Museums, lots of museums.

Traveling with Hal means that you have to enjoy museums. Art museums, history museums, cultural museums. Pretty much all museums.  So in the last two days we've been to:

• National Catalan Art Museum
• Barcelona City History Museum
• Catalan Cultural Museum
• Barcelona Museum of Modern Art
• Joan Miro Museum (modern art guy)
• Pablo Picasso Museum

And I'm sure there were a couple of others.  After yesterday, I swore that I was going to have a museum-free day. But then it rained.  What do you do in Barcelona when it rains on a Sunday? You either go to mass or you go to a museum--because nothing else is open!

Actually, it's all good. They were all interesting. And you can cover quite a bit of ground by ducking into a museum out of the rain long enough for your shoes to dry. We've probably walked 10 miles a day here.

What have I learned?  That Catalonia has a fierce sense of independence.  That Spaniards and Catalans are still healing from the Spanish Civil War and Franco's rule. That Barcelona used to be a Roman city named Barcino. That the kings of Aragon kept very detailed records. And that Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro had some pretty healthy egos.

Really though, this is an amazing city.  It's got the climate of San Diego, the Mediterranean vibe of Rome and the architecture of Paris all for the price of Duluth. What's not to like?