Tonight's picture was taken on July 31 of 2008. Five years ago today. On that day we took Mattie to the Hospital's clinic and together with Mattie's oncologist and his wonderful art therapists we explained his diagnosis to him and the purpose of the treatment he had to undergo. Mattie loved bugs, and therefore I coined the term "bone bugs." I figured Mattie would understand the concept of having bugs in his bones and the need to stomp them out with medicine. So thanks to Jenny and Jessie (Mattie's art therapists), they helped to create a bone bug out of clay (you can see the colorful bug on the floor). In this photo Mattie was using his foot to stomp out the bug. This was symbolic of what the chemotherapy was supposed to do inside his body.
Fun Fact of the day: Drivers in Barcelona are considered among the worst in the world, with accidents occurring in the city every nineteen seconds! This can go up to ten accidents every second on weekends, which makes it safer to walk than to drive. A majority of Barcelonans therefore prefer to be pedestrians and at any given time most roads are thronged with people on foot. Barcelona is said to have large portions of the city devoted exclusively to pedestrians, the total area is equivalent to about 260 football fields.
After four days at sea, today we arrived in Barcelona,
Spain. Someone could have described the nautical distance from Southampton to
Barcelona to me, but unless I traveled it personally, I wouldn’t have possibly understood
or appreciated the great distance. Four days at sea is LONG and it gave me
great appreciation for how any explorer must feel when seeing land for the
first time! There is a certain level of joy about being on solid ground after
seeing nothing but sea for days.
For those of you who can’t tell, I have returned to writing
the blog for the next seven days. I have received MANY emails from our readers
telling me how much you enjoyed hearing from Peter these past four days. As you
have seen, Peter is quite a capable writer himself, who can not only synthesize
content but can also express thoughts and feelings quite beautifully. My joke
with him is that he better watch out, because I just may transition the blog
over to him indefinitely. I am not sure
he appreciated my sense of humor since writing the blog is a labor of love.
Not only was I thrilled to be on solid ground for a few
hours today, but I was able to turn on my cell phone!!! Since Mattie’s diagnosis,
my cell phone has become my security blanket. When Mattie was in the hospital,
it was my only lifeline to support and connection to the outside world. Those
of you, who know me well, know my phone comes with me everywhere. It is by my
bedside at night, I take it into the bathroom with me when I shower, and
honestly it has become like my fifth appendage. Naturally I no longer live in
crisis mode like I did in 2008 and 2009, but this is one of the many after
effects of cancer. While at sea, I had NO cell phone coverage. I wasn’t sure
how I would manage this for four days. Somehow I did it, but was thrilled to
turn the phone on today!!! I did it while pulling into port at 7am!!!
Peter and I visited Barcelona in 1998. So we haven’t seen
this city in 15 years! Some things have changed and yet the tradition of the
city remains! Our tour guide today was named Paloma and our bus driver was
Diego. Paloma let us know that Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain,
Madrid being the largest. Barcelona has 4 million people living in it and get
this…… it has 750 cruise ships that visit it a year. That is more than two
cruise ships a day, bringing in thousands of people each day.
In 1992, Barcelona was home to the summer Olympics. To commemorate
this special occasion in this seaside town, this Happy Lobster sculpture was
created. It is actually a funny site to see incorporated within a town filled
with historic buildings and structures. Check out the lobster’s face!
Peter snapped this wonderful photo of the lively streets of
Barcelona! The streets are clean and there is a great deal of both pedestrian
and motorized traffic. Though most of the streets only go in one way directions,
so that it helps with traffic flow. Just like we have a Starbucks or Dunkin
Donuts on every corner in some parts of the US, Barcelona has cafes everywhere!
The fragrance of bread and pastries definitely caught my attention!
There are two very noteworthy individuals who have made
Barcelona famous. These two men are referred to as the “sons” of Barcelona.
They are architect Antoni Gaudi and the other is the artist I know a lot about,
Pablo Picasso. On our previous trip to Barcelona, I had the opportunity to
visit Picasso’s museum. Today we certainly got an eye full on Gaudi’s works and
accomplishments. Gaudi never married and had no children. Nonetheless, his
contributions to the world are endless. He gave us lasting gifts through his
works of art and designs in the city of Barcelona. In fact, much of Gaudi’s
money went into the project of designing the Basilica, La Sagrada Familia. A
project that was started in the 1850s and is still in progress today! YES, I
emphasize, this Basilica is over 150 years in the creative making.
In Gaudi’s youth he was dapper, blond, and blue eyed. As he
aged, he became more religious and focused inwardly on matters of the soul – so
much so, he often ignored his appearance. As an elderly man, dressed in rags,
he was hit by a tram. Passersby, thinking he was homeless, ignored “God’s
Architect” as he lay on the street. Gaudi was finally taken to a hospital a day
later where he died from his injuries. When I heard this story, it saddened me.
It saddened me first of all that such a contributor to society would die in
such a horrific and disgraceful manner, but then the larger context of the
story was equally disgusting. We live in a world which seems to value not necessarily
people and human life, but only human life we perceive as valuable!
Along our tour, we passed this housing complex designed by
Gaudi. Once you see one Gaudi design, it then is easy to recognize his other
structures. His style is like NO other I have EVER seen. It is creative, whimsical,
and structurally fascinating and complex. In this particular housing complex,
look at the balconies, what do they look like to you? The railings represent theatrical
masks! Also another tell-tale sign of a Gaudi masterpiece are the mosaics! He
incorporated intricate mosaics of found materials into most of his designs.
Which makes every structure he created colorful and come alive.
We visited Parc Quell today. Quell was a millionaire in
1900, who asked Gaudi to design a housing community for him. In a way Quell was
ahead of his time, because he envisioned a community with huge houses, a market
place, parks, and churches. Communities which we see throughout the United
States. The one thing that Quell did not foresee however is that the property
he selected was not centrally located and also wasn’t near the water. You know
what they say in real estate….. Location, Location, Location! Any case, Gaudi
started designing and constructing the Quell community, but it was never
completed because no one wanted to live there. Instead, because of the artistic
nature of the designs and the property it eventually was turned into a park. Today
we toured around this incredible park and I could only imagine what Quell
envisioned this place to be.
This is a close up of the benches at Parc Quell. Check them
out! Have you ever seen a bench so beautifully designed? Most likely not,
unless you have seen a Gaudi work of art. Gaudi designed these benches. This
area was planned to be an open park space within the housing community for
neighbors and people in the town to gather. The mosaic patterns and designs are
so inviting, they almost call you over to sit on them! Though Quell’s housing
community was never finished, I am happy that people can indeed come to this
park and appreciate these magnificent benches the way Gaudi had intended them
to be used.
While pausing by these wonderful benches, we heard squawking
in the palm trees. When we looked up….. this is what we saw. Lots of wild
parrots all over the place!
Gaudi loved nature! A man I can relate to!!! He believed it
was important to incorporate nature into his designs, in fact nature gave him
his inspiration! I can’t think of a better example of this than this glorious
wall. I call it “the palm tree wall.” In this photo it is hard to know where
the palm trees start and end. Some are alive and some are carved in stone!
Now that you have seen a few Gaudi structures, I bet you can
figure out from this photo what was designed by Gaudi here!!!! His work just
jumps out at you. As you can see this shocking blue and white chimney is full
of whimsy and is just different from everything else around it. His designs
almost seem story book like to me.
This cutie on the left hand side of the photo is entitled, “the
chocolate house.” Needless to say the title alone got me. There is NO chocolate
in this house, but its story book like quality gave it this cute title. Any
case, this house in the early 1900’s was considered a MODEL HOUSE! Remember
this was going to be a Quell housing community. Gaudi designed this house and
it served as the model home for people to tour in before investing and buying
into the community. Unfortunately for Gaudi and Quell that never happened!
The ship is filled with families from England. You can count
the number of Americans on two hands! Peter has done a great job at describing
some of the differences between Americans and Brits on travel. However, I would
like to point out a commonality. Yesterday, my mom and I were riding on one of
the ship’s elevators (or LIFT --- yes I am getting into the Brit lingo), and
with us was a mom and a SCREAMING toddler. The toddler was a little boy. I
remember the screaming toddler stage very well. I learned after having Mattie
never to judge a mom with a screaming child. Instead, I made a comment to that
mom that I was sorry her son was crying. She then told my mom and me that her
son was pitching a fit because he did not like the shoes she chose for him to
wear. So I looked at the shoes and they were crocs (sandals) with Mater on them,
a character from the Disney movie Cars. Thanks to Mattie, I know ALL about CARS
and crocs (one of Mattie’s favorite sandals)! I also learned about the art of
distraction with Mattie because it was the number one way to pull Mattie out of
a tirade and tantrum. So I began to make a big deal over the Mater crocs on the
elevator, and told the little boy I loved Mater, and asked whether I could
borrow his shoes. I asked him if he thought my feet would fit into his shoes.
He stopped crying and wasn’t sure whether I was serious of joking, but he was
listening.
We accomplished the Barcelona tour in four hours today! Amazing
if you think about it. We are now back on board the Crown Princess and setting
sail for Monaco, where we will be visiting Nice, France (a part of the French
Rivera) tomorrow. Learning to pace one’s self on a cruise is a challenge. The
tours are aggressive and when you hit one port after another, it takes a lot of
stamina but also great concentration not to forget what you did the day before.
Thankfully, as Peter and I say often…. we have the blog. It captures Mattie’s
battle, our feelings and memories about Mattie, as well as our life journey
without Mattie.
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