Picass....So???

Alright. The goal was to hop in the car right after Kaden had a nap, head to the Emirates Palace, see the Picasso exhibit, “oooh” and “ahhh” a bit, then head to Rainy and Marcelo’s for some chatting and baby-and-Benji play time. Not quite how it went down.

Call me crazy but when a pretty big art exhibit comes to a town near you, people go, right? Not here. As when we hit up the Treasures of Sudan exhibit, the people here just seem… I don’t know… indifferent. When a museum decides to bring a good portion of their most prized works to a foreign country, the people of that country should be grateful for the opportunity and, you know, go see it. This time around there were definitely more people there (still not as many as you might find at a weekly poetry reading at your local library), but they were all as pale as me.

So, now that the scene has been set, here’s how our day ACTUALLY went: Sure, we made it out of the house after a short diaper change right after Kaden woke up from his nap. The problem was that Kaden was then STARVING about ten minutes into our trip. Awesome. So we got to the Palace gate and took some pretty great pictures of the monstrosity, and made our way to the FREE valet service. The Emirates Palace is absolutely insane, both in size and glamour. There were red ropes sectioning off a trail down to where the exhibit was held, so we sauntered like cattle to the entrance. Not ten steps through the door, with a famous 1901 self-portrait of Pablo from his blue period directly in from of us, Stu gets stopped by a security guard for taking pictures. I realize this shouldn’t shock anyone, BUT, I had specifically called to see if we COULD take pictures of the exhibit and the Asian lady on the phone told me could indeed. So the guard tries in hushed broken English to explain to Stu that he may NOT in fact take pictures of the “very expensive stuff”. (He also made us delete the ones we had taken) In the mean time, on his secret-service-inspired headset, he calls for a South African reinforcement to come explain again that we may not take pictures. So with a dampened mood, the Cubism seemed to lack the allure in person that it had in my head. We drifted through the hallways and took in what we could, but I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. The Louvre better not do this me once I finally get there! Not to mention that I had to sneak Kaden Cheerios every two minutes to coax him into quietness.

The Emirates Palace Hotel

They have grass!

A view of the Gulf from a window of the hotel

A view straight up at the roof

A harpist (is that a word?) at the Emirates Palace

Needless to say we left less enthused than when we arrived. We changed our clothes at home and headed over to Marcelo and Rainy’s and that ended up better. Kaden loved hanging out with Benji as usual and decided Benji wanted to “eat” too, so he was “feeding” him with his spoon. He also met a kitten that is staying with them that was really sweet. Kaden loves to pet things that are soft so he got a kick out of that.

"Feeding" Benji

Rainy, Benji, Kaden, and Marcelo

Kaden with the kitty.

Now Stu is in the kitchen preparing “breakfast for dinner” of French toast, bacon (real pork bacon even!!!), and eggs. I am really looking forward to it! There are few things that are better than NOT having to cook a meal every so often, and since I am hungry this will be even better.

Look what my wonderful Stuart brought home for me on Thursday night. :)