Barcelona & the Best Night Ever

Okay, I just had to make one amendment to my last entry...

It wasn´t the peeling out that finally put things in Malta over the top.

It was the Mormons.

Mormons on Malta!!!!!



But Barcelona, My Oh My!

I arrived yesterday and have decided it is the most beautiful city I´ve ever seen.

Yesterday I saw a Dali exhibit, which gave me a little peek into the brain of certainly one of the most imaginative and eccentric figures of the 20th Century. You know, he had a real knack for depicting avant garde uses for human genitals in drawings. Just kidding. I mean, he did, but the exhibit was much more than that.

Today I went to a garden designed by Gaudi, the famous architect. Another imaginative fellow. There were a house and a few structures in the park that felt like something out of Smurf Village. Well anyway it was dreamy and wonderful.

But last night, I experienced the best moment of my trip thus far.

I was walking through this little alleyway that passes by a really big, really amazing church, and there was a small opening where a solo cellist was playing (with a portable CD player nearby, playing a single piano as accomaniment). The night was perfect (cool and a little cloudy), and the music floated out from the cello, danced mournfully through the air, and approached me with a vivid sort of incredible sort of wondrous sort of hesitance that was haunting and inviting at the same time.

I decided to sit down for a while.

And my reward for staying came in the form of ¨Ave Maria,¨about six songs later. That song gets me EVERY SINGLE time, but most especially last night, alone in a little alleyway on a perfect night in Barcelona, Spain. I decided that that moment alone--even if it would have been the *only* memorable moment during the entire trip--was worth the journey.

There are truly amazing street performers here. Street performing seems less of a way for people to subsist than a venue for really talented people to showcase that talent and make a decent living. The charcoal and pencil portraits the artists do here, in an hour´s time, represent the kind of work they would be paid REALLY GOOD money to produce in the States. And I´ve heard all kinds of brilliant musicians playing all kinds of instruments. It´s difficult to retain the will to continue walking most of the time with all the entertainment to be experienced on the way.

And guess where I´ll be heading the day after tomorrow!!

Guess!!

Guess, I said!!!!

Well, I won´t give it all away (since it seems you reFUSE to guess), but I´ll just say that it has a little something to do with trampling, a little something to do with red, and a lot to do with ludicrous, idiot tourists looking for an adrenaline rush.

I´ve yet to decide if I´ll be running :)