Highlights-Málaga Day 1

I attended the 10am mass at the Málaga Cathedral (more formally, Santa Iglesia Catedral Basílica de la Encarnación). No nuns were in attendance (I looked for them) so my backup “watch the other guy” strategy was look at the older people. Not the t-shirts and cargo shorts older people (obvious non-Catholic tourists). There were big screens centered on the priests on either side of the altar area, possibly for those with obstructed views. I didn’t look at them during the service because the image made the priests look tiny (no slow motion replay either). The place where you need large screens is the choir because it is far from the altar and most of the seats face sideways (they have to focus on the hymns anyway). Spanish cathedral choir areas look like giant hockey penalty boxes to me. Spiritually recharged, I went to the Picasso museum. The standard museum ticket approach in Spain is: visit website, select ticket type and number (I get the old-dude discount), pay, receive ticket via email. Everything worked except the “receive ticket” (rather a big process gap in my mind). I didn’t know this until I arrived at the museum. Outside the building entrance, there were the standard two lines: those with tickets and those who have “issues” with websites (the line of shame). Even though the not-received tickets were for timed entry, there was just one “those with tickets” line. A long line (I thought about hiring an Uber to get to the end of it). In line, I did the “refresh” thing with my mobile email until my “You’re not going to get it” light came on. I switched my mental mode to how I was going to explain my problem in Spanish (my pull-down-to-refresh finger was tired). I come to Spain every year to practice my Spanish because no course or Spanish phrasebook teaches you, “I paid for them, but didn’t get the darn tickets in email” (_malditas entradas_ isn’t polite anyway). When I reached the front of the line, the security agent wasn’t interested in my story. She passed me immediately to the museum rep who traced my tickets with the reservation number (it saved me — always take a screenshot). Inside the museum, there was a Picasso quote, "We all know that art is not truth.” This coming from the co-inventor of Cubism who portrayed body parts sticking out at impossible angles. He made the lying obvious.