The Met was way too crowded yesterday. I have to stop coming here on holidays, or forget about the Met if I come on a holiday. We saw the Barcelona show–lots of early Picasso, photos of Gaudi structures with an intriguing demonstration of how Gaudi solved the structural questions involved with creating his Sagrada Família, many fine Catalan painters whose work I had never noticed before and, most interesting, some early Miro, including a wonderful self portrait.

The trouble with going to such a crowded exhibit is all of the distractions: the woman with too much perfume, the young men who smelled bad for one reason or another, the papers on the floor that no one, including the guards, seemed to be able to pick up. I’m becoming a crotchety old lady.

From Barcelona we went to Papua New Guinea (where else can you visit so many diverse locales) to see an exhibit of spirit masks coupled with photographs of their use in dances or their place within a particular community.

Then lunch, also too crowded, then on to Venice, not as interesting to me as Barcelona, and finally Japan. Exhausted after all our travels we taxied back to the apartment and veg’ed out for the rest of the day.