October 31st, 2015

     Tom decided he wanted to lose the beard he'd been growing for the past two months,

....so that his face would match his passport photo.
     So yesterday we found a barber shop close to our hostel called Vincenç Moretó Barber Shop with the absolutely nicest, friendliest barbers, who, even though they all spoke perfect English, patiently allowed me to practice my Spanish on them,

...and to snap pictures.

        Next we took the Metro to Montjuïc, a beautiful park high on a hill overlooking Barcelona.

     In the park is located the Fundació Joan Miró, 

....a museum exhibiting thousands of works of my favorite artist, Joan Miró.

     One of the museum commentaries stated that Miró found his inspiration in ordinary objects, the common everyday things of life.  I felt that I could identify.
     One of the big banks that you see everywhere all over Spain is called Caixa Bank.

     We learned that the bank's logo,

....was designed by Joan Miró and is supposed to represent a little person dropping a coin into a box.
     Now I love seeing the Caixa Bank logo.
​      After we finished seeing the Joan Miro museum we took a bus down the hill from Montjuïc and hopped off in a little neighborhood that looked like a promising place to find some lunch,

...and where we did in fact find a nice little restaurant where we had some great food.
  Tom started off with a delicious goat cheese salad,

...while I had an equally delicious seafood pasta. After two months in Spain I'm finally getting the hang of how to eat prawns.

     Next we both had salmon and potatoes with aioli sauce.

     It was soooo good.  We finished off our meal with ice cream, and  the bill for both our meals came to 18€, about $20.
​     After lunch we took another bus back to Plaça Catalunya then walked down the crowded Rambla,

....to Barcelona's beautiful seaport, Port Vell,

.....where there's a walkway out over the ocean,

...and a shopping mall with a marquee written in English,  that, if you step inside, you'll swear you've been magically transported back home to Anymall, USA.

    Then we walked back from Port Vell via the Barri Gotic, old Barcelona.

...until we reached the pretty street in front of our hostel.

     Yesterday was our last day in Barcelona.  We loved the city, and we ended up loving our hostel, the Hostal Plaza Goya, our chic room with the light-up head board behind our bed,

....our fancy  state-of-the-art bathroom,

...and the street view from our balcony.

     This morning we leave for Madrd.