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!