We got up early and took a regional train to Figueres.  While we were trying to figure out whether we were in the right place or correct platform, a teenage kid presumably asked us (in French?) whether he was on the right platform for Figueres.  He and his friend sat several seats in front of us and they spoke English the entire trip- I think they were Canadian.  I think it’s sad that so few of us Americans are multilingual.

We were heading to Figueres for the Dali Museum.  Once in town, we meandered through a Renaissance festival and looked through the vendor’s stalls.  It was then we had decided we should bring back a suitcase full of chorizo. (turns out customs won’t allow that)  The Dali museum was surreal.  I like Dali’s famous works but there was almost none of that style in his museum.  I was a little disappointed.

After we left the Dali museum we went back through the festival and Jenn bought a necklace made of dried, varnished bananas.  I bought chorizo filled bread.  We needed to make our way back to the train station quickly if we wanted to make the next train but we got a little turned around.  My pigeon Spanish finally paid off.  I saw a family walking down the street and asked “Donde esta el train?”  They tried to explain how to get there but I couldn’t understand.  In the end, they said that was where they were headed so we could just follow them.  When we got back to Barcelona we made another attempt at the Picasso Museum.  We got there too late and they were going to close in an hour so we wouldn’t have time.  Instead, we picked a walking tour from our guidebook and followed it in reverse.  We saw more remnants of Roman wall and walked through more neighborhoods.  

Before we travel to new places, we try to read books set in those places or about those places.  We read the cemetery of forgotten books series and I read Homage to Catalonia, which was about the Spanish civil war.  One of the churches on our walking tour had been bombarded during that war and you could see pock marks from the bombs exploding nearby.

For dinner that night, we went to Els Quatre Gats.  This pub was visited by a lot of artists in it’s early life and was mentioned in some of the books we read prior to our arrival.  We had tapas and most of the food was very good.  Especially chorizo.  Spanish chorizo is the best.