They keep sending me to Barcelona!

My school is nice, I was sent to Barcelona for professional development. Ana joined me a week later. During my time away from the wife I got to do all sorts of fun stuff like explore galleries, museums, book stores, parks, watch a punk rock show, etc. I'm trying to put a proposal together to take a group of students to Barcelona next year for an art trip that works into their studies, so I spent many hours doing the legwork to make sure this happens. The next 4-5 posts document my time with and away form Ana. 

Try this at home.

We ran into a parade of giants. 

There were lots of them, but more gawkers armed with cameras. 

I'm not sure why, but I do like this image. 

I like a serious lady. I mean a queen with olive earrings.

Hot, hot, hot!

The jealous spouse of hot, hot, hot. 

Getting down to the serious characters, the giant in front looks like the man who cut and sold me a 100 grams of Jamón ibérico. 

Checking out the buns on Papa Smurf. Hubba hubba.

Even Catalonian Pan and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark worshippers get to participate.  

Traditional handholding circle dance. To join in just pick a spot near a non-grumpy old man. 

I/we use airbnb for most of our accommodations, I stayed with this guy Donato and he showed me how to defrost a frozen fish.

A Sunday afternoon after several days of sitting in hotel room for a conference. 

I stayed near Park Güell, it was mandatory to go at least once to get a good view of Barcelona. The sad thing now, if you want to see all the cool Gaudi parts in the park, you now have to buy a ticket. Even worse, are the rails they put in, totally ruin the aesthetics of the park. LAME-O. Blame the government. 

The case ocupada (squat) near Park Güell has security cameras, the fine people at the squat fixed them with a little bit of spray paint. Now if people would do that to cameras elsewhere. 

The Catalonia National Museum occupies a nice piece of prime real estate with some cool religious art hiding inside. 

I stopped at the botanical gardens solely for the bee hotel, at least that is what they call it. If I were a bee this is where I would want to be. he-he.

Bee sighting.

Non-bee sighting, but some nice looking flowers.

Skate and Destroy MACBA. 

Olympic Park Barcelona. 

Olympic Park Barcelona with Chem Trails. Enjoy. 

Parc de L'Espanya Industrial (Spain Industrial Park) near Sants Station, near my conference. When my workshop was boring, at least this was outside. 

Agbar Tower and friends.

A friend. 

Fostering Arts and Design Barcelona

Jenga Barcelona 

Rite of passage Barcelona.

Your new home.

Stopped by the Side Car Factory to check the Cumbia/Punk/Electronic music of Los Ganglios. You can visit the band's site here. 

Across town in Badalona was a nice street punk/oi show at Estraperlo. The line was: The Business, Red Alert and The Destructors. 

Some arty Red Alert. Oi!

Old skinheads never die, they just get sanskrit tattoos. 

It is nice when you're the singer and your band is half your age. 

Getting down to business with The Business.

Damn straight. 

In our last days of Barcelona, our host told us "we need to go see gypsy music" at this down-and-out local bar. He was from the south of Spain so he knows his Flamenco. He said that we wouldn't be disappointed, he was correct. 

The space was small and maybe held 30 people who sat on plastic beer crates. 

In contrast to flamenco and all the way from San Francisco was Mark Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon. The show was classic. He told the Spaniards they didn't know how to box like Americans, told the dudes who were texting during his set to meet him outside after the show, told audience members that he was bummed that mostly guys like his music, called someone bald, talked about getting laid...as you can see, it was a great time.