Teatre Museu Dali - Figueres

   I arrived in Figueres, Spain late Saturday evening.  Figueres is the town Salvador Dali grew up in and I went to the infamous Dali museum in town today (on top right). The museum was amazing and was designed by Dali himself...so I guess I couldn't have expected any less. A lot of his big paintings and sculptural works are there.  When you walk into the museum there is a huge garden-like space with a glass dome ceiling and many different golden statues perched in repressed sections of the surrounding wall.  In the center is, hanging from above, is the yellow boat in which Dali and his wife Gala spent a lot of their time in...it's also painted into many of his pictures.  
  Once you get inside the building, you're greeted by a gigantic painting and the room splits off into different sections that generally lead you through the entire collection.

outside of Dali museum

   One of the first sections contains his tomb. A very haunting but beautiful place to lay him to rest I guess.

Dali and Gala's yellow sailboat

Salvador Dali's tomb

Main room of Dali Museum

Space Elephant

   The last leg of the museum was a permanent exhibition of Dali's jewelry works, although many could never be actually worn.  To enter the jewelry area you had to climb a kind of dizzying staircase. His jewelry was extraordinary and some of it even moved, the golden heart (pictured below) beat just like a real heart.  However, my favorite was his golden space elephant; covered in gems with a crystal atop the elephants back.

   

Stairway to jewelry artworks

Beating heart broach 

1st day in Barcelona

Today I got to know the city by walking down the busiest part of Barcelona; starting at Placa de Catalunya and ending at the beach.  I started at La Sagrada Familia, a church inspired by Gaudi that is still being built.  At the moment it has 4 spires completed but the final design has 18.  The detail was incredible and I hope to go back and get better pictures than the few I have now.  And the last stop through was at the beach.

Later around 9:30 I went to Font Magica, or Magic Fountain.  It was a huge fountain controlled by computers and put to colourful lights and opera music. It was beautiful and entrancing to watch.  I'll try to post a video by facebook.

Arrived in Barcelona

Flew out from Paris today at about 11:00am. I arrived in Barcelona and without any mistakes got to my hostel, via the metro system. Barcelona is a pretty city and its much hotter than it was in Paris. It's the first day away from the group and it's a weird feeling being all alone...definitely overwhelming.  Tomorrow I'll explore the city and check out La Sagrada Familia.  More to come then...

   Went to Espace Dali today.  It was a small museum that contained mostly sculptures, etchings, and lithographs by Salvador Dali.  It was amazing and it made me very excited to continue studying him in Spain, which I will be leaving for on the 12th of September.  I've never seen any of Dali's sculptures and every etching and lithograph in the museum was new to me.

   After visiting the museum I took the metro back to Luxembourg, where my hostel is, and walked until I found a restaurant/cafe that wasn't completely packed.  I ended up eating Carpaccio, Italian beef strips in oil, at Les Fontaines.  The beef isn't really cooked apparently so I had to choke down half of my plate so I didn't seem rude. Just a bit slimy for my taste.

Bonjour!
I've been in Paris for two days now and it's been pretty good to me.  I walked over two hours (roundtrip) to the Eiffel Tower and discovered...that my camera had no batteries in it...sooo I'll have to make a second trip back.  I've learned how to navigate on the metro system and we took it to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur in northern Paris.