Not a helium-filled balloon in sight

Since today is Thanksgiving and we couldn’t watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (or as heard on the street just today, “we’re missing the Macy’s Day Parade”), we decided to start the day with a tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalan. We have no pictures of the interior to show you, as cameras are forbidden…the private ownership controls exactly what non-visitors can see and how much they’re going to have to pay to see it. The Catalan music society, Orfeo Catala, built the palace as a rebuttal to the Liceum Opera House, which they viewed as, not only aristocratic, but—far worse--Castillian-speaking! There’s more stained glass here than has ever been assembled together. The ceiling (total coverage with a huge, three-dimensional sun in the center), as well as both side walls--stage level to the ceiling covered with stained glass. Add to this, brightly glazed, carved ceramic ornamentation on every solid surface and you get a feel for the subtlety of the place. Half of our traveling party thinks that we could do the stained glass ceiling somewhere at home. The other half isn’t holding his breath. We had the additional treat of being there during an orchestral rehearsal…and, in spite of all that glass, pretty extraordinary acoustics. Here are a couple shots of the exterior—one, the mosaic dating to 1908, the second, a very contemporary addition—the ticket booth (the old booths were too small to accommodate computers).

We then headed up to Montjuic to have a little look-see. It’s your run-of-the-mill mountaintop next to downtown, featuring the national museum of art, Miro museum and, of course, an Olympic stadium. We spent the rest of the day touring the absolutely unbelievable collection at the National Museum of Catalan Art. Since it’s Thanksgiving and you should have a huge meal in the middle of the afternoon before lapsing into a coma, we ate at Oleum, the ‘fine dining’ option at the museum…and it truly was. The only thing that eclipsed the food was the view—across the cascading waters and ‘magic fountains’ to Placa Espanya and all points north. There was no pie at all on the dessert menu. Come to think of it, there hasn’t been pie all week. Apparently, the Catalans are not pie-people.

The Catalan language code has been cracked. It seems that every fourth word is French and every sixth word, while in Spanish, simply has been cut to one syllable…and multi-word expressions split the difference…good day is bon dia. Three is tres(Spanish) and eight is huit (French). There you have it.