Today (as in Saturday February 28th, when I began this post) the program was so kind as to take us on a day trip to the Dali Museum and the medieval town of Besalú. Natalie and I left the house at 8:28 and metro-ed to Plaza Espana to meet the bus at 9:00. It was a two hour ride to Figueres (the birth and death place of Dalí and where his museum is), but that was fine with me because I had plenty of time to talk to people and sleep. We got there at 11 and were able to recognize Dali’s Theatere-Museum instantly after stepping off the bus. It was this giant pink building with big yellow decorations (I don’t know how else to describe it) stuck to every wall and ginormous eggs crowning the edge of the roof. There were divers with baguettes on their heads and fake Oscar trophies added to the mix. If it sounds bizarre and a little crazy (and more than a little hard to describe), that’s because it was!

We met our tour guide a few minutes later- she was great and it was really helpful to have someone to explain the significance and double meaning behind everything (trust, everything Dali did had like five layers of meaning behind it). She showed us some notable paintings including the bread basket and a bunch inspired by his wife Gala, a few crazy optical illusions (there was one that you could only see if you looked through your phone camera!), and some wacky but really cool gallery rooms. It’s called a theatre-museum because it was originally a theatre, but Dali kept that sentiment alive by making the space so much more than a museum. It’s sculptures, displays, and hidden meaning with museum elements showered in. Every room is a theatrical experience: ordinary objects and ideas juxtaposed together, bathtubs and boats hanging from the ceiling, and faces made out of furniture that can only be seen from a particular angle.

We learned a lot about Dali himself and even got to walk on top of him (he requested to be buried under the museum!). Although most people can agree he was un poco loco, he was a good kind of loco. He never failed to make life interesting and to make anything that interested him an obsessive part of his life. He lived in the space between dream and reality, and our guide explained that his wife was so important to him because she was able to ground him. After she died he lost his ability to create and spent the last years of his life living in the house attached to his museum and reveling at his popularity as he watched the crowds lining up to go inside. He was a great, but never known for being particularly humble. I also found it funny that the famous melting clocks piece, The Persistence of Memory, is not even at this museum but at the MOMA in New York, and is scarcely bigger than a postcard.

Quite sadly we didn’t get any time to explore after the tour ended. We got right back on the bus for another 30 minute ride to Besalú. Everyone was confused when the bus pulled into this tired looking town off the side of the road, but its medieval charm became apparent after we left the abandoned parking lot and walked into the heart of the city. We had two hours to have lunch and explore on our own (I don’t understand why they never give us more time in these towns- with two hours you always spend the majority of it at lunch). Natalie, Ellie, Kieran, and I ate together at an Italian restaurant. I had a cheese pizza which has been my go-to meal out in Spain (I didn’t realize how much I would miss pizza… meaning I must eat a lot of it at home. Honestly I didn’t expect to miss it at all!). After lunch we strolled through town and across the medieval bridge on which I commented ill-intentioned invaders had probably been killed hundreds of years ago. We walked down to the water and met an adorable duck family and wandered into a few cute shops. I may have found a few cute gifts! We walked past this frozen yogurt place as we were leaving and somehow were just magnetically pulled towards it- it looked so delicious there was no way we could not go! There were two remarkable things about this yogurt shop: It really was frozen yogurt, not ice cream by a different name. It was basically like we were eating a fruit and yogurt bowl! That was the other thing- they had so many toppings including fruit, fruit sauces, chocolate, chocolate sauces, and everything in-between, and you could add as many as you wanted for no extra cost! Made my day.

We were speed walking back to the bus because, thanks to getting sidetracked by literally everything, we were running quite late. Due to our inhuman speed, we almost didn’t realize that we zipped by our trip leaders and a bunch of other students finishing up their lunch! It was already past the time we were supposed to leave and they were leisurely enjoying their dessert- honestly a perfect reminder of how time works in Spain (and great proof that we needed more time to explore because all that group did was eat lunch). We got to join them in leisurely enjoying our dessert, and then shopping even more while we waited for them to be ready!

It was quite a fun day and one of my favorite- maybe my favorite?- day trips so far. It’s so nice of our program to plan these excursions because I’m fairly confident I never would have visited the Dalí Museum if it wasn’t for today!