Barcelona 1

 We went to Barcelona and met

my friend Laurelle and her son Miguel.

 Check out the parrots!

 The Picasso Museum is in an old palace.

 Here is the courtyard after our visit. 

On our way home we walked into

Santa Maria del Mar, a Gothic church from the 

1200s that was built for the local fishermen.

 The vaulting is beautiful.

 We saw the Plaza Real...

and had lunch there.

 We walked by the Temple of Augustus,

or what's left of it,

from the 1st or 2nd century AD. 

 Our hotel was close to Miguel's apartment,

 in a neighborhood called GOTICO.

 There was also a market called BOQUERIA.

We tried some Jamon Serrano. 

 At night we went to a tapas bar called L'Angolino.

 We sat at the bar and had the best tapas in the world.

 Really.

 They brought out new ones every couple of minutes.

 At the end we paid for all the toothpicks we had.

 Then it was time to visit Picasso's favorite Absinthe bar
called La Marcella.

 The paint was peeling off the ceiling.

Miguel showed us how they drank Absinthe back then.

We shared one.