Monday: Class and nap. Pretty uneventful day. Knocked around most of the day.
Tuesday: Another day of class. We discussed NBA Jam in class, which was pretty awesome. We came back and hung out for a bit until Jay and Kate came over to make us an amazing meal. I would rarely eat seafood, and Kate and Jay made seafood so good, I ate the whole thing. It was amazing and even though it rained, we had an amazing meal. Also, on this day I learned of the Cagador pants in Spain...literally translated....the Sh*ter pant line. It was a pretty awesome realization. Wednesday: Another day of class, beach and then for Kate and Jay's last night in Barcelona, we went to the Ceverceria. Even though it was a 40 minute wait, it was a pretty darned good experience. We called it an early night because Jay and Kate had to head to the airport, with me, early the next day. Me to drop them off and pick up Tim! The one interesting thing that did happen today was that Kat and I went to the metro and saw a man almost try to off himself. We walked in to our side to hear screaming and yelling, followed by a man screaming "Me voy a matar" (I'm going to kill myself). He jumped on the tracks and ran the other way, almost disappearing down into the tunnel. However, I suppose either he chickened out or thought better and jumped back up onto the platform. He was promptly tackled by many security guards while his partner in the argument was held in a half-nelson and the almost-suicidal man's wife was berating a metro-worker. Needless to say, they stopped the metro for some time and when the train did arrive, it CRAWLED into the station. The whole experience left Kat and I pretty shaken up.
Thursday: Took the day off of class and went to the airport to pick up Tim! (and say goodbye to Kate and Jay). Tim and I came back, and literally passed out for hours...he was exhausted from his flight and I from having to get up pretty early. We did go for paella that day, which was amazing, but we ate so much and had another nap after. That evening we just called it a quiet, early night. Tim and I did go out that evening to a little restaurant to get some food where, when asked if they had a menu in Castellano, keeping in mind they speaking Catalan here, the woman briskly asked me what my questions were. However, the meal was great! Tim and I came back and, while Kat was finishing her first Children's book "BooBoo gets the hiccups", we waited for Kristin (a friend of Kat and I's from our first study abroad experience). We did get a little closer to the ending of the book, and to the bottom of a few more bottles of cava. Kristin arrived and we had a few more glasses before I retired to bed, for you see, I had an "exam" the next day.
Friday: I woke up early and headed to my last day of class. I took (and PWND) my exam, getting the highest grade in the class. To celebrate, we went to the Crepe place near by and shared some drinks and crepes. We continued by going to the beach and relaxing to the sounds of aguacococolafantacervezacoldbeer. We finished our tenure at the beach and came home. I did my pushups and cleaned up. It was a big night out for us. We first went to El Bixto, our favorite tapas place by school, and downed several delicious tapas. Then we headed out to meet some of my school friends at this bar called "El Born". We followed that up with a whirl-wind visit to our favorite bar, El Cangrejo. We found out several things that evening:
a.) The bartender who loved to give us a hard time, became our best friend-Fernando
b.) Pablo was not married, but still gay and still would not go out with Kat. HOWEVER, he did pour us a shot. We drank a lot that evening. We ended up stumbling home, and telling the cab driver our entire life story. We passed out promptly...but we also got a little ill, all of us except for Kristin.
Saturday: Tim and I arose very VERY late to go to the beach. However, I was not feeling well most of the day, and very nearly threw up on the train. We spent most of the day on the beach, unwinding from our late night. We ended up waiting for our German friend Felix, who, bless his heart, seems off of a schedule at times. We ended up spending many hours at the beach. However, you don't hear me complaining. We capped off our night by having an incredibly good Italian dinner a few metro stops down. It was Kristin's last night in town from Madrid, but a quiet one at that.
Sunday: We slept most of the day. Tim and I attempted to go to the Picasso museum, but being that it was a free Sunday, the line was approximately 1 mile long. We decided to go elsewhere. We wandered the city and then to the Ciutadela park. It was a nice day that was capped off by a visit back home and went out to eat. It was ok; a chain restaurant, but ok. I did try Horchata that day. I was deathly afraid it would trigger some ridiculous bathroom needs, having a lot of dairy in it, but it was fine and delicious! Tim and I also ran into a movie set in Barcelona. We weren't sure what movie was filming, but it was pretty neat nonetheless. Another amazing accomplishment was when Tim finally found out what song was played in the metro stations. You see, it had been playing since the day we got here, and Kat and I feverishly tried to find out what it was: We tried shazaming it, googling the lyrics, humming the damn song. All for naught. We, and by we, I mean Tim, finally found out what it was. "Get Happy" by some Barcelona artist. Now it's my ringtone...fer real.
Monday (Today): Tim and I woke up early to catch a train to Montserrat. As always, the train was packed and we spent the better part of the entire train ride standing up (an hour standing up stinks...). However, it was entertaining to hear the older Spanish women spin yarns of Spanish tales of girls disappearing into Montserrat, only appearing years later, totally transformed. We arrived and had a quick lunch. We went into the Basilica and saw the line to see the Black Virgin. It was a huge line. Tim and I decided to walk around and view the natural awesomeness before attempting the line. After a hike and many pictures, we headed back and saw the Black Virgin. Finally I learned the story that stemmed past a "This is where Jesus created the SuperBowl story" that Kat created and I genuinely wanted to believe. After our sightseeing, Tim and I hit up the gift shop, after I purchased honey, of course. Tim and I got home, after receiving several irate texts from Kat. The electricity in our apartment was blown. It was amazing.....ly bad. We waited, had cava and waited and finally the landlord and his crew arrived to assess the situation. The electrician would have to come. While we waited, we headed over to the Buffet, the chinese buffet, and chowed down. It was amazing. After the meal we finally bought oranges to make fresh squeezed orange juice, hoping the electricity would be on to run our juicer. After a few minutes in the dark back at home, it came back on...and fresh squeezed it was! So now here I am, 11:30 and only a few days remain here in Barcelona. Tomorrow is a big in-city day and Wednesday is a Dali museum day.
Thanks for reading!
Hasta la próxima vez :)
-Scott
And here are some pictures of my week below for your enjoyment!
Another day of class followed by a nap at home. Kat had visitors sowe took them out for dinner where we ate last year. It was fun. We had a nice walk along the ramblas and then stopped at a bar for a quick glass of tinto. We traded a lot of close-call stories in which I realized that Richard was my soul-mate in regards to gastroenterology. Kat and I went home with our guests. We realized that our couch turned into a futon...it was an exciting discovery.
Kate arrived. I picked her up at the train station and we went to the Creperia, a delicious crepe place. I decided to take it easy instead of rushing back to class. I finally went back and finished up my class for the day while Kate and Jay settled in. After a few hours of this and that, we (Kat and I) met them back for dinner at Ibixto (time number 2). Kat and I went back to our apartment and polished off a bottle of wine and headed to sleep. European life rocks.
local discotheque. The cab ride over was filled with inane banter in which our cab driver talked about the beautiful women of Barcelona over and over again. We entered the club (after a side quest to an ATM followed by Felix and an unnerving encounter with a group of irritating Americans shouting "We're fromLA!"). We had a great night.Dan disappeared at one point, and after searching and subsequently realizing he went back home, Kat, Felix and I also left. Upon turning the corner, we were faced by a panicked young lady whom Felix knew and another girl, pale and doubled over on the ground. She was sick to her stomach from drinking and the friend had been robbed. A nice Spaniard had alerted the police and we waited with her until they arrived. The other girl, writhing in pain asked for an ambulance. We decided that it was then that we should leave. So, Kat, Felix and I went back to our apartment. The time was now 4:30am. We fell asleep as the sun rose around 6am.
Hello there from Barca!
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