Barcelona: Day 2--Artistic Stimulation

Yeah, I'm way behind.
Our second day in Barcelona was our arty-farty day. We went to Park Güell, for part of the day, which was awesome, and then in the afternoon visited the Joan Miró Museum.
But first, I wandered around that morning in our apartment's neighborhood. I bought some nice clothes (really nice little boutiques in that neighborhood), and saw this:

I know that's not PC, but whatever, it made me laugh.
Now, on to Park Güell. It was designed by Art Nouveau architect Antonin Gaudí (modernist, if you live in Spain). I consider him a genius. His buildings are characterized by a surreal, very round, organic style. One of our roommates aptly described the Park as "Smurf Land." Park Güell was a collaboration between Gaudí and an investor to create a relaxing, semi-Utopian housing development. Yup, all those crazy buildings pictured below were designed to be lived in by regular people. Unfortunately, the project was a failure; very few of the houses sold. One of them is still privately inhabited, but the rest are open to the public, as the housing development has become a tourist park in homage to Gaudí. Click on the links above to read the history behind the park and a bio of Gaudí; it's all very interesting.






I am a professional when it comes to weird facial expressions:







Below is a sculpture in Gaudí's backyard. He lived in the housing development, and his house is furnished just as it was while he lived there.
I didn't realize this while I was there, but apparently, Gaudí designed most, if not all, of the furniture in his house himself. Have you ever seen dining room chairs quite like these?
More Gaudí furniture:
A photo from the period in which he lived there:
Beautiful Art Nouveau chandelier:






The outside of his home:




Okay, enough Gaudí for now. Unfortunately, Bruno and I never made it to La Sagrada Família, his ever-unfinished hallucinatory last work, but I swear, when I go back to Barcelona, I'm going to see it up close. I love Gaudí.
Moving on, we went to the Joan Miró museum after this, which was very interesting, but we weren't allowed to take photos there, so you were spared some museum pictures.

Anyway, here are the keys to our 200+ year old apartment. Pretty cool, huh?

That night, we went to dinner at a pub in our neighborhood. The drink special of the night was a Manhattan, which I love. We each ordered one. It arrived, and I think Bruno's expression pretty much captured our reaction: confusion.
Does that tall glass above look like a Manhattan to you? It sure didn't look like a Manhattan to me. And it didn't taste like one either. Manhattans are normally served up, are more of a caramel color, rather than a honey color, have a cherry, not a slice of lemon, and are only slightly sweet from the red vermouth. What they served us tasted like syrup. It had the basic essence of a Manhattan, but it seemed like they poured a bunch of honey or something in it. Those Spaniards like their drinks sweet. As an aside, I noticed that the size of the sugar packets in Spain are twice as big as the ones here.
Later, the waitress came to take our dinner order. We had just used my coconut-scented hand sanitizer, and the waitress asked why we smelled like coconut. Shortly thereafter, we looked up at the Daily Special chalkboard, and the drink special had been changed to a Piña Colada. We laughed, realizing that it was likely due to our coconut scent.