Picasso lived on our street!

Segrada Familia

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So today was the first Sunday of the month, which is FREE day at the Picasso Museum.  We took our time walking through the narrow streets on our way to the museum...pausing for photos of the local life in Barcelona. After a while of being here it is easy to take that local life for granted...mopeds, clothes drying on balconies, dog poop everywhere, super small shops specializing in one certain thing such as hangers - no kidding.  It all becomes familiar and then you fail to see the originality of it all. Well, after buying the girls a crepe on the way, we finally make it...wow...the museum is the largest collection of Picasso's works in all of Europe. I didn't know it, but Picasso lived here in Barcelona and in fact when he was a teenage, he lived with his parents on the very street we are staying on, Carrer de la Merce. I had no idea till I read it in one of my travel guides. Our street isn't very long and we have walked it back and forth many times...so we have walked where Picasso walked. How neat is that?

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Before we went to the museum yesterday we went to mass at the church in our little square Maria de Deu de la Merce. It was a lovely service. (even though we woke up at 11:45 am and mass started at 12 noon!) Afterthe mass the priest spoke with us and asked us where we were from and where we plan to go after this...he spoke very good english and our friend Marlena helped out speaking spanish when the language barrier grew between us.  The church interior was amazing, gold leaf and carvings of the Virgin Mary everywhere, there was only on little cross at the alter with Jesus on it... because it is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, that is why there are not many icons of Jesus. 

We have had amazing 'luck' on this trip thus far. Things like being in the right place at the right time. We seem to walk by a Cathedral just as mass is starting and so we are granted the opportunity to walk in and sit for a few minute while mass is in progress. Otherwise the Cathedral would be closed to the public. It feels like we are getting a back stage pass to many of the local-isms that most tourists may not get to experience.