FINAL DAYS/COMMENTS & Stew's Screenplay

Tuesday, May 9^th

It was wonderful not being part of the 1800 guests packing up to depart the ship today, or those lugging suitcases on board to bring our total back up to a reported 2,547. Instead, we went into the town of Southampton to unload a heavy bag of coins I'd collected over several trips to England, and to find a cafe with free wi-fi to update our blog, answer emails, and read news headlines.

The town is mostly a modern shopping center for ships that dock there, although it retains a fancy, old gateway to one of its streets. We priced wine at Marks and Spenser for Bob, withdrew some money to buy it, and then discovered a better deal elsewhere, leaving us with even more British money to take home, but this time it is in bills.

Wednesday, May 11^th – Tuesday May 17^th

SCENES FROM A CROSSING

Scene 1

Britannia Restaurant, Open-Seating Breakfast or Lunch, Everyday.

Jim: Hi. I'm Jim.

Bob: Bob.

Stew: Stew

Jim: This is my lovely wife, Pam.

Bob and Stew: Hi Pam.

All shake hands.

Jim: Where you from?

Bob: Arizona. You?

Jim: Florida. Miami area.

Stew: Ah.

Pam: You board in Southampton?

Bob: Hamburg.

Stew: You?

Pam: Southampton.

Bob: Did you fly to London first?

Jim: Yes, and we stayed there a couple of days.

Pam: Great city.

Stew: First trip on the Queen Mary?

Jim: Our third, actually.

Bob: Our second. Notice any difference?

Pam: Gone down hill.

Jim: You know it was bought by Carnival?

Stew: Says it all.

Jim: Sure does.

Pause.

Jim: Staying on in New York?

Bob: Flying straight home.

Pam: Same here. New York's too expensive.

Jim: Don't know how people afford to live there.

Waiter to Pam: Ready to order, Mam?

Pam: Oh no. Haven't had a chance to look at the menu.

Scene 2

9:30 am. Promenade Deck

Stew steps out, ready for his four-mile power walk. Three laps around the deck = 1.1 miles. Sea calm. Heavy fog. Notices solitary man lean over the railing.

Stew: See anything?

Man: Nope.

Stew heads off on the wet, wooden deck. Fog horn sounds.

Scene 3

Bob and Stew alone in their inside stateroom.

Bob: I don't think Dick and Cheryl would like the Queen Mary.

Stew: Why?

Bob: Dick would be lost all the time.

Stew: We're lost all the time.

Bob: You're right. Whoever designed the ship should have his head examined. Some elevators go up only part way; some corridors don't go all the way from bow to stern.

Stew: What's this “bow” to “stern” talk?

Bob: I was in the Navy.

Stew: The QM 2 is more elegant than HAL's Eurodam.

Bob: Cheryl would like the white-gloved service, but what would they do all day?

Stew: Take a look at today's activity sheet. At 8:30, there's Mass with Father O'Connell.

Bob: Right.

Stew: Cheryl might like “Art History At Sea Presentation” at 9:00, and Dick could go to the “Golf Simulator Demo & Booking Session” on Deck 12.

Bob: Well maybe . . .

Stew: Then at 10:00 Cheryl could take the “Watercolour Art Class” for only $35, and Dick could check out “Fitness Center Orientation.” It's free. Wouldn't have to “plunk 'er down.”

Bob: Dick? Get serious.

Stew: At 11:00, he could go to “'Neck & Back Pain' with Jason Scott, Chiropractor.”

Bob: He'd never go to a “quack.”

Stew: Did in Mexico.

Bob: And we've never heard the end of it.

Stew: What else? How about lectures on . . .

Bob: No lectures.

Stew: Bingo? Bridge? Jazz lunch? Shuffleboard. Ballroom Dance Class—Cha Cha Cha. They're all free.

Bob: That's all they'd like about them.

Stew: They might enjoy “Planetarium Film: Cosmic Collisions” at 1:30.

Bob: That's only 23 minutes. What else?

Stew: iPhoto workshop for Mac? Cheryl could learn how to process photos on her cell phone.

Bob: Dick could do “Wipeout Trivia” at 3:00.

Stew: While Cheryl takes “Afternoon Tea” in the Queens Room to the accompaniment of the Adagio String Quartet.

Bob: Good choice. But what about Dick?

Stew: The Golden Lion Pub is open.

Bob: And at 4:30, there's “Pub Team Trivia” there with the Entertainment Staff.

Stew: Leave them time for to dress for dinner.

Bob: Almost forgot: “Tonight's Dress Code: Formal. Ladies: Evening Dress or Other Formal Attire. Gentlemen: Tuxedo, Black Tie or Dark Suit.”

Stew: Leaves Dick out.

Bob: He has a dark suit.

Stew: No. The part about “Gentlemen.”

Bob: Cute.

Stew: Try to be.

Bob: Early seating for dinner's at 6:00. Four courses: appetizer, salad, entree, dessert. Through by 7:30.

Then what?

Stew: So many choices. They'd have a hard time deciding.

Bob: Name one.

Stew: “The Royal Cunard Singers & Dancers Present; 'Viva Italia.'”

Bob: Cheryl might like it, but Dick would run the other way.

Stew: If he could figure out which that was.

Bob: If any of us could.

Stew: So what would he like?

Bob: “Russell Holmes performs piano standards?” Don't think so.

Stew: Here one: “Name that Tune” followed by “Karaoke!”

Bob: Perfect.

Stew: But only if you go with him.

Bob: No way.

Stew: The “soothing sounds of harpist Hannah Kuipers?”

Bob: Dick?

Stew: How about “Swing-along jazz favourites with The Simon Glafe Trio”?

Bob: Possible.

Stew: Or maybe Cheryl could get him to take her dancing at the “Big Band Ball with the combined Queens Room and Royal Court Theatre Orchestras under the musical direction of Joey Mix, hosted by vocalist John LaBelle.”

Bob: And: “At approximately 10:45pm [they could] enjoy a special floor show by our internationally acclaimed dance couple: Petre and Roxana.”

Stew: Or maybe they could just go to the movie, Eat, Pray, Love at 8:00 pm.

Bob: Dick would hate it.

Stew: So what's the solution?

Bob: Suggest they go camping instead.

Scene 4

Commodore Club Lounge. 5:10 pm. Twenty, mostly older gay men gathered for scheduled “Friends of Dorothy GLBT” cocktail hour.

Bob (pointing): There's a wedding going on in the Board Room.

Man: Is the Captain there?

Bob: Looks like it.

Everyone looks at the ceremony on the other side of the glass doors. Conversation resumes until the happy couple emerge. Both are in their 50s, ample-sized. Think Mr. and Mrs. Pickwick.

Stew: Shouldn't we applaud, or something?

The couple with a hostess, ship's photographer, and the Captain head to a corner of the lounge set with a champagne bucket and wedding cake. Twenty gay men burst into applause. The couple beam and wave shyly. A few minutes later, the hostess leans over a railing just above the gathering of men.

Hostess: The couple wonders if you'd share their wedding cake?

Someone: Great!

Another: Thanks!

The hostess disappears to fetch dishes and forks as the couple walk to the railing.

Groom: Hello Friends of Dorothy!

Chorus: Hello. Congratulations!

Bride: It's our 25^th Wedding Anniversary. We just renewed our vows.

Scattered applause with more “Congratulations!”

Groom: Never knew what “Friends of Dorothy” meant before now.

Man: Wizard of Oz.

Second man: No. Dorothy Parker.

Third Man: Who?

Second Man: You know, The Algonquin Club.

Third Man (looking puzzled): Oh.

The bride whispers to the groom.

Groom: My wife wonders if you'd be willing to have a photo taken with us?

Men look at one another, surprised.

Someone: Sure. Why not?

Photographer: Can you sort of squish together so I can get you all in?

Everyone squishes together. Bride and Groom stand behind railing, beaming. Bride carries bouquet.

Photographer: Ready now. One, two, three, Friends of Dorothy!

Scene 5

Bob and Stew wait in line for a showing of the film, “Search for Life,” in the Planetarium, Illuminations Theatre. The door opens and people from the first showing stream out.

Stew to one lady: Did they find any?

Woman: Don't want to spoil the plot for you.

Scene 6

Bob and Stew happen to be on deck after dinner at 7:35 pm. After a set of chimes on the loudspeaker, the Captain announces that we have just past over the final resting place of the Titanic. Earlier that day, a woman in the dining room had pointed out this upcoming event to Bob.

Woman: Hope there are no icebergs now.

Bob: If we hit one, you know what to do?

Woman: What?

Bob: Start singing.

Scene 7

Stew and Bob in the Royal Court Theatre, wait for a performance to begin.

Stew: You realize that dinner for four out of the seven nights from Southampton are formal?

Bob: It wasn't worth schlepping our tuxes all over Europe for just four nights.

Stew: But everyone went to the one last night. I felt like we were second-class citizens eating in La Piazza Cafe.

Bob: Steerage is more like it. Everyone in the Britannia Restaurant is already second-class.

Stew: Right. The rich hoity-toits have their own restaurants where no riffraff are even permitted to enter.

Bob: And dinner in the Piazza was absolutely the worst buffet I have ever had anywhere anytime, no exceptions.

Stew: You think it was intentional? They're trying to discourage independent travelers like us?

Bob: No question.

Stew: So what do we do?

Bob: Have a big lunch. Go to high tea. Order room service.

Stew: We could try to crash the party. Go with jacket and tie. See if they throw us out.

Bob: I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Stew: I know. Next time we'll wear our tuxes and baseball caps!

Bob: There won't be a “next time.”

Scene 8

Bob and Stew are having lunch in a small, glassed-in area jutting onto the Promenade Deck from the Lotus Room of King's Court. Walkers of all shapes, sizes and ages stroll or speed-walk past. A middle-aged man with an expensive camera with telescopic lens steps onto the deck, focuses on the dense fog, snaps a photo, and disappears back into the ship. An obese couple occupy a two-seater in the same nook.

Man: Lots more walkers today.

The woman, her mouth full, nods in agreement.

A SAILING WE WILL GO

Sunday, May 8^th- Monday, May 9^th

We forgot to mention a detail that our neighbor, Karin, would want us to include about our beautiful, German bath room. The hotel management included a single, long-stem rose in a clear bud vase on the window sill!

After a wonderful, long sleep, we were awakened by the horn of the Queen Mary as she arrived in the port about four miles away. After breakfast, we wandered the neighborhood with its canals and handsome houses with private docks and gardens. Many had survived the war. In the park, a lady was trying to give some dogs agility training, but they were more interested in playing. People were jogging, walking briskly, exercising, and enjoying the warm, sunny day.

We'd read that the QM II was to be the star of the harbor festival's closing parade of ships, but never could we have imagined what a celebration it would be. Our dinner table overlooked the city, so we had front row seats as we pulled away from the dock. Then we saw the people. They lined the water's edge like a broad, multi-colored fringe, often as close as a hundred yards. They stood on tops of buildings, on balconies, and up the hillsides. They hung out of windows and massed along the beaches. And these crowds went on for miles and miles. The ship's captain announced that 6 million spectators were expected! And it certainly seemed as if they all showed up!

They were not there just to see us, although the QM II is apparently something of a celebrity in town. In addition, there were tour boats, tug boats, rubber boats, inboards, outboards, sailing ships of all sizes and shapes from small single-masts to four-masts, a Spanish galleon that Columbus could have felt at home in, a sinister gray destroyer, our pilot boat, a police boat to keep other small boats from coming too close, Chriscrafts that the Great Gatsby might have owned, a long canoe with eight or ten men paddling furiously, the African Queen, a kayak with one man juggling the choppy wakes of all the motor boats, a skiff tacking in the breeze, a container ship loaded down with stacked crates, cabin cruisers of all sizes, and clusters of speedboats buzzing about like hungry mosquitoes.

And all the people on the ships, on the shore, and on our ship were shouting, pointing, whistling, and waving flags, scarves, towels, and tee-shirts. When we passed one four or five story building, a group of young revelers (from last night's heavy rock concert?) were on the balcony and in each window waving full-sized sheets while a loud speaker played Deutchland Uber Alles, and God Save the Queen. Boats that had whistles blew them, and the Queen, when something moved the pilot, responded with three blasts of its basso-profundo horn.

After dinner, we joined others on the promenade deck, eventually settling into wooden deck chairs to watch the show. Three or four middle-aged German women were next to us waving green scarves and generally whooping it up. In all, the send-off lasted over two and a half hours.

We later learned that out of 2600+ passengers on the ship, only 800 of us are continuing on to New York along with 700 who'll board in Southampton. It is strange on this most British of all ships to have German be the common language including most public announcements and signages. That may not be the case after today.

This will be our last post till we are home. Today we are walking around Southampton, England on a lovely day!

MADRID TO HAMBURG (AND THE QM2)

Saturday, May 7^th

Up at 4:30 am to catch a 5:10 shuttle bus to Terminal 1, where we flew the cramped, cruddy, but cheap easyJet to Hamburg, Germany, by way of Gatwick, outside of London. Using a clean and efficient Metro and help from unexpectedly friendly natives, we found our way to Hotel Smolka in an upscale section of the city. We'd tried to book something more central, but a hard rock music concert and a football game had usurped all the rooms.

A previous, on-line traveler had accurately described the 37-room hotel as a five-star B & B. Our room easily accommodates a huge armoire, two easy chairs, a six-foot writing table, and ample walking-around space. The toilet is down the hall in a separate room with its own tiny wash basin, and further down is another room for the bath. The latter is as large as Versailles with lighting designed by a someone used to working on a Broadway musical. The bath itself has state-or-the-art German engineering that requires someone with an advanced degree (or Bob) to figure out how to use it.

At 5:31, my grand niece, Kalynda, whom we had not seen since she was a little girl, arrived for drinks and dinner with us. Now an accomplished young lady of 26, she is completing a Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Hamburg. Since we had more or less lost contact with her side of the family, we had two or more decades of catching up to do.

Because we're in town so briefly, we have no way to judge the city fairly. Both of us had been here forty years ago and had harbored bad memories of it, but the warm, sunny weather, which we're told is rare, helped us revise our opinion. Because it has one of the world's largest harbors, it was almost totally leveled in World War II. Today, totally rebuilt, with almost half of its area devoted to lakes and 1,400 parks and gardens, it's the greenest city in Europe. It's also called “the Venice of the North,” because it boasts more bridges than Venice.

While we were here, the city celebrated its harbor's 822^nd birthday, which dates back to the time that Emperor Barbarossa granted it exemption from various customs duties. Unfortunately, we missed the highlight of the festivities yesterday, a tugboat ballet with the wonderful German name, Schlepperballet.

The feel of the city, based on our brief stay, is 180 degrees different from that of Madrid. Where the former was dirty and choked with traffic, both automotive and pedestrian, this one, at least in our neighborhood, is clean and orderly. People keep the streets clean and do not jaywalk or race the do-not-walk signs; they wait patiently for them to turn green, even if there is no car in sight or other people to see them.

On the sidewalk outside our hotel are brass plaques four inches square with the following information: “Hier wornte/ Johannes Kahn/ JG 1870/ Deportiert 1942/ Theresienstadt/ Ermordet 1.3.44.” The one for his wife Jenni added the line, “1944 Auschwitz.” Later, we noted similar plaques in front of many other handsome houses in this stately, tree-lined neighborhood.

FINAL DAY IN MADRID

Friday, May 6^th

The Kesslers headed off for a day of touring on their own while Bob, Tosh and I caught the Metro to the Fundacion Lazaro Galdiano Museum in an up-scale section of Madrid north of our hotel. In what used to be his turn-of-the-last-century mansion is now a modern museum that houses thousands of items from decorative armor, fabrics going back centuries, watches, silver, coins, crystal, bronzes, and paintings. Most of the fancy display cabinets had heavy pull-out drawer with yet more items. The mind boggled. Unlike the warm and friendly feel of don Enrique's house that we saw yesterday, however, this one was coldly professional. It had an uninviting feel to it, and both Bob and I felt as if the attendants were hovering to make sure we didn't try to smash one of the glass cases and dash off with something.

Walking back to the Metro from the museum, we looked at out-door artwork under an overpass. (What a neat way to discourage graffiti.) I asked a reluctant Bob to record some of it since the stuffy attendants in the Galdiano wouldn't let us take a single photo.

In the afternoon, Bob returned to the hotel for a much-needed nap while Tosh and I bravely proceeded to visit one last museum, the Thyssen-Bornemsiza, known locally as the TEE-sun. It's named after a wealthy collector and his wife (a former Miss Spain) who sold his collection to the state for $350 million. After his death, she went right on collecting, and hers is displayed in separate lettered galleries as opposed to their numbered ones. This was no dumb blond.

Rick Steves writes of the museum, “It's basically minor works by major artists and major works by minor artists,” and that was our impression. However, it was interesting to trace the history of western art from the 13^th Century to the modern period, even if what you saw was only one or two not-so-good and usually early works by such artists as Lucas Cranach, Durer, Caravaggio (photo only since the one original was on loan), Hals, Titan, Van Gogh, Picasso, Sargent, Hopper, Monet, etc. Then Tosh and I had one last ice cream cone on Calle de Alcala before heading back for some down time before dinner.

Thursday, May 5^th

This morning—another beautiful day—we all walked to the Royal Palace for a look-around, but since Steve and Marty had other plans for the rest of they day, they sped ahead, agreeing to see us at dinner.

Bob did not think the front of the Royal Palace was right for a photo, but he did shoot one of the “back yard” and and another of a peacock who strutted around full-flagged seemingly enjoying the attention everyone gave him so much that he was still at it an hour or more later when we finished our tour.

The Palacio Real is the third largest in Europe and Philip V's version of Versaille, where he was born. It has over two thousand rooms and is still used on state occasions, but the current monarch, King Juan Carlos I, still uses it occasionally for state occasions. He wisely converted the fascist state that he inherited from Franco into a constitutional monarchy, so he is understandably popular. He and his wife Sophia live in more modest digs nearby.

The palace, which dates back only to the 18^th Century, is much more impressive than we expected it to be. Even Tosh, who had said something to the effect of seen-one-seen'em-all, found it to be tastefully done and even quite liveable for someone who might throw a dinner party for 140 guests. Of special interest was a room with a matching quartet of Stradivarius instruments (two violens, a miola, and a cello), and even the display of armor, which none of us expected to be interesting, turned out to be so, because it displayed several with almost lifelike manikins on horseback including one of Charles V in the same pose that Titian had painted of him. On the way out, Bob snapped a photo of the cathedral across the street, although we didn't visit it.

In the afternoon, after Tosh picked up a couple of items at a special shop that sells handmade tiles, we visited the recently renovated Museo Cerralbo, a turn-of-the-last-century century house that its owner, don Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845 – 1922) donated along with his vast collection of art to a grateful nation. With only 32 rooms, it's a much smaller version of the palace we'd seen in the morning, but in the end, not all that different. Like Isabella Gardnen in Boston had done with her mansion, the good don stipulated that it be kept just the way he'd left it, so we had an even better sense of how the aristocracy of his time actually lived than we did in the Royal Palace.

Part of the fun of touring the house, in addition to admiring its grand entrance and various objects of art, was chatting with the many attendants to understand some of the items on display. One in particular was a round metal object appropriately a yard in diameter and perhaps ten inches high. It took Tosh with her limited Spanish, Bob and an attendant with their animated gestures, and finally another attendant who spoke some English to explain that it was designed to hold hot coals and live under a table where gentlemen with long trousers and ladies with long skirts could put their feet to enjoy the heat it generated on cold winter evenings.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN MADRID

Wednesday, May 4^th

Another beautiful, sunny day. We've fallen into the pattern of going to a local shop for breakfasts of Cafe Americano or Cafe con Leche (hot milk) with assorted pastries. This morning, though, Stew chose a delicious “sandwich” of grilled bread, ham, and an egg with its sunny side sticking up provocatively through a little round hole cut out of the top slice of bread. Note the little round piece of bread discreetly set to one side.

Then, we all strolled down to the second of Madrid's “Golden Triangle” of museums, the Arte Reina Sofia. It houses only “modern” art, meaning most of the 20^th Century, with a particular concentration on the brutality of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Along with its many abstract paintings and sculptures were photos and movies running on endless loops. Most of the latter were graphic depictions of war, extermination camps, and distruction except for one incongruous and hilarious silent film with Buster Keyton.

This museum is the one that houses its national treasure, Picasso's Guernica, which depicts the horrors of “modern” warfare where those who kill no longer see the suffering of their victims. In this case, the fascist Francisco Franco gave Hitler permission to use the small, defenseless town of Guernica in Northern Spain for target practice. Most of the town and its inhabitants were destroyed by bombs dropped from planes.

Picasso's channeled his rage into a huge monochromatic, largely abstract painting representing the anguish of the men, women, children, and animals so mercilessly destroyed. He displayed the painting in the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair, after which, it traveled around the world as a powerful anti-war protest, ending up in New York's Museum of Modern Art, where most everyone in our group saw it as much as fifty or more years ago. (Before Bob's time!) Picasso had stipulated that it not return to his native Spain until democracy was restored. Franco died in 1977, and Gurenica arrived in Madrid on September 11, 1981.

At one point, Marty told us that the Spanish Civil War had killed “half of Spain,” a shocking statistic, and probably none of us failed to think about yesterday's view of Goya's painting almost a hundred and fifty years earlier, or of how warfare has now become even more abstract with the development of technology—atomic bombs, drones, cluster bombs, missiles. Stew was reminded of Huck Finn's poignantly simple summary of the human condition, “People can be awful mean to one another.”

  That was enough museum-going for one day, so at lunch the group made two administrative decisions. We've been pushing ourselves too hard, so we scrapped tomorrow's plan for a trip to Spain's most tourist-visited site, Toledo, so that we could explore this city in a more leisurely fashion. Also, Tosh decided to wander the streets of the old city with Steven and Marty while Bob and Stew returned to the hotel for much-needed naps. The latter two of us returned through Madrid's beautiful Parque del Buen Retiro which is almost as big as the downtown city it graces.

May 3rd: THE PRADO & FLEMENCO

Tuesday, May 3^rd

The Prada Museum. Huge. Filled with masterpieces and tourists. The first test was getting in (“Not this line?” “Over there?” “But we just came from there.” Indifferent, heard-it-all-before shrug.), and after that, we played Find the Painting.

The Prado recommends focusing on fifteen of its masterpieces to avoid being overwhelmed, so Stew had researched eleven of them before leaving on the trip. One was on loan to the Hermitage, so that left only ten, and most of these were not in the rooms where on-line sources said they'd be. (“Oh, that's now in Room X; go down that way, take the elevator to the first floor, and it's to your left in Gallery Y.”)

So far so good. At least we know the painting is in the building. But once on the first floor (second floor in the US), we find that—like the first floor—there are seemingly endless corridors of rooms filled with painting, and to the left and also to the right of most of them are even more rooms, each one also leading to more rooms running parallel to the main corridor until one of them leads to a corridor of room running perpendicular to the other corridors.

Guards were usually (but not always) a help when you could fine one, but there were surprisingly few given the vast number of paintings you could walk right up to. Stew was reminded of a cartoon in The New Yorker of a mouse with a GPS device around its neck turning a corridor in a maze. The caption was, “Recalculating, recalculating.”

In the end and after forcing ourselves to pass by dozens of lesser masterpieces, we found and listened to Stew's lecturettes on Las Meninas by Valazquez, The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, The Cardinal by Raphael, The Emperor Charles V on Horseback by Titan, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosh, The Three Graces by Rubens, Self Portrait by Durer, Artimis by Rembrandt, a 1^st Century AD sculpture of Orestes and Pylades, and The 3^rd of May 1808 by Goya.

After awhile, Steven went off to explore on his own, and later in the morning, he and Marty left for a trip to the cemetery to visit the grave of the person she'd written her doctoral dissertation on, Dolores Ibarruri, a leader in the doomed war to defeat Franco in the 1930s. Tosh and Bob bravely stuck out the tour to the very end.

Steward was astonished at one point that he was so emotionally affected by the Goya painting. It depicts the pitiless and machine-like killing of unarmed Spanish civilians who had resisted Napoleon's mercenaries the day before. Perhaps museum fatigue had worn him down, or perhaps the painting touched his deep vein of despair about the long, bloody history of the human race, but he had to ask Marty to finish reading his notes on the painting.

In the evening, Bob and Tosh went to a flamenco performance while everyone else returned to the hotel. The next day, Bob reported that well over half of it was singing (or wailing) to the accompaniment of two guitars and a drummer. The dancers were well past their prime and could have used time in the gym, but what they lacked in sex appeal they made up for in passion. The room was packed, the crowd was loud and everyone made the best of it. Now that can be checked off the list of 'things-to-do-sometime-in-this-life.'

APR 30 - MAY 2: MADRID ALREADY

You will note there are no pics. Sorry. We are falling behind in our schedule and I don't have time to process and post pics for now. But read the text, and if you are interested come back. I'll process pictures later.

Saturday, April 30^th

We picked up the Kesslers at their hotel, which is about a mile from ours, and headed down through the Barri Gotic, Barcelona's oldest neighborhood. Our plan was mainly to wander about in its narrow streets, and as we did so, we saw the old Gothic Cathedral, which, like all old Gothic cathedrals, is undergoing constant renovation and restoration both inside and out. It was free, so we went in briefly.

As the day went on, Bob began his collection of some of the city's amazing architecture. [Again, click twice on photos to capture some of the details.]

Next, we went to the Picasso Museum which was on a narrow alley way in the old section of the city. Although he was born in Malaga, he grew up in Barcelona, and this museum houses a great many of his early works. Because they're arranged chronologically, one can see how he progressed from a child prodigy of 12 doing incredible realistic paintings, on through many styles (impressionism, cubism, etc.) and into the 1950s.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the collection is a series of painting he did based on Velazquez's Las Meninas, which some consider to be the greatest painting done by anyone anywhere ever. (This is the one that shows Velazquez painting something while the five-year-old royal princess, dressed in a white hoop skirt, is in the room beside him along with a number of attendants and a dog.)

What Picasso did was paint sections of the Velazquez painting in ever-increasingly abstract versions, showing his own view not only of the original, but also of how one might see the world from a different perspective. If anyone wanted to “understand” Picasso, this would be a good place to start! It will certainly add a dimension to our view of the original Meninas which we hope to view in a few days at the Prado in Madrid.

After lunch at a tapas bar that Fodor recommended, we wandered some more of the old city, and then we strolled up the famous central street of Barcelona, the Ramblas. It runs a mile or so up from the statue of Columbus at the harbor to Placa de Catalunya, the city's central square. Rambla means “stream” or ditch in Arabic, and in medieval times, it carried refuse to the sea. Now it carries tourists flowing past tacky booths selling everything imaginable. We did not linger.

The crowning event of the day (pun intended) occurred when Steward was flossing his teeth just before going to bed. Something hard bounced on the floor. It was a crown that had been attached to the screw of an implant for a molar. Later, he chatted for almost an hour on Skype with his nephew, Joe Jr., in Oslo, who, of course, knew someone who knew someone who might be able to arrange a visit to a dentist in Madrid next week.

Sunday, May 1^st, May Day

Some thoughts on Barcelona. Almost all who've been here say this is their favorite city. It's easy to see why. Although the streets are noisy (especially scooters) and cars careen about as they do in most cities, this one has large numbers of wide boulevards lined with trees. The Diagonal, which we walk on every day when we go to meet the Kesslers at their hotel, has (from left to right) a two-lane road going west, a wide tree-lined walking lane, a four-lane east/west road, another tree-lined walking lane, and another two-lane road going east. This means that there are two wide lanes for strolling, each with a one-way east or west lane for bicycles. To cross this wide expanse, the walk signal stays on long enough for even slow movers to cross. So all these boulevards are designed not just for wheeled traffic, but also for people to walk themselves and their dogs and even to rest on benches. So civilized!

Between our hotel and the Kesslers' and all around the city are amazing buildings. A few, such as the one with large, reddish-colored blocks, are new, but most are turn-of-the-last-century, each designed to outdo the next. They're Barcelona's version of tasteful McMansions—ca 1901. A collage of photos illustrates the point.

Moreover, most boulevards and streets, even the small medieval ones in the old city, are washed clean and picked up. Rarely do you see graffiti or litter. In other words, Barcelona has all the bustle of a large city, but it takes pride in itself and its heritage, and it is far more people-friendly than most American cities, because our homage is paid to cars.

We mentioned that on our first day in town, we opted not to visit Gaudi's Casa Mila, a building designed to outdo all its neighbors, but the long lines dissuaded us. Then yesterday, we noticed that our Articket Barcelona card included Casa Mila, but under a different name. So off we went straight through the group/Articket entrance and took a lift to the roof. There amid chimneys that look like knights templar and other strange outgrowths were tourists snapping photos. Bob offered his professional services for several people and one returned the favor. He also took shots of the roof and the vistas including one down Passig de Gracia, the boulevard where the Kesslers' hotel is.

The house tour includes displays in the “attic” and below it, a “middle-class” apartment that rings a central courtyard. It has all the latest modern (pre-WW I) conveniences including a telephone and over a dozen small rooms including two bedrooms, a maid's room, a room for ironing and sewing, a well-equipped kitchen, two baths, and, of course, such necessities as a study, morning room, and dining room. That was a good time to be middle-class. Below this apartment and the street are several more apartments that are still occupied, though probably not by middle-class residents.

We ended our last day in Barcelona with a May Day bang: a rousing, all-Tchaikovsky concert played, appropriately if not all that well, by the Russian National Orchestra. It was in another of Barcelona's most famous, turn-of-the-last-century buildings, the Palau de la Musica. No, this one wasn't designed by Gaudi, but apparently you still have to get tickets at least a day in advance to tour it with an English-speaking guide—unless you go to a concert, which is sometimes cheaper, but not in our case. The final number was the 1812 Overture, so our ears rang all the way back to the hotel.

Monday, May 2^nd

We caught the 9:00 am high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid, which provided a good chance to catch up this blog. Our friend, Tosh Lee, from London, met us at our hotel around 2:30, and the five of us toured the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens. Bob did not bring his camera, so we have no photos.