I’ve traveled the states over pretty well for a mid-twenty something. There is a short list of cities that I would consider living in: various places in San Fran (duh), LA, San Diego, New York, Boston, Chicago and potentially somewhere around DC or Virginia. Even though we’ve only spent 2 days there, I think we can all add Florence to the aforementioned list. They even have a “Hotel California”, which is what I have nicknamed every apartment I’ve lived in since my freshmen dorm.

As we arrived in Florence, we were greeted by, Marco our hostel host. To my surprise, Marco remembered my name and enthusiastically ran down to help us with the bags. As it turned out, our room was actually two blocks away on Via Nationaliez. Instantly, Florence showed a friendly side that Barcelona didn’t. I found the city to be much cleaner and tourist friendly. Oh and the people are absolutely beautiful! Adam said it best when we announced,

“I can see more attractive girls on this block right now, than I have seen in Portland over the last 6 months”.

With such a warm greeting, a room with AC and three beds, how could the three of us not love this town?

After dropping our bags off, we headed out to see the Florence’s architectural crown jewel, the Duomo. This is a gigantic church that houses what I believe is the largest dome in all of Italy, if not the world. While I was taken back by the sheer scale of the structure, the building was quite dirty. The dome was quite impressive and led us to an extensive So I Married An Axe Murderer, “Look at the size of that dome, it’s like a mellon on a toothpick” quotes, this was just another monument to me. Since we didn’t arrive until night, we had to wait until our second day to see the inside.

After the Duomo, we headed over to the Galleria Del Accademia where Michalangelo’s Statue of David is housed. This was my favorite monument in Florence. David is huge (well, in most places). While everyone knows what this statue looks like, being in the same room with a pale naked man of that stature is enough to make anyone take a step back. All kidding aside, the statue of David was awesome. I bought fold out calendars for all of the girls at work. Is posting pictures of gigantic naked men HR inappropriate?

After our evening of sight seeing we headed out for dinner. Before we found the right place, we were passed by the Olympic torch. The torch starts in Athens and is run to the location of the next Olympic site. I think the next location is Beijing, China, so I think there may be some swimming involved as well. When the Olympics were in Athens a few years ago, did they just run the torch around the block or something?

Unfortunately, as my we settled into a spot for dinner, my back really started to bother me. As the doctor explained, the shot I was given had anesthesia which would ware off before the steroids had actually started working…he was right. Since we were a good distance from our hostel and running home for meds was not an option, I was forced to self medicate with copious amounts of the house Chianti. I was also able to throw down a large serving of Italy’s finest Gnocci. Lisa and Aldo would be proud.

After dinner (and 5 bottles of wine split between 3 people) we decided to head to call it a night and head home. It was the right decision since I was having some back issues and we were going to have big day coming up.

Adam: Ha, that bar is called Slowley. Take a picture.
Ben: Ok. I think I’m going to take it from the inside.
Mike: This is not going to be an easy night.

Mike was right. The second we entered the bar I asked for three “local drinks”. The bartender handed us three tropical fruit filled glasses filled with a concoction he called the California Ice Tea. By local, I meant local to your home, not mine you idiot! Within a few minutes, we were chatting it up with a few other English speaking travelers and our night was in full swing.

Before you know it, it’s 3 am and we are across the city from our Hostel on a bridge that overlooked the entire city accompanied by three girls and a random dude from Norway. With out going into detail, let me clarify by “we” I mean Mike and me. At this point, Adam and a girl who’s name he didn’t remember until 11 am the next day were amorously gallivanting around Florence like it was going out of style (now might be a good time to re-read the title of this post).

Our second day in Florence could have been one of the more uncomfortable days I’ve had since the beginnings of puberty. My facial hair is now out of control. While the pictures I will post at the end of this trip show the stages of beard, they are taken at a very specific angle which makes me look less like the shoe bomber than I really do. I have huge blisters on both feet and my back could be used as the mast in one of the US Cup’s yachts it’s so stiff. While the idea of the Uffizi was interesting, the art of the early renaissance coupled with a firey hangover is a bad mixture. By the way, I live in California, and I’ve never heard of a California Tea…what kind of bullshit is that? Anyway, back to the story…the museum was huge and crowded and I don’t really enjoy that style of art. The audio guide was painfully slow. Eventually we left and did some shopping, which I enjoyed much more. I came out with a pair of casual shoes, a front pocket wallet, and some cologne (in addition to the awesome shirt I bought in Barcelona). The rest of the day was spent getting some much necessary rest.

Today is the start of the 24 hours I will be spending in Rome. It is also Adam’s birthday. It’s a good think we are close to the Vatican, because god might be the only spiritual entity that can help us get out of whatever mischief we will get into tonight.

So I don’t have the chord to hook my camera up to my computer but I want to blog about how me and my mid-20’s friends out partied Barcelona last night. That’s right, we closed down every single stop on our 5 step pub crawl. I will go back and add the pictures in later, but for now, you’ll have to live with the captions.

1. Centric Hostile. As I mentioned earlier this week, our hostile has a really nice lounge. After our trip sightseeing, Mike and I headed up to grab a cold one before heading out for the night. About half way through our first beer we are joined by twenty British girls clad in vintage Angel or Devil garb. If this isn’t a sign of a good night, I’m not sure what is. As you can see, these girls were slightly (extremely) under our age bracket, however when in Rome…Wait, this is Spain; all we did was sit and watch them play drinking games. <Insert picture of Ben surrounded by 20 half naked college freshmen in angel/devil gear. Huge Smile. Good tan…that’s new>
2. Xiteria: To begin the touring portion of the evening, our group headed out for a second straight night of tapas. Our order sounded something like, “yes, we’ll have the number 1,2,3,4,6,9,10,11, 12, 16, 18, 21 through 32 and an order of ‘dose’”. As the food arrived, the older couple at the table next to us chimed into our conversation by pointing out that they were also from the Bay Area. As it turns out, the lady we sat next to was an x-financial analyst that worked in the same building as Adam’s friend Bruce (who joined us on his first night in a month long submersion program). She also went to SF State where in the same department that my mom is a teacher. Random! When our food came, we all started scarfing and before you know it the table had been cleared. Right before we were asked to leave because the restaurant was closing, Mike announced, “they didn’t bring us everything. I ordered the dose”. Mike, I ate your dose and it was delicious. Sorry pal. <Insert picture of Mike flipping out about a piece of bread with cheese and tomato> <Insert picture of Adam and Bruce chatting>
3. Random Bar: As the night progressed, we were only a mildly enthusiastic group. We headed to a local restaurant/bar where Adam ordered the first round. Hard Fucking Cider. Now I understand someone accidentally ordering cider for a group of guys once. This happened to be the second time in two days…dude, is there something you want to tell us? <Insert picture of Adam with the fruitiest look on his face as he sips his deliciously sweet pho-beer.> Eventually the group decided to order a real beverage…we want some Damm Beer! <Insert picture of two cases of local Spanish lager…DAMM Beer>. Once our beverage situation had been straightened out, we were free to enjoy the night. I was obviously not happy before this. <Insert picture of Ben holding up a menu with a picture of a man wearing a meat helmet on with out smiling>
4. Hogans: By this point, we are pretty saucy. Bruce left because he had to be at his first day of class 7 hours later. Apparently on Sunday’s most everything on the Ramblas closes around 2pm. What kind of crap is that? Before closing , we were able to find a Irish Pub. Now, I know I mentioned our drinking situation before, but this is the part of the night where I am started to get worried. Adam “accidentally” ordered cider two more times. I mean really, oops…this one looked like beer. Oh, ha ha so did that one…yeah right. Adam, it’s ok…you can tell us anything. <Insert meadly of taps and pictures of Adam drinking what could easily pass as beer but really isn’t> After being harassed by the waitress for a good 30 minutes on when we would be ready to leave, we decided to tell the local staff what we thought of them. <Insert picture of Adam and Mike giving the staff the finger> As we headed out to the streets, we looked for the next stop on our tour…our only problem was that everything in the area was closes. Now, we’ve all heard the horror stories of how American tourists go out drinking and end up in some strange alley surrounded by people that call themselves ‘banditos’ or some crazy shit. Yeah, well, that’s us. After a few misguided directions, we found ourselves in the darkest shadiest place possible. Not realizing that the hell was going on, Mike is walking around asking the locals “where’s the party”. In a brief moment of clarity, I spotted Adam looking at one of the locals in our alley and then looking back towards me. Adam and I have been friends for a while and I could tell exactly what he was trying to get say with this look; “Holy shit, this guy is looking at me like he is about me to make him his prom date”. We got the hell out of there and avoided any issues, however, Adam’s look of shear panic was enough for me to start wearing a chastity belt.
5. The Bar That Will Remain Nameless: With no bars in our area open, we headed back to our hostel. While this was a good night, there was no way we were going to head to bed with out giving Barcelona a something to remember us by. <Insert picture of be crouching over some dude passed out on the street as the paramedics show up> We all flew 6K miles and local bar closing rules did not apply. We got as far our front door when our second wave kicked in. With a little help from a local cab driver, we headed out to a club entirely across the city. This was one of those places that I realized I had no place being in when I first got to college. <insert video of uber-euro club scene>. After various overly priced cocktails, we were informed that “Barcelona closes at 5:30″. YES! WE MADE IT! We out partied Barcelona.

Despite being seperated on our exit, our group met up at 7:00 am intact. As you can see, we were pretty happy about the adventure. <Insert picture of Ben and Mike humping giant face statue>

So here is the second blog of my trip. The funny thing is, I’m not sure if I wrote a post on the first or second day. Come to think of it, I don’t know if this is the first, second, third or fourth day of my trip. Either way, I got a good chuckle when I turned my computer on and saw that it was 9:30 this morning (It’s 6:30pm here is Barcelona). I’ve already gotten a full day in and you are just rolling out of bed…get up you lazy asses!

Here’s my trip recap to date: My pals and I arrived the Centric Hostel between 2:30 and 6 last night. This is my first experience at a hostel, so needless to say, I wasn’t sure what to expect. There is a huge common room here with a bar, TV and WiFi access. Since I was the first of my friends to arrive, I sat and met a few of the other wandering youth. One specific person stands out in my memory. I met this kid named Tony who works out of a pizzeria in Boston. He had been here for two days and was telling me where I should be going. Tony is quite bold personality. He described his trip as followed:

“I’ve been blackout drunk every night. I got in a fight with a local (Tony had a pretty good shiner on his left side). I lost the new digital camera my parents bought me. Despite all that, I’d say the trip was a success because some random chick rubbed my balls at the club before I lost the camera.”

The lady working the hostel bar explained that Tony was the victim of the local version of a “rub and tug”. Apparently, the oldest trick in the book is to play with the horny tourists junk and pick there pockets at the same time. If you ask me, the Spanish people are really considerate…at least they give you something in return for you valuables (yuk, yuk, yuk). As it turns out, Tony was in luck. On my flight out here, the previous passenger in my seat left their digital camera in the chair pocket. When I gave it to the stewardess, she kindly replied, “why don’t you just keep it. It will never get to the lost in found”. With out really thinking about it, I tossed the camera in my bag and passed out. When Tony told me he lost his camera, it seemed like giving him the one I had found was the a good idea. Note: When traveling, try to build up as much good karma as possible.

Anyway, moving on…when Adam, Mike and I checked in, we were greeted with a surprise. As we had all hoped, upon initial entry into our room there was a random naked coed. Unfortunately, we also found about 10 other people sleeping off the night before. Needless to say it is a little crowded. Everyone is about 20 and speaks English. Adam put it best when he said, “yeah, I’m just on the border of being too old for hostels”. This is my first experience and I’m not sure if I will be planning too many hostel only trips. Getting rest is going to be take some effort but we are all here for the experience.

In our first night, we headed out to the closest tapas place, aptly named ‘Tapas Tapas‘. The food here has been great so far, however the portions are much smaller than our crazy American sizes. That’s probably a good thing because most of the natives here are really hot! Once we finished dinner, we marched south to the Ramblas with a few stops here or there for sangria or the occasional cider. Yes, Adam ordered cider…real manly dude. Eventually we made it down to the Plaza Reial. This is a square with lots of drinking/dancing and partying. As everyone had told me, the show starts quite late here in Spain. After an hour in the square, the three amigos realizes that we were going to do serious damage to ourselves by staying out later.

Ben: “Ok guys, we have a decision to make here. It’s go hard or go home time. We either need to decide if we are going to keep this shin dig going and agree not to go home until the sun comes out or just leave now. Is this our big night? Are you ready to do this? Are we going to show Spain how to party?!?”

Adam: “Nope. I’m beat”

Mike: “Yeah, I steped in shit…I’m ready to leave”

Ben: “Thank god, I’m about to pass out in this chair.”

On our walk home we all grabbed a late night boqueta (meat and cheese sandwich). Best drunk food I’ve ever had (other than BPE). Once we arrived back at the hostile, we were pleasantly happy to see that our younger roommates were still out “doing Spain”. It was about 1,000 degrees in our room…I can’t imagine what it would have been like with 12 people sleeping at one time. Some how, we all managed to get up at 9am local time. I think that means we adjusted to the time change/culture well. It could mean we are going to crash and burn sometime soon.

Today, Sunday, we did so some fantastic sightseeing. We started off at Gaudi Park. Before I started at eBay my mom bought me a model of the famous tile lizard because it was eBay colors.

Now I can say I’ve seen it in person. It’s not really eBay colors but it is pretty cool.

I am a big fan of Gaudi’s architectural style. Everything seems to be inspired by some sort of natural phenomenon. To me, his style is like a good haircut: neat and clean in most places with some planned randomness here and there. It’s amazing how Gaudi was able to use mathematics and modern technology to construct something so artistic. I can’t imagine being able to use both sides of my brain at such an astonishing level. The dude must have been off is rocker or something. Either way, I’m quite impressed.

After the park, we trecked over the the Sagrada Familia. ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL! I purposley didn’t to much research for this trip, because I assumed we would spend most of our sight seeing time knocking out the big attractions. After seeing the Sagrada Familia, I can say I’ve seen enough sights for this trip to be worthwhile. This building is a structural artistic and cultural wonder. We took a ton of pictures (which I will upload to Facebook or something). While flipping through the shots I took, I can’t help but think how cool it will be to come back here in 50 years when construction has been completed and compare the images. I’m not much of a history buff. I don’t know that much about art or architecture. This experience was worth it even if you aren’t all about those things.

After seeing the sights, my back started to tire out. So far, I haven’t been getting any lingering leg pains which is a good sign. I am still pretty stiff, but that might be because I haven’t been too mobile for the last 2 months. The great thing about Spain is the pain killer induced nap I took for three hours this afternoon is nothing out of the ordinary here. Well, maybe the painkiller part but let me tell you, that might have been the only way to sleep for 3 hours in our sauna of a room.

So far, the trip has been everything I’d hoped for.

-b

Oh, my beard is still in the George Clooney ‘you haven’t shaved in a day or two phase’. I think it goes Clooney, McConahay, Robin Williams.

Adam has the shits!

Needless to say, this vacation couldn’t have come soon enough. I’ve been pretty burnt between the back and having people out at work. I’m not looking at this trip as just a vacation…it’s more of a change of scenery/temporary escape from the daily grind. Truthfully, I haven’t taken a vacation more than 4 days (NYC last year) since I started at eBay. This is also my first time in Europe. It’s funny, that even though it wasn’t initially planned out, I started this trip in Boston. Somehow Billy Bob and I ended up at the Store24 on Harvard and Comm Ave. For those of you who didn’t know me back then, I spent a lot of “quality” time on that block in college (x lived there). It was quite a nastalgic flashback and I think it put me in the right frame of mind to get the most out of this trip.

I’m very excited to be here. Since this is somewhat of a spritual journey, I will be growing out my facial hair for the first time since I had the “Adam Morrison/Gardner” Stache Freshmen year of high school. When I find the cord, I’ll add some pictures of the growth. We are on day 3, so nothing out of the ordinary yet.

Adios Amigos,

-b