Big P´s European Adventure-Chapter 13-Barcelona...and the "lost day"

I arrived in Barcelona's airport to a beautiful, sunny, hot day. I couldn't wait to get into the city and start exploring. Not having anything booked or any particular place set aside to stay in, i got information from the airport tourist desk on where a heap of hotels were located. I headed there- Plasseig De Gracia it was called, via the train. Barclelona has a huge metro system, and a train system connecting all the surrounding towns. I got lucky and found a nice Eurostar hotel, the Crystal Palace for 99 Euro/night, and it was only the second hotel i walked into. Having learned my lessons about weekend nights, i only booked the room for 2 nights, even though i was staying for 3 (which would turn into 4- hence, the lost day).

I quickly threw my things down in the room in order to get out and explore. I stopped at some hole-in-the-wall tapas bar and had my best meal in spain. In addition to my amazing tapas meal (best spanish omelette, potatoes, mushrooms, and empinadas i would have in all of spain) i learned of the cerveca, San Miguel, which i know i've seen in the U.S before. San Miguel was probably in my top 3 of new beers discovered on this trip. After tapas, i walked and walked and walked all over barcelona, exploring and taking it all in. I was so overwhelmed with how big it was and got lost going home. On my journey i saw Placa Catalunya, Arc de triomf, a neighborhood park, the Gothic Quarter, Las Ramblas, and heaps of urban residential areas around the city. I had some chocolate, ice cream, bananas, and waffle dessert from some corner parlor and it was delicious! I was lovin the food in spain at this point! Completely exhausted after watching Manchester beat Chelsea in the champions league championship game in a neighborhood pub, i crashed out.

On day two, i made my way to the Sagradda Familia church, which was still under construction even though they started building it in 1882, and went to the top. This was a fantastic view and an amazing building. Antoni Gaudi has laid his trademarks all over Barcelona, but i think this church really signifies his architectural and artistic brilliance. After this, i ventured over to the Monument a colom (christopher colombus monument) and the pier. I went up in the monument, but take my word for it, don't go up there if you're ever in barcelona. After sightseeing, it was time to get back and change so i could see some night life! I went to the gay quarter and started off with a couple beers at the bacon bear bar ( i had to go in after seeing the name- i was actually on my way to another club). The bears in Europe are real bears!!! it's different from the guys in the U.S. These bears are hairy, old, and chubby! haha. After getting some advice on where to go for the night, i bar hopped and saw a drag show (that was awful and in spanish-but the lead "lady" picked me out of the crowd and started asking me all kinds of questions...it was nice being noticed i guess...i think 'she' liked me!), met another american, played some foo's-ball, and ended up at the main party for that night at some place called metro. There, i met one of the hottest guys i hooked up with on the trip- Thomas. He was shorter than me and wore one of the European-style mullets. All these guys are wearing this hair-cut over there and i don't get it. Mullets were never cool, nor are they cool now. When i woke up, Thomas was gone but he left me a sweet note with his email and number. For once, the ball was in my court!

The next day, i got on the train and headed to Sitges, where i spent the whole day laying on the beach in the sun. In the late afternoon, a rain cloud came and covered up the sun. It never actually rained, but i got off the beach and headed into town (the beach was beautiful and was divided into sections-normal family beach, then the gay beach, then 3km down was the nude beach...i didn't make it down this far to check out the nude beach as none of the other beaches were all that crowded- i was here before the "big season".) Walking through town, i came across a huge happy hour at, surprise, the Sitges bear bar. I met another american, a real estate king from atlanta named xxxxx. We had a really good conversation over happy hour beers and then he took me out for a steak dinner with an amazing tomato basil soup and excellent red wine- can't complain about this situation one bit. It came time to get back to Barcelona for Friday night! I hopped onto a bus since the train was done running (i misread the schedule and missed the last train), but it was cool because i met some really nice Slovenian kids and we had some great conversation on the bus ride. When i got back to the city, i met my friend Ismayil from Ukraine- who happened to be in Barcelona at the same time, at DBoy-Barcelona's biggest Friday night gay party. This night would be one that, although a lot of fun, i would regret for over a week after. I over-did it big-time!!!! It started off a bit slow when i got there around 1 am, but the night would surely pick up. Ismayil got way too drunk way too early and got sick and had to leave. By the time D-Boy was closing, i was so f-ed up beyond belief. THis was the most inebriated i was on the entire trip. The last thing i expected to do in Barcelona was make a friend from Saudi Arabia. THat's exactly what happened at the end of the D-Boy party- i met a cool, well dressed, smooth kid named Hussan. We shared a taxi to the next party-Souvenir. THis party was way outside the city in an industrial area and just started picking up around 5 or 6 in the morning. I was FEELING IT!!! I got up on the box in Souvenir and danced my booty off. i was having so much fun that when Hussan told me i needed to leave to catch my train to Madrid- i said F*ck it (hence, the lost day). I was having way too much fun to leave....THis was the first time my entire vacation i strayed away from schedule. Finally, around 11 am, my energy and i came down and i needed to get out of souvenir before i died of exhaustion. Hussan and i caught a cab back to his hotel- where we spent the afternoon ordering beers and wine to the roof and glistening in the beautiful Barcelona sun. Hopping between the hot tub and the sun deck all afternoon- we met people from all over the world that exhausted Saturday afternoon-Canada, Kansas!, Russia, Belgium, Italy, Amsterdam, and more.

When the sun started to go down, so did we. Hussan let me crash in his room and i slept for 12 hours even though it only felt like a quick nap. I woke up and headed to the train station to catch the same train i missed the day before. I boarded the train after 3 or 4 sets of eyes viewed my ticket- none of which noticed the date! Someone else was in my assigned seat, so i just hopped from open seat to open seat until arrival in Madrid. This was the fastest train i've ever been on- reaching speeds of above 300 Km/hr! I was in Madrid 3 hours later at noon...

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