Barcelona 2010: Better than Darfur.

Okay, here it goes.

I flew Ryanair, which meant that I had to take a bus from the 17th (which was impossible to find) to Beauvais airport, which took about an hour and 20 minutes. Then my flight was about another hour and fifteen minutes. Ryanair is obnoxious, they try to sell you things nonstop for the whole flight. But when I got off the plane, MICH was there waiting for me. Drunk, of course. But we were reunited! We tried to find Ali and Price because I knew their flight landed around the same time, but I couldn't get my French cell to work at all. So Mich and I took the bus from Girona airport to our hostel in Barcelona, which took another hour and a half. And then when we got off the bus, it took us like 20 minutes to walk to our hostel. When we finally made it there, it was like 2am. We considered trying to find the boys, because Cyrus had sent us a cryptic Facebook message about some bar they were at, but we decided to sleep instead. The people were so mean when we arrived in our room--we were whispering and didn't turn on any lights, and they yelled at us to shut up! 

Friday morning we wake up and realize that it is going to be extremely difficult to get in touch with the boys. We decide there's no way they were able to wake up and get out of their hostel before we could, so we should just walk the 15 minutes over there and try to figure out what room they're in. We did, and it was a total success! We hug everyone, and while we're waiting for Alex, Cyrus, Marcos, Ian, and Josh to get ready,  Mich and I wander around their neighborhood. Their hostel was much more centrally located than ours was, and clearly more of a party hostel, but they paid more and ours was infinitely cleaner. So no big deal. They lived near a lot of churches and windy back streets and stuff. Then we all walked down to the harbor, and wandered a bit. There were some cool statues.

 

We split up, and Alex, Cyrus, Mich and I decide to see the sights on our own. First we stop to check in with Price and Ali at a plaza we all agreed to meet at (the no cellphone thing was so hard!), and each go our own merry way. We walk from the Plaza, which is considered the city center, to Sagrada Familia, the big church that Gaudi designed. On our way we stopped for lunch.

SO much cheaper than Paris. Your little average cafe, on a side street, had a 3 euro Spanish sandwich (which was delish) and a 3 euro beer. Yum.

We finally made it to Sagrada Familia, which is scheduled to be completed in 2026. Legitimately. This church is gorgeous, but it's been under construction since 1881. It was just so intricate and so tall. We also got a really sexy Italian to take our picture.

Then we made our way through the city. We wanted to stop at this tower that we saw on our little tourist map, because it looked cool, but we could not find it for the life of us. So after about 45 min of wandering, we decided to walk to Park Guell, which is the one thing that I was actually legitimately excited about. It's like the Barcelona version of Central Park, but designed by Gaudi and just unbelievable. It looked like Candyland.  We saw a jet show, and when I asked why there was a plane with red smoke coming out of it flying around in circles, someone answered "If you had a plane with red smoke coming out of it, wouldn't YOU fly around in circles?" When we finally left, we realized we had walked across the WHOLE CITY that day. Jesus. Tip to tip. I was tired already.

[From Alex]

[From Lauren]

We went back to our respective hostels to shower and get ready to go out. The boys took us to this bar they had been to the night before. It was packed from wall to wall, and so loud. But there was a good reason -- they had like 40 different sandwhich/hamburgers, all under 4 euros including a glass of cava, and single glasses of cava for .85 euros. Obviously the sandwiches were amazing too--I had salmon and roquefort. The food was surprisingly good and flavorful in Spain. I don't know why I thought it would be less good, but it was just delicious all the time. Anyways, after our sandwiches, we kept drinking cava. How could we not? So cheap and so yum -- cava is like Spanish champagne/sparkling wine. Kind of fruity, and it comes in red and white.  After my 4th glass, we decided we couldn't really take the crowd anymore (this woman almost PUNCHED me for spilling on her as I passed a man his drink--jesus, he asked me too. And we all got spilled on, suck it up).

[From Ali]

We wandered down to the beach, where we got very strong tequila sunrises for 4 euros and chilled on the beach for a bit. On my way to the bathroom, this man stopped me and told me I was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen -- he loved my hair and face. He wasn't especially creepy, but not especially attractive either...it was weird. I was drunk, and we were talking in French because he was from Dubai and that was our common language. He was asking me for a kiss and I was like noooo, but I was drunk so I gave him a kiss on the cheek.

After the beach we met up with the rest of our group and made our way to this bar that Ali and Price had told me about. It had 200 shots for 2 euros, and was also packed for good reason. It's known for The General, which involves verbal abuse by a bartender and sucking a plastic penis on your knees, and the Monica Lewinsky. Mich and I got the Astro, which was very neon and I have no idea what was in it. A lot of people's shots were on fire too (like the Harry Potter). We met these Germans who were living in Barcelona, Sven and Yanis, and after some more drinking they took us to the bar next door. Apparently they were really good friends with the bartender there and went there all the time, because they kept giving us all shots and free drinks -- tequila, lemon drops, and then they gave me this huge blue drink with god knows what because it was my birthday weekend.

The Monica Lewinsky

Sven and Yanis told us all we should come to the club with them, so we cabbed it over to Shoko, one of the major clubs in Barca. We danced there until 4am, and then called it a night.

The next morning I woke up still SO DRUNK. I literally stayed drunk until 2pm--perhaps because of the 14 drinks I'd had the night before? God. And of course when I sobered up I was miserable because I had done so much walking and dancing the day before, and we were doing more walking, and the sun was blaring and it was loud and crowded....We were going to the beach, but first we stopped at La Boqueria, a huge open market. It was crazy, and reminded me of the shuks in Israel. I had FANTASTIC chicken kebabs, stuffed potatos, mushroom rolls, etc...mmm. Then we walked forever to get to the beach.

It was amazing to be in the sun, because it had been (and still is) so cold and rainy and fall-like in Paris. We swam in the ocean, tanned, and chilled. Me, Mich, Cyrus, Alex, Ian, Josh, and Marcos swam out to these rocks, where we saw a ROTTING PORPOISE. EW. And Marcos got stung by a jellyfish, Alex punched one, and Ian got stuck on a rock. Good times.

The rocks we got stuck on

After our day at the beach (which also had nasty Spanish men making lewd comments), we went home and changed for PAELLA O'CLOCK. It was delicious, and while we were waiting, we enjoyed plenty of sangria and sangria of cava. We had eaten fairly early for Barcelona (8pm) and by the time we finished, it was too early to go out. So we went to a corner mart near the boy's hostel and got some more drinks. The cashier even opened them for us at the register--how convenient, so we could drink on the street! We took them back to their hostel and drank on the terrace, and then moved inside to play Tourette's when it was closed. Some creepy-ass French guys joined us too. They kept telling me how sexy my accent was when I spoke French.

We left to go find Bar Marsella, a famous absinthe bar that Hemingway, Dali, and Picasso hung out at. We got fairly lost though, so on our way we made a few stops -- for the boys to buy a cold six pack off the street (a really common practice in Barca) and shotgun it on Las Ramblas, the biggest street in Barca. And for Alex and me to enjoy our long-awaited chocolate churros. We finally made it to the bar, and ordered absinthe, which was surprisingly cheap: 8 euros for 2 (don't ask me why you had to buy it in 2's). The bar clearly had a lot of history, which was really awesome. And we finally met up with Michelle Tanaka! So fun. The absinthe was so strong though. I like licorice, but I could barely drink it. It didn't make me hallucinate or anything, but it did make me kind of delirious and drunk and clearheaded at the same time?? It may have been the lack of sleep though. We cabbed it to Shoko again, where we danced on the tables and stuff. I had to call it a night at 3am because I was so dead, and walked with Lauren and Andrew to try to find food. After a very long walk, we finally found falafel. Mmmm. Then I went home and passed out.

[From Lauren]

Sunday I woke up and I was so hungover. We had to wake up early to check out, but we didn't have to leave until like 4pm. We decided the best plan of action was just to do a lot of sitting (my feet had literally swollen to like double the size, only now are they becoming normal again). We walked to Las Ramblas and bought some souvenirs, and I kept having to stop and sit because I was naseaus, had a pain in my chest, my esophogus was burning, and I felt dizzy. It was bad. For lunch we had all you can eat tapas, and then we went to a cafe to do some more sitting. It wasn't until I had coffee that I felt like a real person--should have thought of that earlier. We did some more sitting in a park, and then it was time to leave Barcelona.

It was a long trip home, but so worth it. Barcelona is beautiful, so fun, and cheap. I would go back in an instant. It's also very relaxed--they move slower than the Parisians. I couldn't ever live there, but the trip was absolutely one of the top things I've done in my whole life.

(For more photos, see FB, as always.)