Solo Barcelona

Well, Operation: Move to Mallorca is starting off as a pretty big fail because today I flew back to Barcelona. I'm telling myself that I'm just heading home to pick up my stuff,* but I feel like we all know where this is headed.**

The rest of the fam is continuing on with their vacay in Morocco while I head home. That means I had the afternoon and evening in Barcelona to wander around before flying home tomorrow. 

I went to one of the art museums we didn't have time for earlier in the week, Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya. It had some lovely things but the views leading up to it and back to the city were definitely the best part!***

I ended the day with a Spanish guitar concert at the beautiful Palau**** performed by Manuel Barrueco. He could have played an hour of "Twinkle, Twinkle"***** and I would have been happy just to be in the hall, but he obviously didn't and it was really lovely. There was a theme and variations that made you laugh, cry, and "ooh!" I have no performance pictures,****** but there are more beautiful hall pictures!

This most likely ends your 2016 Spring Break edition of "Teacher Summers"! Stay tuned this June when I fly fish******* in Alaska, tour Naples******** with the Celtic band, and squeeze as much South America as possible into two weeks. 

Super hearts!

-KT

*Mostly the cat. 

**School on Monday. 

***New amazing photography technique: have a fleeting torrential downpour pass over the museum while you are inside and immediately clear up when you leave to have blue skies and few other tourists in your pictures. 

****http://teachersummer.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/so-many-things.html?m=1

*****Never before has a string teacher asked to hear "Twinkle, Twinkle."

******Please join me in pretending that I have no during-the-concert photos because I was diligently obeying the "no photos during the show" rule and not because they came out all weird because of the lighting. 

*******Guest-starring UK!

********Florida. We're not yet that glamorous. 

Mallorca!

Ah, 100. You came and went so quickly! We have been in Mallorca (101) for almost two days and we have spent most of that time talking about how beautiful and lovely it is. 

Exhibit A, the view from the hotel:

Exhibit B, hydrangeas as big as your head:

Exhibit C, this adorable town:

Exhibit D, this panorama:

We did do some cultural things, mainly a visit to the town, Valldemosa, where Frederic Chopin and George Sand* stayed for a winter. It was supes cutes and totes adorbs!

Here is the church/convent where Chopin lived:

Here is his view:

Here is his piano(!):

Here are the inexplicably tall statues of Chopin and Sand that I'm pretty sure are not original:

And here are the lunch companions he wished he had:

Just for grins, and on a non-Chopin note, here are two classy ladies yukking it up on the Mallorcan streets:

Mallorca, thank you for being beautiful and for becoming my new dream island home.**

-KT

*I hardcore-nerd-prepared for this trip by reading her book, "A Winter in Mallorca," in which Sand describes:

1. How beautiful the island is,

2. How sick and miserable Chopin (though he is never named) was, and,

3. How much she absolutely detested the people of Mallorca and everything that happened to them here. 

If you're ever looking to read some sick 19th-century literary burns, this is the book for you. 

**This dream island home location was previously held by Bermuda and, as always, involves inventing a WonderMop equivalent, winning the lottery, and/or marrying well.***

***Apologies to feminism, of course. 

Century Club!

Today is a super huge day in...probably only my family. Today I visited my 100th country and can become a member of the Traveler's Century Club!* AT, travel companion and my travel inspiration, is already a member and I am super excited to join this club that does nothing.**

To join this elite group, we drove from Barcelona to Andorra, a micro-state in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Or, a two and a half hour drive into the mountains. Dad was a super trooper and drove us through the rain to get a point that he already had.*** 

We started out the day like this:

And arrived in Andorra like this:

We look the same, right? It wasn't that far, people. Calm down. 

Once in Andorra, we drove all of 15 minutes to the capital,**** Andorra la Vella. From there we did what every great traveler does upon arriving at a new country: we had lunch. 

To be real real about it and to give as much attention to a mundane detail as possible, we all had the chicken. We all agreed that it was quite good and surpassed all our expectations for Andorran chicken.*****

Oh, actually, there was a thing before lunch. We parked the car and I was ceremoniously presented with a banner celebrating 100 countries!! This family does not celebrate small and takes every opportunity to use my new fancy title.****** It was hysterical. I laugh-cried a little!

Following lunch, we took more banner pictures and took an obligatory "center of town with a church" picture. Many Andorrans were confused by us. 

The cold weather and lack of rainy day activities sealed the deal for us in Andorra and we loaded up the car to head back to Spain. We did make one stop, at the driver's request, however.*******

Oh, and, of course, we stopped twice on the way back to pull over on the side of the highway and take pictures next to signs commemorating our numbers of countries.********

Tomorrow we go to Mallorca********* for another point! It's all gravy from here!

-KT

*If you have not heard me talk about it, you can look it up here: http://travelerscenturyclub.org/

I encourage you to begin working through the three stages of learning about the TCC. Please keep in mind that, like grief, there is no required amount of time for each stage and you might not necessarily progress through to the final stage. It is perfectly acceptable to be stuck at stage one or two. 

The stages are:

1. Realize that a club for obnoxious uppity travelers really does exist. Everybody belongs somewhere, right?

2. Look at the country list and start to complain about how there are 325 on the list but only 193 according to the UN. Some of these are bogus! What the what?? Yeah, man, I totally get it but I didn't make the list, I'm just living in it. 

3. Start counting up your countries and planning how you can get more. 

**They are not totally the Seinfeld of clubs. They have a newsletter. There are chapters in various parts of the world that meet. 

***In TCC-speak, this is the ultimate definition of a giver. 

****Also the center of the country. It's small, y'all. 

*****We also all agreed that our expectations had been quite low. We apologize, Andorra, for not having more faith in you. 

******This attention to celebrating is easily one of the greatest things about this family. Got a birthday coming up? Let us know! Girl, we love cake!

*******We all found "McAuto" to be very funny. 

********Like ya do. 

*********See * if you're wondering why that's another point even though it is technically still Spain. 

If Gaudí Built It...

...today we visited it!!

It was an action-packed day of Gaudí architecture. We certainly didn't hit everything but we did all we could!

We started at his masterwork, La Sagrada Familia, which he started in 1883 and worked on obsessively until his death in 1926. It was nowhere near completion, but through his detailed drawings and models, others have been able to continue the work. The building is expected to be finished in 2026. As Gaudí himself put it, "my client is in no hurry."*

There are two elaborate facades with a third still to be built. There is the Nativity facade

And the Passion facade.

Stay tuned for Glory.**

Once inside...whoa. The columns are meant to look like trees, natural light from the stained glass fills the giant space, there are no flat surfaces, and there is elaborate detail everywhere. 

After gawking our way around the basilica, we went to Gaudí's penultimate project, Casa Mila, aka La Pedrera. It's an apartment and office building still in use today. It has several Gaudí signatures, his unique rooftop designs to camouflage functional structures, undulating*** surfaces, and parabolic arches to create functional open floor plans. Why do we still not use all of his revolutionary 1920 ideas? No clue.****

Our last Gaudí stop of the day was Park Guell. This is where Gaudí and wealthy friend Guell tried to build a community of 60 houses but ended up selling two houses and the house where Gaudí himself lived. It worked out great for the rest of us because we get a lovely park with a few structures waiting for a much grander use. It also overlooks the entire city. 

Tomorrow we will take a Gaudí break to get a country point. You knew we didn't come all this way for just a repeat!!

-KT

*In this case, as in most cases, "the client" is God. 

**Again, as is often the case. 

***For you, LaQual! Also, it was said at least a dozen times in our various audio guides. 

****Pay close attention to find Dad looking like a spy movie villain. 

So Many Things

A two-part Barcelona blog entry in which there were so many things:

Part I: We Saw So Many Things

Casa Batlló by Antonio Gaudi:

Palau de la Música Catalana:

Picasso Museum:

Street Scenes:

Part II: We Ate So Many Things

Oh my god, this soup:

Clockwise from top left: shrimp rolls, beef with mushrooms, tempura octopus, and patatas bravas

Not pictured: Gelato