After breakfast, I tried Dimitrios's work phone number; he answered immediately and said that he'd been waiting for my call. He had called the hotel several times, but no message had gotten through. Torben had also mentioned having called several times. The hotel staff were nice, but I was glad I didn't have to depend on them too much. The number we had for him was obsolete; he had, for some reason, changed phone numbers twice since then. He agreed to come over in the evening, and also invited us to have lunch with him and Maria on Saturday.
We walked through the Barri Gotic, the older part of the city (A expressing outrage that the ostensibly pedestrian zone was infested with trucks and cars making deliveries, as well as motorcycles, scooters and mopeds simply defying the law), and arrived at the Picasso Museum shortly after it opened. This was located in the same palace in which we had seen it in 1990, but it seemed to have expanded into adjacent space; at any rate, there had been some modernization. The collection still concentrated on juvenilia, but since the kids remembered visits to the Picasso Museum in Paris (with later works) as well as some of the mid-period works in museums in other cities like New York, they had the proper context to appreciate what they were seeing.
Leaving the museum, we walked down the Carrer Montcada, admiring the courtyards of palaces we could see (many of which contained other, smaller museums, or cultural organizations). We emerged onto the Moll de la Fusta, the pedestrian zone lining the inner harbour, and N got her chance to see what had happened to the construction zone we had seen in 1990: the footbridge over the water (the center sections of which, to the kids' delight, swiveled sideways as part of some repair effort) to the Maremagnum shopping complex with its undulating landscaping along which the kids raced, squealing.
We walked around the marina and into the narrow streets of Barceloneta, with laundry hanging from people's windows and narrow balconies, and down to the cleaned-up beach, which the kids were restrained from playing in only by the incipient promise of lunch. This was to be at Can Ros, the restaurant that I was supposed to visit with Dimitrios and Maria the night in November that I had my violent allergic reaction to the local drink orxata. We were at the restaurant shortly after it opened at 1:30, and were given English menus. This actually made life harder for us, as we knew the Catala names of local specialties, but the translations would often be something banal such as "fish cooked on grill". Nevertheless, there was also Spanish on our menus, and we managed to order arroz negre (rice cooked in squid ink) for two, fideua (noodles cooked risotto-style), esqueixada (salad with reconstituted but uncooked salt cod), escalivada (roasted peppers with salted anchovies and olives), and a mixed fry of tiny fish, which the kids loved (after first asking if it was all right to eat the eyes). We hadn't intended to eat dessert at the restaurant, but the kids were enthusiastic; they each had a whole chocolate mousse to themselves, and N and I shared a crema catalana (creme brulee).
It was sunny but still not oppressively hot (this weather held, amazingly, for our entire trip). We walked a little west on the peninsula to the cable car tower, alarmingly shrouded in green construction tarpaulins, and took the elevator to the top after paying 2400 ptas for the fare for all of us. This wasn't the sort of thing we normally did, but the kids were eager for the ride. There were only two cars, one on each set of cables, and the cars only held about a dozen people, so we had a short wait. Then we got into the car (with a small bench along one window on which the kids could kneel) and swung out over the void. The cables ran across the harbour to a tower on a pier to the west, and then on to a station on the eastern tip of the mountain Montjuic. The kids snapped pictures with their cameras, and I took some prints with the small snapshot camera and a few slides. It was slightly hazy but pretty clear, and the view was quite pleasant.
We hiked up Montjuic in the shade of trees lining the Avenida Miramar (completely free of traffic except for the parked tour buses), past the open-air swimming pool with its spectacular view, and to the Fundacio Joan Miro (on the Articket). There was less Miro here than I remembered, because half the place was taken up with a temporary exhibition surveying modern art from Eastern Europe (which was nice, if a little derivative), and my favourite piece, Alexander Calder's mercury fountain, was not operational. But the kids always enjoy modern art, as long as it isn't too repetitive or dark.
Leaving the museum, we headed down a series of staircases along the side of the mountain and into the narrow streets of the Poble Sec neighbourhood. It was siesta time, and there wasn't much traffic about. Where the two wide streets Ronda de Sant Pau and Avenida Parallel met, we found the Gelateria-Horchateria Sirvent. N had an orxata (I had a sip, but dared not take any more), I had a cafe granitissant (iced coffee), and the kids got ice cream cones, though they were more impressed with our drinks and kept cadging sips.
We continued walking through the Raval along the Carrer de Sant Pau, though the midst of Barcelona's latest urban renewal project. First the church of Sant Pau, looking oddly out of place; then a huge gym; then the enormous plaza created to extend the Avenida Drassanes. The last of the blocks of flats I had seen standing in November were gone, and newly transplanted palm trees stood amid bare earth, wire fencing, and earth-moving equipment. The kids liked the idea of the new plaza, but expressed concern for the lost apartments, especially when I pointed out that any new housing built here was likely to be considerably more expensive.
Onward down the Carrer de Sant Pau, which gave us a glimpse of the old Raval -- dirt, cars and trucks squeezing the pedestrians against the walls, and older men soliciting African prostitutes. From time to time a Pakistani or Filipino shop testified to the other, more benign form of urban renewal taking place.
We emerged onto the Ramblas by the Liceu (opera house), and quickly regained our hotel. The flood of human statues I had seen in November had receded somewhat; those that were left seemed to be incorporating more motion or mime into their acts, a change though not necessarily an improvement. They did attract enough people to make walking along with a purpose in mind rather challenging.
We were finishing up a dinner similar to the one we'd had the previous day (though with a bottle of Anna de Codorniu cava, Spanish champagne) when Dimitrios arrived. He had a glass of cava, and then some sherry and some pastries from Patisseria Escriba (like the bread, not as impressive as they looked) while the kids played and we discussed research. We gave him a copy of a monograph that Mike had given us in Bergen (since we could buy copies on our research grant) and he was quite excited about the applications to our joint work.