My last day in Barcelona and I wanted to go up to see the Museume National Art d'Catalunya. Taking the bus to go up to the Plaza Espanya I noticed that there is more police presence in the toursit area. The men in the black and red beret hats were out guarding the government buildings. By now I'm sure you've seen how awesome the view is from Montjuic and the top of the Museum d'National overlooking Plaza Espany and the city. I really wished I visited this museum earlier in my visit. The ticket is good for two days and there is a restaurant there that gives you this amazing view. No I didn't eat at the restaurant since I had dinner plans for a good meal later on.

The musuem was fantastic! The Gothic period had re-created parts of the buidings where these frescos were found. So that is why the building is so large and huge you have pieces of several churches inside the musuem to really get the feel of where the art was found. One of my favorite periods in art is the Impressionist era. I found a Catalunya artist, Joaquim Mir, whose work I really liked. Unfortunately the musuem shop only had one of his works as a post card and since like a good citizen I didn't try to sneak a picture of his work it will only stay in my memory. But I really wished I had more time to just sit and stare, even the ceilings at the lobby was something to stare up at. Fortunately the lobby had these nice leather couches unlike the rooms. They really need to add more benches inside.

I took the cable car that goes over the harbor to Barceloneta. The view from it was amazing! You can see the Ramblas del Mar and the tree-lined Las Ramblas. If you're afraid of heights this cable car is suspended by four steel cables as you slowly make your way to the World Trade center tower and then down to the Barceloneta tower. The view from the Barceloneta tower shows you the beach and you can see Frank Ghery's fish which marks Hotel Arts. Then I took the bus back to Plaza Catalunya to do a little bit of shopping.

A friend from Spain recommended Zara and Mango. Mango was too funky for me but I loved Zara. It also helps that throughout Europe the Zara stores in Spain is the cheapest! Then I wanted to see La Boqueria, this market off Las Ramblas. But by the time I got there it was starting to wind down and close. So not much to see and frankly it reminded me of just another food market but with more ham selection. Unfortunately since I'm leaving tomorrow I couldn't really buy any food there which is too bad because I really like the Ibericio Jamon. Man it beats the salty Italian proscuitto! The nuttiness with a hint of sweetness in the meat of the pig that this jamon comes from.....so delicious!

I couldn't linger too long though, there was a dinner resrvation at 8pm at a restaurant that served Catalunya food. Plus there was still packing to do! So I took the bus back home, well more like 4 blocks away from home. Dinner was interesting. The waitress rattled something off in Spanish and I couldn't understand much but then I asked for her suggestions and she pointed on the menu. I wanted something different from 'entrecotte' which is beef steak served with potatoes so she suggested this other dish with words I didn't understand but she said it was really good. It turned out to be oxtail with some kind of sweet sauce. The only time I ever eat oxtail is in this Filipino dish called 'kare-kare' which has a peanut butter based sauce. So this other way of serving oxtail was interesting but really yummy!

While I was having my coffee con leche looking out at the street-Avenue Diagonal, I saw a bunch of demonstrators walking down blocking traffic. There was several police cars behind them and at first it was pretty peaceful. But about 5 minutes after they pass I herd sirens and what I think was Barcelona's SWAT team or speical ops team (the men in the berets) drove by in two vehicles. So when I walked back to my hotel and turned on the TV I found that students were protesting earlier this week and throwing things at police. What they were protesting I couldn't understand! Oh well so ends my trip on an interesting note.