Our clean clothes supply is drained so we were forced to locate a coin laundry and take care of business. Luckily, we purchased a SIM card yesterday from our preferred supplier, Orange (20 euros for 4 gigs). We like them because their card allows the wifi hotspot to function. With coins and dirty laundry in tow we venture out. The doormen at our swanky hotel smile at us - I’m sure most of their patrons have their laundry done by someone else. We locate a laundry a block and a half from the hotel - google says we are there - it must be out of business. No worries, a quick recalculation and we find another one requiring only an eight minute walk. As luck would have it - the second time is a charm! They have instructions in english - man, we hit the jackpot. We get the machine running right away. A nice feature of this unit is you don't need to add detergent. The machine spins and weights the clothes and adds the proper amount of soap for you - small wonders.
Our plan for the afternoon is to see the "Fundacio Miro" (Joan Miro Museum) so we need to fuel up while we are waiting for our clothes to get clean. On our sim card hunt yesterday we passed by a place that had cheeseburgers and were told the kitchen was closed until 19:00 - our eating schedule doesn't match Spain's timetable. We decide to try again today, it's about 11:00 and we strike out again - the kitchen doesn't open for another hour. Forget about it. We find a place with healthy prepared meals for business professionals or busy parents and use the store’s microwaves to heat them up. The concept is cool, the food tastes home-cooked and is good enough to fill our bellies until later.
Google maps doesn’t seem to work as well in Spain - there seems to be a disconnect with accurate information - especially the directions for busses and metros. Case in point: It directed us to one station past were we needed to go. Dave pulls out the map in his pocket and figures out we can take the D40 bus and in six stops we should be able to find the funicular. The museum is way up on top of a hill so we need the funicular to get us to the top. We get off in six stops but we cannot locate it. Monique had a correct feeling during the ride that we were going too far. We find a little street sign with a map and a couple of other lost people hovering around it and decide the funicular is three or four blocks back. We also learn that the funicular is accessed inside the metro station - that’s a new one. Not shown that way on the map. We walk back and sure enough our cable pulled train-like wagon awaits. Up we go.
On top we quickly see the signs and walk right to the museum. When you see a whole museum dedicated to one person’s art you start to get a solid understanding of how their mind works. Joan Miro was an innovator with a very distinct style - his art is easy to spot and seeing this museum really gets our creative juices flowing (even more). They also had a really nice store with some pretty cool items. What a nice way to spend the afternoon.
We now know the easy way back so we catch the correct metro train and exit one block from our hotel. Sometimes it takes a mistake to force you to really understand how the train and bus system works. We pick up a salad and two bottles of wine from a grocery store we know about and return to the hotel. Our plan is to call room service and order one of their hamburgers and split it. With the salad we purchased we will have more than enough food. It also prevents us from spending over 100 euros for a meal. We have fine tuned our ability to know when to just go for what you want and when to conserve a little. Priorities of travel: 1. Figure out the cities transport options, 2. Get a SIM card, 3. Find a grocery store.
Monique has some work to do and we want to catchup on our blog posting. When you are enjoying a new place it is hard to take time out. We have six nights in Barcelona so we decide we can sacrifice one evening and stay in. You should really feel sorry for us because we have a tough life.
Bugaderia Lavandería Laundry IGLÚ - it gets the job done.
Personage by Joan Miro. We saw it’s brother, sister (cousin?) in Denmark.
Joan Miro - Titled “May 1968” In Paris during the spring of 1968, university students confronted the establishment with riots and demonstrations. They claimed that the only way to be realistic was to demand the impossible. Miro believed that paintings can be walls for inscribing protests.
This is a study for a monument: Moon, sun and one star. Monique saw this and said she thought she saw the actual monument in Chicago - google confirmed her suspicions. It’s in Daley Plaza and it’s 39 feet tall!
Miro would assemble found objects in unique ways - deconstructing and reconstructing - so cool!!