Suttons Go To London

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Just another reason to love Jennifer.

When we were in Barcelona we went to Guell Parc. Outside the park there was a Gaudi inspired turtle person taking pictures with people. When it was my turn, I walked up and the turtle person put a bike helmet on my head and held out her hand. I thought she wanted to shake my hand until she said, “The coin please?!?”  At this point I had to stop everything and rummage to find a coin for her… I swear I was really going to give her  acoin when the whole thing was done, but I think I held up the whole line and looked like a dummy… the worst thing is Michael caught the whole thing on tape….

I realize that it is a little sad that i am just finishing up my Barcelona posts 7 days before we leave for Italy, but some of us are super busy (aka watching 6 Feet Under episodes after work when I should be blogging).

Tuesday we met up with John and Joanne again and decided to take another crack at the Picasso museum.

John learns the museum is open!

It was pretty fantastic; everything divided up into phases and periods of his life. I personally was also quite glad to be in out of the rain because for the 2nd day in a row sunny Barcelona was almost a rain out! After the museum, we decided to head over to a lovely vegetarian restaurant I had chosen for us only to discover that, of course, it was closed. I swear I have a special talent for finding great places and going to them the one day they are closed… We found our way to an Italian restaurant and had another 2 hours chat session. We used to go to John and Joanne’s almost every weekend for dinner and Pinochle or other games, so just hanging out talking was a great flashback to those times.

I think we wore the old guys out, because we decided to part ways for the afternoon - Michael and I wanted to see the museum of contemporary art and they want to do a hop on tour. We headed to the museum only to find that it was, well… you know the routine…. So I begged Michael to take me back to La Boqueria for more juices. To our pure delight, all the juices were half off!!! Between the two of us, we had 5 juices, and made plans to come back the next day to try even more. As you can probably guess, the market was closed the next day.

We spent the evening on Las Ramblas, window  shopping and people watching, and we were still so full from the juice  that we skipped dinner, had we tried to go out the resturant would have been closed anyway, so really we were just cutting out steps.

We did manage to see the Contemporary Art museum on Wednesday (which was free due to the fact that it was the end of summer national holiday). They had a special area set up for kids to make their own art.

I wanted to make  macaroni dog house picture, but Michael said I am too old.

We wrapped up the day with a walk to the port, then headed out to the airport for the short trip home.

Goodbye Barcelona….

It is about a 45 minute water show in Montjuïc, specifically the Plaça d’Espanya at the foot of the hill to the south of all the museums and the Olympic Stadium.

The magic fountain of Montjuïc’s first performance was on May 19, 1929 during the Great Universal Exhibition. The designer Carles Buigas submitted his plans one year before the exhibition and many thought that the project was too ambitious to be created, let alone completed on time. Over 3000 workers were commissioned to work on the project and less than 1 year later the magic fountain was born.

Now I’ve taken the light and water show and condensed it down for you to about three minutes. You’re welcome!

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

For your enjoyment…

As the US economy spirals through free fall into chaos, and our stock portfolios waste away. (WaMu we hardly knew ye) allow me to sidebar you with an artistic tangent. Antoni Gaudí is one of those architects who you just know was scoffed at when he was initially designing. His architectural style is such a radical departure from most anything else, that his early ridicule is expected. (Much like my own pastel experiment on Cannon Dr.)

All throughout Barcelona you can find the architecture of Gaudi, but two places seem to stand above the rest. The Passeig de Gracia has a few buildings among the old mansions that are impressive and distinctly Gaudi. The curves and organic forms really stand apart from even the most showy of the other buildings (and no, the word gaudy is not a derivative of Gaudi, just happenstance folks).

Sagrada Familia is Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece. It is the original mashup. The various styles and materials used throughout seem like they would never make sense all in one piece, but some how they do. In what is mostly a stark marble colored structure you find unexpected elements of color and texture. For instance, the tops of the spires are capped with organic color representing nature.

Inside you see Gaudi, who was a devout Catholic, has a deep reverence for nature as he models not only the columns after trees, but the leaves of palms interlocking above to create support. In addition, you will begin to notice details like the stacking of support column blocks in a manner similar to the way leaves grow on certain plants.

What really set this place apart for me though was the work of Josep Maria Subirachs. His work alone deserves its own post, but it was an amazing rendition of the Passion and quite a departure from Gaudi’s original plan. There has been a lot of debate about whether this building should be completed and open to the interpretations of other artists, but Gaudi himself wanted it that way and it is a good thing in my humble opinion. Seeing this style did make me wonder if Bruce Timm, an artist from Batman:The Animated Series didn’t incorporate this into his work…