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Published: March 7th 2011
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First Spanish Meal
Jake about to enjoy his plate of eggs and meet with his Estrella Damm beer Our last day in Rome, headed to Barcelona, Spain.
Livia was so kind to drive us in the morning. I mean, she was blessed with our presence, so it was only right of her to drive us to the airport... haha, jk. She has been a great host and friend! It has really changed our experience here for sure. Livia, you will not be forgotten! Come to Chicago and we will return the favors and hospitality.
After arriving in the airport, I had to check in my carry-on bag because it was a centimeter too big. Damn airlines need to get on the same system.. need to design the bags so this DOESN'T HAPPEN. I knew it was gonna happen because it happened to me coming from London to Rome.
We flew
Vueling airlines, which is apparently a new airline. They were pretty good otherwise, on-time and friendly and what not. There was very minimal legroom. I barely fit into the seat it as so close to the one in front of it. It was probably the smallest airplane seat I've ever sat in. I mean I guess that's why it only cost $56 to fly from Rome
Paella
Yum! Delicious. Looking forward to having more of this. to Barcelona. I had asked if water was free and she was like 3€.. but then after she went through all the seats, she came and gave me a water for free! Nice!
Once we arrived in Barcelona, we kinda had no idea where we needed to go, but we were gonna wing it. I had some photos of a map on my iPhone where the hotel was. We caught this
Aerobus shuttle to the city center and thought we'd figure it out from there. We ended up walking about 8 or 10 blocks, which was fine because it was bright and sunny and 60 degrees!
We are staying at the
conferti Auditori, a 3.5 star hotel, I think. It´s pretty nice and fairly central, right by the
Arc di Trumf train stop. Once we settled in, we headed out to get some Spanish food. We went to this place right around the corner, although a lot of things seemed to be closed (weekend?). The waitress didn't speak any English and Jake almost ordered 2 beers when he thought he was asking for English menus.. time to scratch the brain for some memory of high school Spanish class.
Boy Scout Shot
At the shot bar, roasting the marshmallow in the fire on the bar Eventually, through my Spanglish, I got us a table. I ordered a typical Spanish beer, Estrella Damm and some vegetable paella. We didn't really expect this much difficulty in the language barrier. People seem to speak less English here than they did in Italy. Luckily, I can speak some Spanish.. and it's been improving since we've been here.
Jake has a friend or a friend of friend who is studying abroad here in Barcelona from the States (Cincinnati actually.. UC people are everywhere!). Her name is Jessica. Jake got in contact with her when we arrived and made plans to meet up later to go out. One issue is that we don't have a phone we can use here really, without getting charged international roaming. So Jake had arranged with Jessica to meet her at the Arc di Trumf train station and she would get off the line and pull us onto the train. Jake was explaining this to me as we were walking to the train station and I said,
I'll be very surprised if this works. When we get into the station, we realize we don't know the destination stop we are going to and have to
Shot List
This is only part of what they have. Some silly names on there. know in order to buy a ticket, so we picked one 3 zones out, (5€). Well, sure enough we're sitting there for 35 minutes, watching each train go by.. we're like
This is never going to work. I send her a text message from my phone to see where she is at (I have a texting plan out here). And then she calls me, but I did not pick up in fear of a huge fee. Then about a minute later we decide its worth it to make sure we're able to meet up.
Jake calls her from my phone and we figure out we are in the wrong station. Heck, we were trying use the wrong method of transportation. Apparently, we were in like a train station and not the metra public train station (similar to the L in Chicago...ish). So we leave the station and start walking in a direction we think is right. Finally, we show up to the station and find Jessica. Something to note, earlier she told us she's known for running late so if she's not right on time, that's normal. So we ended waiting 45 minutes ni the train station before
The Bar
Waiting to pay 12€ for my drink we actually met up with her.
It was all good and we were finally on our way. We were heading to an
English Pub. Oh yea, originally we were meeting up to watch the Barcelona futball game at the pub, which was now long over. We arrive at the pub to meet some of friends, all Americans. In fact, most of the people in the pub were either American or English. Jessica's friends were also studying abroad, some from UC, Indiana, and Iowa. Some of them said they even knew people from Deerfield High School.. nobody I knew.. but small world.
At the pub, we tried some
Estrella and some
Sangria (best so far at this pub). After we left, we went to a Mediterranean booth down the street and got
a delicious and spicy kabab wrap. We hopped in a cab and took it not very far because it only cost 3.50€.. easily split across 5 people.
We arrived at the
shot bar. Basically, they are known for having a couple hundred crazy 2€ shots with names like
Orgasmo, Flat Line, Bob Marley, Monico Lewinsky, Top Less, and
Boy Scout to name a few.. We tried
the 'Red' couch
I cannot say for certain whether or not some of these people are using an illegal substance. Wouldn't surprise me. a couple that were very interesting. The
Boy Scout shot involved taking a marshmallow on a stick dipping it into the fire on the bar top and sticking it in the shot and shooting it. Another one involved dipping your thumb in liquor, the bar tender lighting your thumb on fire, putting your flaming finger in your mouth, then shooting the shot.
This went on for about on hour or so.. slowly Jessica's friends started fading off and we were left with just the 3 of us. We were going strong and it was off to the club.
We hopped in a cab and directed it to the
Club Catwalk, 3 or 4 floors, right on the beach and under some crazy architectural sculpture. When we arrived, Jessica directed us over to the exit door and told us to say
quique to the bouncer and he would let us right in. I guess we skipped the line or skipped paying cover or something. Part of me thinks it didn't really do anything because the bouncer at the door kinda smirked and chuckled as the 3 of us walked past.
We went up to the top floor and went to the bar to order drinks. A drink was about 12€... yikes! I don't even want to the conversion of that to see what it is in $$$. It was a pretty swanky club- cool lighting, fancy furniture, euro club music/dj, and interesting people. Some other friends of Jessica's showed up and hung out. We sat on this crazy couch that sort of became the wall and then the cieling.
When we were done, we walked through the rest of the club, just to check it out and then headed down to the beach. It was really nice. We went right up to the water. We snapped some pictures. Then Jessica had my camera and dropped it in the sand accidentally. She kept apologizing (not knowing it was a durable, waterproof camera). She handed it to me and I said
No, that´s ok, really and I threw it into the sea! Well, not far, just where the waves were washing over it. She freaked out and runs in after it. Haha, oh I love play pranks with my camera.
I had a funny quote that I texted Becky at one point. I think it became an instant classic. I wrote
'Sometimes I'm in Barcelona and I don't even realize it'. It made sense at the time.
Well, it was about 4:30am and time to head home. We walked back to the street and hopped in a cab, went home and passed out.
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