Golden Eyes?

This morning I got up and went on a solo adventure in Barcelona! I got dressed and treated myself to a cafe con leche and some sort of yummy pastry from El Fornet. I did a lot of people watching, because for some reason this is a really popular place to eat breakfast. I saw the hottest Spanish man ever. Hot enough to forgive the fact that he was wearing tight white jeans and a brown leather jacket with the collar popped. I know...I know.

Then I made my way over to the Caixa Forum Social and Cultural Centre. Designed by Josep Puig i Cadalfach (the same guy who built one of the houses on the Block of Discord), it was a factory until 1919. Then it fell into disrepair until it became a police station after the Spanish Civil War. Finally, in 2002, it became the museum it is today. And the best part, it's free!

The building itself is really cool. It was designed to be fire-safe. This means is that there is a collection of buildings connected by little streets, so if one was on fire the rest could be saved.

The first exhibit I went to was on Charlie Chaplin. There were a lot of pictures and movies playing all over, including the first movie in which he spoke. They also had the films laid out scene by scene in pictures with writing to explain what was going on. It was a fun exhibit.

Then I made my way to the Etruscan exhibit. It wasn't super big, but they had some really pretty stuff the Louvre, as well as musuems in Florence, Rome, and the Vatican. There was jewelry, parts of a chariot, sarcophagi, and swords. They even had some gold tablets that had been written on. Those were really cool.

The last exhibit was called "Golden Eyes." What weird experience. The whole exhibit is one white room with black and white drawings in circles on the walls. It is supposed to be "a heap of sequenced images and simultaneous actions -- joined in a sort of illogical chain reaction in which each becomes the consequence of the previous one -- which in turn recalls the frenetic reception and no holds barred approach of James Bond films."

Ya. Ok.

The drawings were of things like two eyes having sex, a finger and a nose in bed together, people with hair growing out of odd places on their bodies, people with plants growing out of their backs, lots of human organs in odd places (alllll organs---vagina eyes?), and one of a girl pooping diamonds.

Needless to say I was uncomfortable, being the only one in the room besides the security guard, so I did a quick lap and peaced. That was enough of that.

I walked across the street afterwards to the Pavello de Mies van der Roehe. There isn't much there, and it's pretty small, but I did get to see the famous Barcelona chair up close and personal.

I trekked over to La Boqueria to get some food for the week. I got 2 onions, 2 potatoes, 3 apples, a head of lettuce, a bunch of asparagus, and more rosemary than I'll ever use for 5 euro. I LOVE THE BOQUERIA.

On the metro home, guess who I ran into? The one and only Jimmy Watt! He is studying in Mallorca for the semester, and he told me he was going to be in Barca for a few days beforehand. I couldn't believe it---what are the chances of us running into each other in this big city? I love it.

I came back, made a sandwich, and relaxed for a bit. Then I did some work (what a concept right?). I have a big week ahead of me so I got ahead on my work for the week.

Here are some pictures from my adventure.
The famous Barcelona chair. From the side.
I just thought the wall was really beautiful.
This is Georg Kolbe's sculpture "Morning." It is in a little shallow pond.
It was a little gloomy today in Barca. Oh well, it can't be beautiful all the time.
The Pavilion. The tiny little man on the right of the picture gave me some sassitude when I got there. I think he has some anger because his job is to sell tickets at the Pavello de Mies van der Roehe.
This is a model of what the Caixa Forum looks like. Just to give you an overview.
This is the only picture I managed to take from inside. No one else was taking pictures in any other exhibit, and I didn't feel like being reprimanded in Spanish. This picture is of Charlie Chaplin digging the first shovel of dirt for his studios in Los Angeles. The street signs are on the corner of La Brea and De Longpre. So crazy!
This is the roof of the Caixa Forum. It's so cool that people live right there, and can just look out onto this all the time!
The ground undulated---a tribute to the use of the curve by Modernist architects, as well as a useful way to collect and drain rain water.
One of the towers. It had a pretty mosaic around it.

Some more pictures--I know it's been a little wordy for awhile. Tomorrow we are off to Sitges! I'll definitely have some pictures from that.

Besos.