Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona, Spain. We have been here several times before so we didn’t take a tour this time. At about 1:00 PM we took a shuttle to Columbus Square. It is a little over a mile from the ship. There is huge statue of Chris in the center of a very busy traffic circle. It looks to be about 100 feet tall. In an open area there were a dozen or so tables set up like a flea market. When I say junk, that’s what this stuff was. All real junk. There were 100 year old and older cameras and pictures and all kinds of other useless junk and do dads. Absolutely nothing you would want to buy. As if they had cleaned out their attics and tried to sell what should have been thrown out.

The old buildings in the area are elegantly built and in perfect condition. This is one of the prettiest cities I have ever seen. We were thinking of getting a cab and taking a ride to the Gaudi section. We never tire of seeing his works. We never saw even one cab and just took the shuttle back to the ship.

That evening we had what they called Cocktails and Dinner with Picasso. This was only for those that took the whole world cruise. We met at 6:00 PM and boarded buses to the Gothic Quarter. We entered Casa Llotja de Mar. This is an old castle that has been renovated into a huge banquet hall with 80 foot high ceilings.

There were many people serving drinks and dozens of different kinds of tapas that never stopped. Dinner was a little unusual. First was soup. First they put a cold poached egg in a soup bowl in front of you. Next they poured potato soup into the bowl. Then they served round hunks of chicken with apple and onion in the center. The first dessert was fruit salad with peach sorbet. After dinner we were going to walk to the Santa Maria del Mar, one of Barcelona’s finest Gothic Churches, ablaze in light especially for our visit. I copied that last sentence from the brochure. Instead of going on to the church and the museum there was the option of taking a bus back to the ship. The Kapels did go back.

It was a walk of a couple of blocks over pretty rough cobble stone side walks. The church was huge and the exterior architecture was very nice. The interior had ceilings several stories high. The walls looked very plain with smooth blocks of gray stone. The interior wasn’t much. From there we walked several blocks to the Picasso Museum.

We toured the museum, in small groups, each with separate guides. After about a couple hours of that we went to a large room in the museum. It was time for dessert number two. There were more slaves walking around serving tons of different kinds of chocolates, cakes, brownies, fruits, ice cream and you name it. Now came the best part. the walk to the bus.

There was a separate guide, a cute girl form the ship, to walk just Bobbi and I to the bus. It was only a four block walk and should have been no problem, but big problem. Just as we got outside it started to sprinkle a little. As we got a little further it started to rain. Then came the lightning and thunder. By the time we got a block away it was coming down in buckets. The poor girl had only a light sweater which she tried to hold over her head. It was no help at all. I had no problem. I was wearing a suit jacket and of course my long afro hairdo kept the rain from bouncing off my scalp and running into my eyes, NOT. Our Idiots from the ship had managed to totally screw up an otherwise beautiful event. Not one of the dummies thought of having umbrellas. The ship has hundreds.

Totally Soaked Sherm Out