Eurotrip Day 18

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Have you ever woken up really early…..walked around a foreign city…. And felt like you had it all to yourself? Well, that’s how I felt this morning. Since I called it an early night last night, I woke up somewhat early (around 8am or so). By the time I got ready, it was 8:30 almost pushing 9. Anyways, dead set on making today a productive one, I set out to see the city. Much to my dismay, however, I found out that well over 80% of the stores in the city were closed on a Sunday.
Damn….. what the hell am I going to do today? Ah, the Picasso Museum. I walked around for about an hour and a half checking out every nook and cranny the neighborhood I’m staying in had. It’s wild because there’s tiny little streets. It’s so easy (and fun) to get lost in them.
The Picasso Museum was pretty cool. They organized it by time, so it was pretty cool seeing how his style progressed from a young prodigy painting still life paintings to his later and more popular cubism.
After the museum, I stopped by a local shop for a quick bite. Okay, not so quick. I had paella…..mmmmmm. It was the second time I had it, and it definitely did not disappoint. For those of you that ever come to Spain, you HAVE to try it at least once. I usually get the paella with all kinds of seafood in it. SOOOOOOO tasty.
After finishing up the delicious meal, I set out to see more of the city. I meandered along Las Ramblas again and headed towards the beach. I sat on the beach just thinking about life and relaxing for a while. I think it’s pretty wild how well you start to know yourself when you’re 6,000 miles away from home in foreign cultures alone.
After that, I headed to the Columbus monument. It’s kind of funny that a man that I was taught so much about in American schools was so highly regarded here. It’s almost like you forget that he’s “their” hero. However, if any of you have read the People’s History of the United States, you will realize he wasn’t all good. I wonder if children in Spain are taught the darker side of his conquests in search for gold (i.e. he set quotas for the natives and when they didn’t meet the quotas, he’d chop their hands off in front of the rest of the natives to make them an example).
After hanging out and people watching, I decided to head back to the hostel. Oh wait, there’s a good photo opp. Wait, where the F@$% is my camera! WTF!!!!!!! I reached in my pocket and my camera was gone. But wait, I just had it a second ago. Did it fall out of my pocket? Impossible. I then scurried back retracing my steps to all the places I had been since I last took a pic (about 2 blocks). Unfortunately, my frantic search for my camera came up as a big fat negative. Damn. All my pics from Madrid……...gone. Since I had been busy and kicking it with my friend, I hadn’t dl’ed the pics from Madrid or the first couple days of Barcelona. I wasn’t so much worried about the Barcelona ones because I have a couple more days here. The Madrid ones though…….. gone forever.
What the hell do I do? I can’t be on a trip in Europe and not take pics. Screw it, I’m going to buy another camera. I headed to a mall about a half mile from the Columbus monument. According to an info booth, it would be the only place where I could get a camera on a Sunday since everything was closed. I went to check it out, and there was nothing to my liking.
Being pretty bummed about my camera, I just headed to the hostel….hung out for a while. I then realized the hostel was showing the Spain vs. Italy match. The main room was PACKED. There was the Spanish group and a group of Italians that yelled at the top of their lungs in support of their respective teams and a bunch of neutral people (errrr tourists) just wanting to see a good game. During the game I met a group of Australians. It’s amazing, but there always seems to be so many Aussies everywhere I go. The game ended up being pretty exciting and Spain won in penalty kicks.
After the game, a couple of us decided to go check out one of the local bars. Since it had been a really long day for them, they decided to head back to the hostel for some shuteye. I decided to take advantage of the free wifi the bar offered to check up on emails and stuff. I think that’s one of the complaints I have about the Gothic Point Hostel….. they advertise free internet, but the computers are either really, REALLY slow or just don’t work. Oh well. After a while, I got pretty damn tired and headed back to the hostel myself to call it a night.
I’m about to head out for the day to get a camera, so I’ll talk to you guys later!

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Comments

[Mz Julz]

Bummer....
Sucks about the camera!