Now several days later. I have been either too busy or too tired to write. I have settled into my apartment and somewhat of a routine. Read and take it easy in the am, with some breakfast at home. I bought some groceries in the market across the street my first day here. Now am well supplied with cheese, crackers, fig jam, bananas, skyr, which is like yogurt but thicker. Supposed to have less calories and more protein than Greek yogurt, but to me tastes richer and more like sour cream. Excellent with bananas. I have only eaten one meal out so far, at a café. Have been happy with my own foods and a pastry every couple of days. Plus have had snacks at a couple of events. Yesterday I went to visit my old school, the American College when I was there, now the American University and pretty much unrecognizable as the place I attended. I stumbled upon a Josephine Baker symposium and spent a couple of hours there. I plan to go back for the second session this afternoon. There was a panel with a few Baker scholars and enthusiasts, and the attendees seemed to be a mix of students and other interested folks. One of the panelists was one of Baker’s twelve adopted children. She had called them her rainbow tribe, and apparently adopted them with the intension to create a diverse and compatible family and model for living. During a break, I opened one of the books for sale, I believe written by one of the panelists. The page I randomly opened to was a photo of Baker with eight of her twelve children, and the little girl she was holding was Maryann, her daughter who was sitting next to me at the event! The highlight of the session was a music and dance performance featuring a snazzily dressed woman who’d been sitting in the audience, who sang in both French and English. Then a dancer who seemed to be channeling Baker burst into the room and danced around the audience. It was magical. There happened to be an informal alumni get together that evening. Coincidentally, there was also an alumni event in Boston yesterday as well. I have never had much contact with alumni or the school, and wouldn’t have gone to the Boston event if I’d been home. But this was interesting and fun. Good food too, and, of course, wine. And there was an activity run by one of the art teachers in the new art building. We did printing with potatoes. But the best part was the socializing. I talked to a number of recent graduates as well as some older ones. But none who dated back nearly as far as me. Or so I thought. Until someone introduced me to Rozey. She actually held the record, having predated me by a couple of years. I arrived in 1969, the year after she graduated. The school had only been in existence a few years at that point. Rozey lives in Paris, as do mostly all of the people in attendance. She was originally from Iran, had completed her studies there after ACP, and then the Iranian revolution occurred and her whole world was shattered. I'm not sure what or where the rest of her life has been, but she did mention having lived in LA at some point. We talked for a bit, and I wished I’d had the opportunity to talk to her further. (but the potato printing was about to begin! The last few days here I have been mostly a flaneur, the French term for someone who wanders thru a city without a set plan, just observing and enjoying the environment. It’s what I most like to do here. The term was originally applied just to men, but has broadened over time. I read this morning of a different form of the word, flaneuse, indicating a woman. Part of the description was that it was different than a flaneur not solely because of the word’s gender, but because a flaneuse, a woman, observed the world differently than a man. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be a feminist perspective, it has me a bit confused. Well, flaneur or flaneuse, I'm soon to do head out to do some flaneuring. To backtrack to Barcelona, the original motivation for this trip. I had heard about a mosaic trip there, to both learn mosaic techniques and to do some touring around the city and the area, home to Gaudi and his famous mosaic and architectural work. I’d been on the groups’s waiting list and a space opened up, and I didn’t hesitate much. And because a week in Europe seems hardly enough (although some of the group did just that) I thought might as well go to Paris, because, well, why not. So I rented a place for two weeks, and here I am. In Barcelona we spent mornings making mosaics and afternoons touring. We went to the famous Gaudi mosaiced Park Guell, Gaudi’s Casa Mila and Casa Battlo, as well as the famous and not yet finished Cathedral, la Sagrada Familia. I’d been to Guell Park and Casa Battla before, about 20 years ago, and to Sagrada Familia 15 years ago with Carolina. I have a great picture of her observing the very much under construction interior. The crossed straps on her dress echo the construction materials inside. In our current visit everyone in my group seemed very impressed with the cathedral, which is now scheduled to be finished in about a year after many decades of construction. I must admit I find it very overwhelming and unappealing, especially the exterior, which looked to me like a mishmash of styles and reminded me of the drippings of a mud castle. And once I saw the image of Jesus hanging on the cross inside, suspended from the ceiling, that looked to me like he was hang gliding, I could not get that image out of my head. Sorry if I’ve offended anyone. I had been at Casa Battlo before. My memory is that I just walked by and saw that it was open to visitors, and went in. From what I’ve heard it had just opened as a museum shortly before that.

And I remember reading that Casa Mila was an inhabited apartment building and not open to visitors. It apparently opened as a museum shortly after I was there. Casa Mila was built for a wealthy family who occupied the entire first floor. And there were four apartments above, two on each floor. Part of the deal was that descendants of the original apartment owners could still live there provided that they were continuously occupied by family. And two of the four apartments are still lived in by members of those families. The rest is a museum. Both Casa Battlo and Casa Mila were designed by Gaudi for individual families, are architectural wonders and musts to visit if you are in Barcelona, despite the crowds that now visit and the advance reservations you have to make. Perhaps the best excursion we made was a couple of hours outside Barcelona to Salvador Dali’s house. I had known nothing about it and it was absolutely fascinating. The house was constructed by connecting what had been six separate fisherman’s shacks. The place undulates from section to section and is full of quirks and oddities. Much of the story is of Dali’s wife and maybe muse, Gala, and their unconventional relationship. The furnishings are all original. The bedroom is where Gala died. We finished off that day’s excursion with a visit to an elegant restaurant and winery, where we had a beautiful lunch. There were courses of olives, tomato bread (ubiquitous here) watermelon tomato gazpacho, salad, pork with local mushrooms, and dessert, all paired with wines. It was impressive but a bit over the top for me. Our trip ended when we returned to the city. Many of us gathered in the hotel bar to say goodbye. Some were heading home, some to other parts of the continent, and a few were staying in Barcelona for a few more days. In all, our group was 22. A dozen were participants in the mosaic workshop. Another three were spouse/partners of mosaic people. There were a mother and daughter, and two eighty year old women who had been friends since high school in Yonkers, NY where my parents lived for many years, and where my sister also went to high school.) Also one woman who carried an oxygen tank the entire trip, and kept with everyone at least as well as I did. Many of the participants had either travelled with Bonnie before or participated in some of her workshops at home. I think nearly everyone beside me knew at least one other person from before the trip. Sadly, two of the participants, a couple, came down with covid after the first day, and were confined to their hotel room until the last day. Another tested positive the last day, and two more a day or two after the trip had ended. The couple who got it first had both been through some serious non covid related health issues over the past year, with one of them requiring additional surgery after their return. Perhaps because they’d already dealt with so much, they seemed to handle the covid,frustration and isolation better than one would have expected. I’ll stop here, having caught up, and go on to actually doing something out in the world today. Updates soon!