at?” I think that’s the point. Second, to ask, “Why did I come here?” There was a long, beautifully colorful video of the visit of an architectural critic to a planned town in Algeria, Timimoun (a special project of the dictator-president of Algeria post-revolution, Houari Boumédiène). There are lots of exterior building scenes and empty rooms or mostly empty rooms with a single refrigerator. I watched the refrigerator for a long time, hoping someone would open it. I would have spent more time watching the video, but I needed a sofa.
I had a supper meeting with my friend, but came over all peckish in the afternoon (this happens daily). I went to the Korean Rice Dog closet, er restaurant. I ordered a beef corn dog with a sweet potato chunk exterior using the kiosk. I don’t mind using kiosks to order (huge touch screens are fun to use), but I always have this unsettling feeling like one wrong finger press, and I’ll be initiating thermonuclear war. I pressed carefully.
I met my friend at Luigi’s. The path to the table was from the front of the restaurant, all the way to the back, a 180-degree turn, and then back toward the front (a long U path). There were tables on both sides of the U separated by a rather thin partition. There was a square opening in the partition near my head with another table directly observable through the opening. It felt like the woman at the other table was talking in my ear. I prefer not to listen to other people’s conversations at restaurants, but when a person’s mouth is inches from your ear, it’s a challenge not to. We did talk across the opening once or twice.