We did spend the last two days at the Picasso Museum, as planned. We saw half of the permanent collection yesterday afternoon, and the other half this afternoon (we´ve been completely incapabl of getting ourselves up and ready to leave our dwellings before noon on any day except the one where we had to catch a train; I love vacations!). Then we went to the Parc de la Ciutadela and had our lunch, and went back to the museum for a temporary exhibit of Picasso´s work done in the Antibes in 1946. I don´t know how to describe how fabulous this museum is. I saw some shit you just can´t see anywhere else. They don´t have a lot of his later stuff, but they have a ginormous collection of early work and then all the way up to cubism. Not a whole lot of cubist stuff, but some. What blew me away was the stuff he was doing at 13, 14 years old. And when he was 15, 16, his portraiture was so lush and gorgeous.... This cat could paint his ass off. I loved getting the sense of change and transition in his work, really clear with such an expansive collection spanning so many years.

Yesterday before going to the Picasso Museum, we went to the Palau de la Musica Catalana (I´d put in a link, but there are no good pics on their website... do a search maybe to try and find some), which is this amazing, astonishing building and concert hall, very art nouveau, very modernista, full of stained glass and mosaic and sculptures whic appear to be emerging from mosaic.... sigh.

Tomorrow I´m headed back to France, and my mom is headed home, and the day after that will be my birthday, where all of France will be setting off fireworks in my honor. Isn´t that nice of them? *grin*