After a very, very exciting night, Ruby, Molly and I hopped on our Easyjet plane on the morning of Friday, November 9th, and landed in a truly amazing place. Even just walking through the city to our hostel was awesome; everything was colorful, and beautiful, and WARM! (Lyon is unbearably freezing cold at the moment. Last Thursday I honestly think was the coldest weather I have ever experienced in my life. It snowed (nothing exciting, just flakes, no sticking) at night, but there was this face biting, ice making wind that was going strong throughout the day. Truly, so, SO cold). About 5 minutes after we got to our hostel (which was really cool: lots of art (graffiti and otherwise) all over the walls, everyone was our age and all smiles, all around just a really relaxed, fun place), Braden and Jake walked in the door! They’d already been at the hostel for two nights, and had nothing but great things to say about Barcelona.
After getting settled, we made our way to Las Ramblas, the main street in the downtown area. There, we met many strange street performers. I guess they’re there everyday. But they were the weirdest street performers I’d ever seen. Sure, there were the standard ones that stay perfectly still until you put money in their tin, upon which they do something. But there was also: a man dressed as an enormous fat woman. A woman covered in fruits and vegetables. A real creepy guy perched on a metallic chair who stealthily used one of his arms to move around a head (no body), who appeared to be his domestic pet, best friend, and lover all in one. And best (as in strangest) of all: an upside down table, with a hole cut out of it in the middle, with a pillow blocking what’s underneath, with fake legs attached to the top of the table, and when someone puts money in the jar, this guy, face painted in all white wearing a baseball cap, pops his head out of the hole, sticks his arms out of the sides of this upside down table, and sort of rocks back and forth in a little dance for about 10 seconds. That’s really the only way I know how to describe it. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.
Eventually we went over to Mercat de la Boqueria, which is this huge market that sells all kinds of food, on Las Ramblas. Here, we met Karyn and Betsy. It was a really magical reunion. Molly and I bought a fresh squeezed strawberry banana juice at the Market, and we were off. For the rest of the day, we mainly just explored the city. For dinner, we went to a bar called L’Oveja Negra (or something), which means Black Sheep. It was a cool place, kind of like an old tavern. We were nearly the only people there, though, since it was something like 9:00, and shit doesn’t even get started until around 1:00am apparently. But it was still fun, we all just talked and reminisced and relaxed. We called it an early night because we were all so exhausted.
The next day was Saturday, and also my birthday. Also, Courtney had now joined us, making our party complete! The first thing we did was a 4-hour bike tour of the city. This was wonderful. We started out in the Old City, where we saw a lot of old, historical buildings and learned about a lot of Barcelona’s history, which was quite interesting. Next, we headed to a really cool park (that I unfortunately do not remember the name of), but it was really beautiful. It was filled with palm trees, and was equipped with a lagoon full of paddleboats, as well as a really beautiful statue that kind of reminded me of the statue in Place Terraux here in Lyon. Additionally, next to the park was Barcelona’s very own Arc de Triomphe. Seriously, it’s even called that (Spanish style). It looks a lot like the French one too. I think Chris, our tour guide, said something about how the Spaniards liked the French one so much that they built their own. I must admit, it made me sort of proud. Anyway, biking through the park was lovely. Then we headed to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s lifelong project that he was working on up until his death. It is an ENORMOUS Catholic church that is unlike anything else in the entire world. Standing right there before it honestly blew me away. It’s the most detailed architecture I’ve ever seen! They’re working to finish what Gaudi started, and have been doing so since his death, so it’s constantly under construction, which is kind of too bad, but I barely even noticed it, the building is just that impressive. They expect it to be finished within 40 years. The reason it’s taking so long is now that they’ve finished everything from the plans for it Gaudi left, they’re trying to finished it based on exactly how they think Gaudi would have wanted it. It’s already so tall, but they’re going to build one extra tall tower in the middle of it, which will be 115 meters high! Huge. Anyway, it was really amazing.
Ah, also, while at the La Sagrada Familia, our American tour guide Chris got in a fight with a passing tour guide. Basically, Fat Tire bike tours are not sponsored by the city, or something, and this city sponsored tour guide passed us and said, in English, “DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS MAN, THIS MAN IS A LIAR!” when Chris was talking to us about La Sagrada Familia. As she was walking away, Chris yelled after her, “And that’s a BITCH who doesn’t know what the FUCK she’s talking about!” He also said something about how “real tour guides don’t need microphones” …I guess she was wearing one. It was a bit disconcerting, and while Chris tried to play it off afterward, he kept bringing it up at various points throughout the tour. I think he has some anger issues.
Next we headed to the beach where we stopped for some snacks and drinks, and admired the beauty, and eventually headed back into Old Town. While many Catalonians were less than happy about the gang of bikes weaving through the streets, and even though Chris was kind of a tool, it was a really fun time, and a really cool way to see a lot of the city. Later on, back at the hostel, Braden and Jake gave me two things: first, a glass full of pomegranate absinthe. Second, my birthday present: my very own grill. It is incredible. I got a whole top diamond and sapphire. I wore it for the rest of the day and night. My mouf was lookin sumthin like a disco bawl. (Mom, since you already read Courtney’s post and have since asked me what a grill is, it’s an apparatus that you insert into your mouth that goes over your teeth to pimp them out, which means make them look cool. They generally involve jewels, like diamonds). After continuing our absinthe party at the fly honey hostel, and eating some very delicious soup, we bought a lot of cheap wine and headed to Park Guel. This is the huge Gaudi park in Barcelona (back in the day, Gaudi built two houses in this area, each for a wealthy Catalonian family. The families didn’t like them, so Gaudi turned the area into a park and gave it to the city). When we went there Saturday night it was dark, so we didn’t do much exploring around the park. But we did find a little cove with a view of the entire city, and it was too beautiful. Sitting there, eating cheese and drinking wine and laughing, I looked around at everyone there and felt so incredibly lucky. Here I was, in (maybe) the most amazing city I’d ever been to, with some of the people that matter to me most in this world, and there was just so much love, and I was just so happy. Maybe I didn’t get to have a big 21st birthday in America, and there are some other people I would have loved to spend it with, but, in the end, I really couldn’t have asked for anything better.
We drank all the wine. We had some ridiculous photo shoots. We took in the breathtaking view. Happy Birthday was sung. Then Betsy had us all do something really cool: a kind of cinnamon roll type hug. Everyone holds hands in a circle, and since it was my birthday, I was in the middle. I stay stationary, and then everyone else runs in a circle around me until we’re all wrapped up super tight. It was great. We did a bunch of them.
Finally, after spending a significant amount of time in this amazing park, we decided to hit up tha club. I really wanted to go to this place called Razzmatazz (a club with five floors, with a different type of music happening on each), but it was kind of far out and, well, I don’t really know why we didn’t go there in the end, but we went to somewhere called Catwalk. There were two floors at this one: the bottom was electro (but, sadly, shitty electro), and the top was hip hop and rap. I was a big hit with my grill. We broke it down upstairs for most of the night, got hit on by a lot of sleazy guys, and got saved from all of them by Jake. It was all really fun though.
Jake and Braden had to leave really early Sunday morning, so I said goodbye to them when we got back to the hostel at 5:30am. Karyn and Betsy had to leave in the late morning, so we got some verrrry tasty ice cream (France is still in the lead for ice cream though will probably take second to Italy when I go there at some point), and said goodbye. And then there were three. Molly, Ruby and I decided to go back to Park Guel so that we could actually see it during the day. We ended up spending the entire day there. I think that park was my favorite thing about Barcelona. I can’t really describe everything about it that made it so cool, but it’s amazing. The palm trees and these brown, manmade clay columns with little nooks in them really reminded us of Donkey Kong. Then there was the big veranda, with a long mosaic framed bench that wrapped around it all, that overlooks the entire city. Best view of the city there is, I imagine. If any of you have seen L’Auberge Espangol, this is where that scene of Xavier and Anne Sophie (when they’re looking out at the city, and give way to their sexual tension) is filmed. We spent a lot of time in this area, because there was a man making amazing giant bubbles, and a lot of hilarious Spanish children reacting to it, and a lot of great people watching opportunities in general. Then we went and checked out those two Gaudi houses. I realize that his work was so different and original and ahead of his time that people didn’t like it, but those families had to have been crazy not to want to live in these things. They’re so cool! They look like melted gingerbread houses, and the mosaics are so neat. The park is also home to that super famous Gaudi lizard (I believe he’s an iguana). I’ve never seen so many tourists trying to take pictures with something. Ruby got a lot of pictures of various people with the lizard in an attempt to get one of me with it.
As the sun was setting, we continued to explore the park. Finally, it was dark, and after spending a good 6 hours in Park Guel, we decided to leave. We were making our way to the exit gate, and just as we were approaching it, we heard a noise that went something like this “Fss fssshh fssshhh.” Kind of a whispering, whistling noise. Then all of a sudden I hear Ruby and Molly go “Oh my God, Oh my GOD…” and see them start running toward the gate. I’m confused and say, “What, what!?!?” and one of them says, “THERE’S A NAKED MAN RIGHT THERE.” I look up, into the bushes about 5 feet above us, and sure enough, there is a stark naked man looking down at us, wiggling his dick and smiling. We got the FUCK out of the park. None of us could believe it! We were flashed! You can’t really call it flashing though, since there were no clothes to begin with. We looked for someone to report this man to, but couldn’t find anyone, and decided to just leave since we were all pretty freaked out by it. It was pretty fucked up, but also a pretty hilarious way for our day at Park Guel to end.
Monday morning we tried to go to the Picasso museum but it was closed. We peeked in the windows though, at least. Since we couldn’t go to the museum, we walked down some back streets near our hostel and saw a lot of cool street art. We also popped into a really beautiful church. Finally, we came back to Lyon. None of us wanted to leave. We all kind of wished we were studying abroad in Barcelona instead, I think. But, Lyon has its pros. And there’s no way I’m going to attempt to learn Catalan. And the weekend wouldn’t have been so special if we were living there the whole year. And it was a very special weekend indeed.
The end.
1 comment:
UHHHHH
SMILE FO ME DADDY!
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