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Published: November 29th 2006
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Arriving at the airport in Barcelona was when I first realised how jaded i was becoming to travel, just another airport, just another train to the city, just another metro to my hostel, none of it phased me at all. I should have been excited to be in another city, but it was just another city. Nonetheless when I arrived at the hostel I was quite impressed, wasn't much to look at on the outside but was quite cosy inside, more like an apartment than a hostel with a lounge and kitchen like you'd find at home. The best part about the place was that Charlie, the son of the owner, would only stay until the last guest arrived so no one was around at nights except for guests, this gave the place even more of an apartment feel.
I got to chatting to Charlie and went with him to visit his friend Casper who was squatting in a building in another part of the city. Very funky place and cool crowd as you might expect, they tapped electricity from the metro and had running water so had it pretty sweet. We hung out there til late and discussed going
to a gig friday night and i took the metro home, one thing you immediately notice about the city is the amount of young people, lots of punks and hippys but all very chill. Speaking of the metro here, it is *fantastic*, London could learn a thing or two about air-conditioning, cellphone signals, and quietness. Paris could learn about signage.
First thing on the agenda first day in Barcelona - replacement digital camera. Ouch. The other one had gotten so bad I couldn't stand it and found myself not bothering to want to take any photos. 180euro later I was the proud owner of a little point and click Nikon, nothing flashy but it would do the trick. Canadian Rob and Hercules (Shaun) were following me here and Rob turned up in the afternoon so we took another hostel random and went for a walk to a main square where they apparently have an amazing fountain that has shows each night coreographed to music and colour. I wouldnt know because I didnt get to see it. We went for a long hard uphill walk to a castle which had a beautiful view over the city and stopped for dirty
chinese food on the way home.
That night I met up with Charlie, Casper and friends and we went to this Psy-trance gig that Charlie had been amping about for weeks. We were not dissappointed, great gig and good crowd, danced the night away. I met a group of random Brazillians and ended up going back to their place for an after party chill out. Funny thing was, they spoke almost no english and I certainly dont speak Portuguese! So it was actually quite an entertaining day just pretending to know what was going on, I still wonder if my interpretation of their conversations that day is anything close to what actually went down! A true fly on the wall experience and while bizarre still quite enjoyable. I finally headed home late in the afternoon for some sleep only to be woken shortly after by Shaun who had just arrived, "PUBCRAWL!"
After a beer or two i was ready and willing and we met up with the rest of the crawlers and the fun began. It was another pretty good night, Shaun and Rob always make sure of that, with another late finish. I ended up crashing at
a different hostel because it was too late and i was too tired to make it back to mine! When I woke up on Sunday I realised I had hardly seen any of Barcelona and was due to leave pretty soon so put my walking shoes on and headed through the city with Aussie Dan and Canadian Dina I had met the previous night. But it was a sunday, so not too spectacular really. A famous avenue Las Ramblas was fairly quiet, it was overcast so the beach didnt seem too appealing and most of the shops in the city were closed, the only upside being getting to see all the graffiti!
I had an easy night on Sunday, the Canadian boys had gone out so I hung out with Charlie's flatmate Tasha (ex Londoner now teaching English) and we ate gelato and watched a dvd (Pirates of the Carribean actually, the first one, I never saw it, not too bad either. Hadn't seen a movie since Berlin!). On Monday Rob wanted to chill so me and Shaun headed out to see some sites, namely the amazing tower of nothing that just turned out to be an office building,
nice choice buddy, that free icecream was oh so sweet. On the plus we did have pretty much the best mexican meal I have ever had, saw some more wicked graffiti and that night i cooked a fantastic chicken curry stirfry type dealy for everyone which went down well.
Barcelona is also a very wicked city, and not just because of all the partying, its just the whole vibe is very relaxed and everyone seems quite friendly. Probably a city I'd consider living in if I wanted to learn Spanish or teach English. If you make it there you should also go and see the famous artist Gaudi's church, garden and museum, be sure to take lots of pictures and tell me all about it. This was the first city I really felt I didn't see properly, so I might just have to go back!
I had to get up super early the next morning to fly to my next destination, southern spain, Granada. The boys were supposed to follow me by train but couldnt get any accomodation, i was planning on staying for 5 nights but could only get accomodation for 2 so was going to rely
on my travellers luck to get me through. I was pretty confident with my latest run of luck things would work out, the boys weren't.
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Charlie
non-member comment
HAHA
Yo man! So I finally read about your thoughts on Barcelona. You should definately come back here and really check out the touristic stuff. Then when you finish that in a day, you can hang out with me and Casper again and go dancing at another psy-trance party. By the way we went to one last night and it was the shit. Come back soon my friend and oh yea Merry Christmas!