Well, the big day had finally arrived. After a moderately boring week in London after the end of classes, it was Thursday and I was ready to start my 10 day sojourn through Barcelona, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Unfortunately, my flight was actually on Friday, which I luckily realized just before buying a bus ticket to the airport (those of you who read the Amsterdam post, will recognize this travel difficulty as a nice foreshadowing of greater issues to come). Anyway, I finally got to Barcelona on Friday evening and was promptly greeted with some alcoholic beverages, as everyone else had already begun pregaming for the club. In Barcelona, I met up with Ryan Rauh, who had come down from Madrid for the weekend, at the apartment of his friends, Tom Sullivan and Eddie O'Connor (shout out to Tom and Eddie for being awesome guys and letting a dude they just met stay at their place for 2 full days after the mutual friend had left, and showing the aforementioned dude a great time). I forget the name of the club we were originally going to, but its really not important because our group ended up going somewhere else since stupid Ryan wasn't allowed in after getting in a fight with the bouncer about drinking a beer in line. Anyway, the club we ended up going to was called Catwalk and though, as mentioned in previous posts, clubs really aren't my scene, being idiotic, drunk, dancing Americans can be a good time (for an image off the club, picture expensive drinks, beautiful/douchey spanish people sweating all up ons each other and ignoring the dumb americans, and hot girls in lingerie awkwardly doing model poses on a stage at the club and refusing to give a lap dance to Tom even after his impressive offer of 2 euros).
The next day, I had probably one of the greatest days that a man can have. It was absolutely gorgeous out, 75 degrees, and without a cloud in the sky; weather I had not experienced in quite a while, having spent the majority of the past 4 months in London. Thus, we headed to the beach, full of beautiful Spanish women (with and without tops, crazy Europeans) and the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. One of my goals for the trip had been to take a dip in the ole Roman Lake, and though the water was a bit chilly, I'm happy I got to accomplish that goal, something I'll remember for the rest of my life. Plus, I peed in the water! Suck it, Europe!
After the beach, we went back to Tom and Eddie's apartment (ran into 2 girls from Fenwick on the way back, Europe is crazy small), where every Saturday they apparently have a barbecue on the awesome terrace of their apartment for their friends in Barca. Now this day apparently, with its combination of awesome weather and El Classico later that night, led to the greatest, best attended barbecue they'd had thus far, and I must say, it was awesome. Grilled meats all over the place, live music courtesy of the hosts, beer, mimosas and scotch flowing like wine, and though I hate to admit it, Ryan Rauh makes a mean patatas bravas. After the barbecue, we all headed to a bar/former warehouse to watch El Classico, which is the nickname for the match-up between Barca and Real Madrid, and as you can imagine, it's a huge deal. The game was amazing, with Barca winning in a commanding 2-0 shut out, and the atmosphere of the place was out of this world; hundreds of Barca fans singing and just going nuts. Back at the apartment, people worn out from the sun, excitement and drinking all day crashed all over the place after a failed attempt to watch one of my new favorite movies, In Bruges. I, myself, ended up sleeping on a comfy pile of dirty laundry...
The next day, Sunday, Ryan peaced out back to Madrid, and in the afternoon I met up with Darcy Johansen, a fellow Wildcat studying in Barcelona, for some much needed sight seeing. I got to see the famous and beautiful, work-in-progress, Sagrada Familia Cathedral, the neat old Gothic quarter architecture, and some ruins of the wall that used to surround Barcelona's ancient Roman predecessor. After bidding the Darc adieu, I went back to Tom and Eddie's, where they were preparing to celebrate, as it was Eddie's 21st birthday. Now apparently they perform and have become regulars (like in an, awesome "Cheers" sort of way) at an Irish bar called McCarthy's in Barca. So we went there for the celebration; just a great time, singing, yelling, old Irish men, and even a complimentary birthday bottle of champagne.
The next day, after sleeping in (I managed to secure a couch) and going to a pretty good pizza place for lunch (Eddie had won 5 free pizzas in a drawing since he correctly guessed the score of El Classico, I tell ya, these kids are living the dream), I think we just hung around the aparment playing video games. This may sound like a waste of an afternoon, but I have been unable to just sit on a couch and play video games for going on 4 months now, so it was definitely a worthwhile experience. That night, I met up with Sarah Gallo, another Wildcat in Barcelona, for a dinner of Tapas and Sangria before going back to the apartment where Eddie and Tom were sustaining their first night sober since they'd arrived in Barcelona (living the motha fucking dream).
The next day, I headed to the airport for an afternoon flight to Madrid, to meet up with Rauh. Upon arrival, we immediately headed to the basketball courts for some ball against a couple of his buddies before a night of drinking with his friends in his apartment and Ryan getting yelled at by his crazy landlady's sister who lives in the apartment (this will have some significance coming up). The next day, after Ryan had returned from class and I was just waking up, the sister informed Ryan that the landlady was coming to talk to him and his friends about their shenanigans. I waited outside once the landlady arrived, as visitors crashing at the apartment was not permitted. Anyway, turns out the landlady informed Ryan and co. that they could no longer drink in the apartment, and after a brief argument, RyGuy was evicted. 2 weeks to find a new place. The only reasonable course of action we foresaw after this was to pick up a bottle of Scotch and go sightseeing. We went to Retiro, a huge, beautiful park in Madrid once reserved only for the royal family and had a couple drinks there before heading over to the Prado to check out what Goya, Velazquez, El Greco, and the rest of the gang had to offer (because Ryan had gotten into a fight with his landlady, I was unable to shower at his apartment, thus by the time we got to the Prado, I was smelling pretty rank, hence, the title of this post). That night, after polishing off the Scotch, we met up with Ryan's crew and went to a crazy tapas bar called El Tigre, where with each relatively cheap drink you buy, you get a shitload of delicious tapas; just an amazing place. We had to peace out early so I could grab my stuff from Ryan's apartment and get on the metro to the airport before it closed for the night. Upon arriving at the airport at like 1:30, I napped for a couple hours on some comfy benches before jumping on my 6:50 flight to Amsterdam. Little did I know what kind of shitty luck I was in for....
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