One thing I just love about Spain: Time. There doesn't seem to be any. Or if there is, nobody's keeping track. When I checked in at my hostel, the guy in charge gave me a big fat notebook of fun things to do. ¨Read it at your leisure, of course,¨ he said. ¨This is Spain.¨ And indeed. For all the rambling and promenading, nobody seems to be in a big hurry. Of course, I don't have a job, so I'm not feeling any pressure, but it's definitely different here. I got up this morning at 8:45, made it out the door by a leisurely 9:30, and by 10 am, lots of places around me are still struggling to take down chairs and start serving coffee.
I like a place where I am an over-achiever, in terms of the wake-up procedure. Since grad school, left to my own devices with no alarm clock, I will routinely sleep 10 hours a night, for days on end. I used to have a job where I was at work, smiling, and conversing with middle schoolers by 6:45 or 7 am. I did this for years, on probably 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night. I'm assuming my current pattern will eventually balance out, and I'll be replenished, and start waking up at reasonable hours. But for now, a toast to the Spanish, for encouraging me to sleep in.
Best $12 I have spent in a long time: The Miro Museum. It's on Montujuic, in Barcelona's steep, ritzy Jewish quarter, and it's a beautiful walk up there. It's so steep, in fact, the city has thoughtfully provided dozens of outdoor escalators to get people up to all of these museums and parks up there. My favorite thing about the museum visit was all of the groups of preschoolers. I counted 4 or 5 separate classes, the cutest of them all dressed in red. They hopped and ambled up the stairs and some of them wandered in circles while their patient museum educator was talking (thinking of you, Jessica R!) but most of them were enthralled. And that's why I love Miro so much- accessible even to tiny people, but so multi-layered and complex that adults can stand in front of a piece for hours, pondering love and longing and loss and the fragility of existence and tenderness and war and patriotism and peace...and on and on.
The sculptures were stunning, I thought- spare and simple but really, really potent. The big idea I took from my sculpture class last semester is that scuplture is a lot, I mean a lot, harder than it looks, in terms of proportion and balance and movement and joinery. Miro's are wonderful. There was one called ¨Monument in the Middle of the Ocean to the Glory of the Wind.¨ There was another one, ¨Homme i Dona en la Nuit,¨ with two slightly different barstools, one upturned, with a crescent moon. One of the paintings I loved was something like, ¨Numbers and Letters Attracted by a Spark,¨ and dozens of other beautiful titles. I had 3 stops to make today before leaving for Malaga, but I didn´t make it past the museum.
After that, one last walk around the Barri Goti, during which I got lost one last time. (I´ve been playing the game here in which I always go toward the darkest, narrowest, crookedest streets, on the hunch that that will take me deeper in and lead me to the interesting things. Twice, from different places, it's taken me directly to my hostel, without looking at signs.) Kind of a long journey to Malaga, although it shouldn´t have been; getting to the airport involved a 20 minute walk, a subway, a city train, and a 10 minute bus ride to the terminal. I was prepared to do an elaborate procedure in Malaga to get to the train station, check my big luggage, find a bus, and walk from the city center to my hostel, but in the dark and the rain, I said, screw it. Cab. So worth it.
Tonight, one of the best meals yet, especially in Spain. My hostel has a bar in the foyer, and one of the desk guys (improbably named Fabio, of all things) had cooked dinner. They take turns. Some sort of Spanish soup with greens and veggies, and a giant plate of baked tomato-potato-veggie deliciousness. Oh, and two homemade sangrias. Tomorrow, the real reason for my trip to Spain: the Alhambra. Update soon.
