Soul to soul- A kiss and a sigh. Sawed in half- by the passage of time

So, I've fallen in love with Barcelona. I went two weekends ago with Chelsea and Heather. We only got to spend two days there. I loved it so much I went back the following weekend. Since it was a puente I was able to spend four glorious days there. On Eva's recommendation we stayed at a place called Hostel-Bar. It was a divey little place but sooooo cheap. Like seven euros a night cheap. The hostel has a bar below it that is a hub for tranny hookers, Romanian gypsies and young folk. It was spectacular and the drinks were half-price for hostel guests. The first weekend we did some touristy things and I neglected to take any pictures of people, so on my second visit I made up for that. Want to see? Estais listos? A ver...

First full day we went to the aquarium. Alex, a friend of Eva's and Hostel-Bar employee, graciously offered to lead us there. Funny thing about meeting Alex. When we first arrived at the hostel it was already midnight so we went straight up to put our things in the room before having a drink with Eva. Leon showed us the room we were sharing with three Australian girls who were already asleep. But when we got a good look we only counted two empty beds. Leon went in and woke someone up while we waited in the hall. A sleepy Spanish guy appeared in the doorway. We chatted a minute and I said "Well I'm Ann." And he immediately responded "Ah, Ann Garrigan" in his cute Spanish accent. Chelsea, Heather and I stared at each other. I hadn't made the reservation so there was no reason for him to know my name. Later we figured out that Eva had been talking me up. My name intrigued him because it sounded like "arrogant." So make of that what you will. I hung out with him and Eva that night and I decided he was good people. I was right because he went out of his way to make sure we enjoyed Barcelona. Along the way to the aquarium he pointed out interesting sites. Like this enormous statue of Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus). Not pictured: a swivel-style draw bridge, a mirrored mall and strange floating statues. Alex walked us all the way to the aquarium doors but refused to come with us. He could not understand why we would want to pay to look at fish.

I refrained from posting too many fish pictures. But there were a few that I had to share. Like these GIANT STING RAYS. Have we talked about how I feel about giant sting rays? The scare the LIVING HELL out of me. And up to this point in my life it was a theoretical fear. Thank you L'Aquarium Barcelona for making this fear real and tangible. I'll never go into the ocean again. Just looking at this picture makes me shiver. Notice there are normal-sized sting rays in the picture too for scale.

Then there were octopuses (by the way, I looked it up. Octopi is NOT the plural of octopus). All I could think of when I was looking at these was "I ate one of you guys." Made me feel creepy.

Second weird thing that happened to me: After we came back from the aquarium we were waiting for Anna to buy coffee in Las Ramblas. I was chatting with Eva, Chelsea and Heather when this guy walked up behind me and without warning BLEW RASPBERRIES on my neck. In my state of shock, I figured he was someone Eva knew. Not so. I was still reeling when she told him to fuck off. He wandered away with his rhinestone belt buckle that said "Rich" and his jeans that had a picture of Daffy Duck printed on the butt. Still not the craziest thing that happened to me. Stay tuned.

Later that night we went to see the fountain show at Montjuic. It was magical and epic. The water and lights were synced to wonderful music. This isn't the most illustrative picture of the what the fountain was capable of, but I thought the building in the background was worth including. Apparently behind that building is all the stuff from when the Olympics was in Barcelona. During the show Chelsea spotted A BARBIE MUSEUM. We checked it out the next day cause it was free. One bad thing happened at the fountain show: Eva got pickpocketed. It was tragic but Eva handled it well. We also went to this crazy flea market where I picked up four pewter pins shaped like a T-rex, triceratops, brontosaurus and another dinosaur. I forget. And a brass pencil sharpener shaped like a gramophone. The turn table really turns! We made a quick stop at La Sagrada Familia too.

I forget the order of events but third bizarre thing that happened to me: We walking back to the hostel when some drunk guys fighting forced us to slip by in a single file line. One of the men was pretending to be a dog or something and pushed Chelsea into the other guy. I was last in the line and when I passed he growled and then BIT MY LEG. It didn't hurt, just surprised me. And I did have a bruise later because I was wearing leggings and not jeans. Weird but it makes for a pretty cool story I think. If you want to see more pictures of my first trip to Barcelona here they are: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172842&id=38709220&l=3a1fb8ba59

My second trip fue buenismo. Eva, Anna, Alex and I spent four days basically on Santa Monica. I bounced around from hostel room to hostel room because Alex promised me a sweet price and I didn't have a reservation. It was cool because I got to meet different people. I stayed in one room with two women that were from Madrid and in Barcelona for a conference on art and designing. They were very funny and nice. My first night there the gang took me to a couple of different bars. Of course we got started in Hostel-Bar.

This is Alex and Eva! Lovely, lovely people that spent basically their entire puentes entertaining me. Eva, for those who don't know (ah hell. Who am I kidding? I mean for Mom and Dad's benefit since I think y'all are the only ones reading this and probably don't remember who Eva is) is a friend of mine from Southwestern.

I was determined to make up for my lack of people photos from the last trip and insisted on taking my camera everywhere and snapping away constantly. The flash was complained about more than once. Totally worth it.

Barcelona buddies! Eva and Anna. Anna is an artist and you can see some of her work at her brand-spanking new blog here: annaruthyates.blogspot.com. She had just finished a cool project involving casting wax keys from a mold she made. Ironically, the next day she broke the key to her apartment in the lock. We had to resort to TAPING her door shut when she left it because her landlord was out of town. Also we made Alex climb up to her a second story balcony to unlock it from the inside when she first broke it. Thanks Alex!

Remember the biting incident? Well there's a part dos. While we were sitting in the downstairs part of the bar, Eva looked over at the slot machine were the Romanian gypsies were trying their luck and asked me "Isn't that the guy that bit you last time?" I checked it out and sure enough, it was my old friend the biter. I leaned over and whispered this information to Alex who, to my surprise, said "Ok, we'll fix it" and stood up. Startled, I stammered "What? No, that's not...wait." But before I could stop him, he had asked the guy to talk to him outside. I waited anxiously, sure that something terrible was going to happen to Alex, but miracle of miracles they walked back in and the guy embarrassedly and profusely apologized. He was very polite and respectful to me the rest of the time I was there.

If you are in a bar anywhere in Spain someone is going to try to sell you roses. These vendors are usually ignored or just told no, but Alex bought one for each of us. Very sweet, but I think the guy selling them was a friend of his too.

For a change of scenery, we hiked over to another bar. I have absolutely no context for where we were in the city, probably not that far from the hostel, but it was nice to see a different part of Barcelona. Eva and Anna were discussing reclaiming some junk in the street but didn't want to lug it around all night. It's the same conversation I have with myself every time I want to take my camera with me somewhere. Obviously I went for it this night. I encouraged other people to take photos too although I'm obsessively protective of it. If someone else isn't actively taking a picture, it's in my hands. And I'm constantly reminding everyone to replace the lens cap. In retrospect flashing bright lights in a dark bar and muttering about your lens cap isn't the best way to make friends.

Our walk to Alma, the other bar, probably took ten times longer than it should have because I have a habit of dawdling behind to take pictures. Luckily Anna sometimes joined me so I wasn't always slowing everyone down.

I love this picture. Doesn't it make you want to know what they're talking about? It does me.

Alma, or as I kept referring to it "that red bar" because I couldn't remember the name. The beer was expensive but I had a great time. Everywhere we go, we run into people Alex knows so there's always someone new to chat with. I swear I was participating not just taking pictures. We had such a good time, we stayed until they kicked us out for closing.

But not before Eva consented to sit really still so I could take a close-up sans flash. Alex said later "Eva has very expressive eyes." I couldn't agree more. Very pretty too.

We then strolled back to our barrio to a bar called Kentucky. When I first overheard Eva telling Alex that he should go to Kentucky, I assumed they were discussing a future visit to the States. So I said "No one should ever go to Kentucky" before she explained that it was a bar. Sorry for the bad publicity Kentucky.

I had gotten really used to one euro cañas at hostel bar so I balked at the idea of paying two fifty at a bar named after one of my least favorite states. We only stayed for one drink. I considered it worth it after I got this picture during a little descanso we took in the street.

One night I got to stay in 408. The infamous single room at Hostel-Bar. It's swank accommodations included a private bathroom and double bed. The orange juice and bowl of potatoes are totally VIP though. You have to know somebody.

Eva has an adorable bunny named Mateo. This night she had made dinner for Alex and me. Eva lives with a couple our age and a middle aged Bulgarian(?) man named Daya. Daya mostly seems to keep to himself but I spent a fair amount of time with her other two roommates. Celia is a pretty blonde Finnish girl. She seemed 100% normal. Her boyfriend however was...different. No matter how many times I saw him, he always began the conversation the same way, "Hello my name is Amien. I am sixteen years old. I'm from Marruecos." His name is Amien. He is from Morocco. But he's twenty-two. He is literally constantly smoking hookah. He even takes the hookah to the bar with him. One his other favorite pastimes is to put Eva's bunny in the cage with his bunny because he thinks it's hilarious to watch his (nameless by the way) rabbit hump Eva's. Or as he calls it "jiggy-jiggy."

El próximo día, in keeping with Eva's and mine plan to spend as little money as possible, the four of us decided to go to la boqueria to get ingredients for breakfast tacos and eat in before heading to the beach. The market is one of my favorite things about Barcelona. There are tons of stands selling your every grocery need. It's all fresh and delicious. Look at those peppers!

I'm the first to admit that my culinary skills are underdeveloped, but I am pretty good at snacks. We had these little bread-cheese-strawberry guys para picar while we whipped up the tacos. I was also allowed to make the guacamole. I do ok at that too.

By the time we got on the road to the beach it was already getting dark. I really love the cloud trails planes make. They seemed especially nice in Barcelona. I took several pictures of them while I was there.

This is the little harbor where the swivel drawbridge is. I think I'm going to add "learning to sail" to my list of things to do before I die.

I think this is my favorite non-people picture of Barcelona. Eva, Anna and Alex all live just a fifteen minute walk away from this. Can you imagine?

In keeping with our shared distaste for flash pictures, Eva took some artsy shots of me wearing Anna's scarf. It was pretty cold and I will forever remember the episode of the Magic School Bus that taught me that most of your body heat escapes from your head. So it seemed logical to wear the scarf Grace Kelly style. The only thing I'm sure I achieved with this strategy though was to prompt Alex to call me "caperucita roja" (little red riding hood) all night.

There are little markets all over the place. We passed this one on our way back from the beach. Eva and Anna were checking out a booth with jester-style masks. I liked the shadows they made.

The next night, Eva's roommates had a little Christmas party.I was uneasy about it because I'm already kind of awkward with new people and because Amien can be a little off-putting. It was slightly awkward at first. It was the four of us and then Eva's roommates Amien and Celia and Celia's Finnish friend, whose name none of us could remember. But they were all very nice and they had decorated the little living room so cute, complete with a baby Christmas tree. It felt very fancy and grown-up because there were hors d'oeuvres and champagne that cost more than five euros in real glass flutes. We all just sat around and chatted and took turns choosing music on youtube. I made everyone watch the same Lady Gaga video I posted here last time. It was well-received.
I would like to say my second trip to Barcelona was bite-free but in order to provoke a candid shot here, Alex resorted to Romanian gypsy tactics.
Mateo even made an appearance. He was so sweet and let me pet him for a long time before trying to escape. I had caught a cold that was spreading through the hostel on Friday and not long after Mateo made his exit, I had to excuse myself too because I was feeling so shitty. I'm only now, a full week later, feeling better. I went to the Spanish doctor yesterday, armed with absolutely no medical Spanish vocabulary in hopes that the doctor spoke English. She didn't but was very patient while I pointed to various body parts and indicated discomfort.

My last full day in Barca Anna and I went back to the beach during the day while Alex sorted out legal dispute involving a Swedish girl, a scratched moped and insurance technicalities. We sat on the beach and waited for him. Anna explained that the sole naked man strutting his stuff was a perpetual figure at the beach and we marveled over his tolerance for the cold. At some point it was revealed that where we were was decent sea-glass hunting territory. I was like "WHAT? SEA GLASS?" And we were happily occupied for the next hour or so.

There were some pretty cool sand sculptures too. This was my favorite.

Alex more gently provoked this candid by asking me to look South and me realizing that I should be able to figure that out from the setting sun but not being able to think quickly enough.

Alex dubbed this "an orange day" because of the pretty sunset colors. Then we bought pizza with bbq sauce. And it was delicious.

And we've come full circle with the statue of Cristobal Colon. This weekend was really wonderful for me. So much so that I think I've decided that I want to move here. Soon. I met with a girl that did this IES program a few years back and is now teaching English in Barcelona. She told me everything I need to know to apply for a teaching assistant position and where to find an apartment. So I'm thinking I'll sell my car and maybe work for a little while to save some money. The program starts in September but I'll probably come back to Spain at the beginning of summer to get settled. There are still kinks and such to work out, but of all my post-grad options, this is the one that appeals to me most. I'm very excited. So, my lucky, devoted readers, (Mis) Adventures in Spain may march on. But before I leave Spain this time (in one week!) I have a couple more posts lined up. So if you're interested in the Alhambra or Spanish graffiti, check back. Hasta nos vemos luego!