Day 2--Barcelona

With Diane not arriving until noon or so, I decided to wander around Wednesday morning and see the Boqueria. This market is amazing. Beautiful fruit stands, cheeses, spices. The list goes on. It's an active market with people buying fish, poultry, pork and sausages.
Seriously, where in the States would one find roosters with their heads still attached? I wouldn't have the slightest clue how to take care of this chicken, but it's so pretty in the case. I continued to soak up the sights and smells (fish, cheese) and take it all in. This is a busy market and the tour books warn you of pick pockets in this area.

spices

beautiful candies

After the market, I went to H&M to look at some clothes. I love this store. I did buy some cute shirts and made it back to the hotel in time to greet Diane. I can't remember where we ate lunch once she arrived. I think we just wandered around and found a place that looked decent. We knew the plan for the day was to visit the Picasso museum and head down to look at the beach. The museum was fun. Picasso was a little weird but I think that's the part that made his museum a little more entertaining than most.

After Picasso, we went down to the beach! It was crowded down there. The weather was gorgeous and the people were nude! (not all of them, but a handful!). Actually, on the way down to the beach a man was walking towards us. As he got closer, it was evident he had no clothes on. None. From a distance it looked like he had a dark gray swim suit on but as he got closer, we noticed something swinging between his legs. Yes, you are right. Once I realized what it was, I had to turn away! Oh my gosh. So, I took a picture of him from the back side from a long distance away. You just never know what makes a person tick. So, flustered and flabbergasted we continued our journey. We got to the Mediterranean and this is what we saw:

There was this beautiful hotel that looked like a sail. The water was so blue, as the sky. Yes, there were topless women there. And we noticed there were some nude men--lying on their sides, lying on their backs. A much freer culture in Spain, eh? Looking back the other direction we saw this:

After the shock and awe, we headed back to the hotel. For dinner we headed up the Passeig de Gracia and passed this marvelous building. I'm sure it was built by Gaudi.

We found a nice restaurant and had an enjoyable meal. Once seated, we had to ask for a menu in English. Catalan is not Spanish and we didn't have a clue what all was on the menu. It was nice to sit and eat and catch up.