Barcelona

At 12:30pm on December 30, I arrived in Spain for my first time on a flight from Dusseldorf. I feel this is important to note because if you ever get a chance to fly on Lufthansa Airlines, do it. On a 2 hour flight into Barcelona, I got lunch, a coffee and a Warsteiner, all at no cost. As a business student, I learned the value of economy, and a 11.3oz Warsteiner or a 6oz Coke I will tell you is a no-brainer. From Chicago to Dusseldorf I got 2 Warsteiners, dinner, brandy, water, orange juice, breakfast, coffee, orange juice again, and water (I brought a big water on with me, so I wasn’t being a total lush). Pro-bono promo over.

It only took an hour and a half longer by metro than was supposed to take per their website, so upon arriving everyone had gone out for a bite to eat, leaving the hostal locked. Waiting outside, I proceeded to yell ‘Hola!’ through the iron gates of the entrance for the next hour and a half… well, minus the 10 minutes I went to the sketchy bar next door and realized that my Spanish was not going to do any good in the world of Catalan... also known as the most worthless language ever invented. Eventually my friends came and I got inside and cleaned up, only to come downstairs and commence drinking games with 2 Euro bottles of wine. Let me tell you something - this hurts. Mix it with some Vat 69 and Cuban rum and it’s downright painful. When in Spain.

Well the next day (NYE) my friend Brooke and I mustered up the energy to go for a run to see the city. The first half of the pictures on Picasa are from said event. I quickly realized that somehow, Barcelona was even more beautiful on the ground than from the plane, which you’ll find hard to believe the first time you see it from 15,000 feet. We were staying by the Arc de Triomf, so we ran through that plaza area, through a giant park to the south, to the Mediterranean, and looped to the other side of the park via the beach. Mesmerizing. Still is. Speaking of mesmerizing, I learned of Gaudi. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s this crazy awesome architect that made some great buildings throughout Barcelona in the 1800s, including the Sagrida Familia (Sacred Family). The last half of the pictures are pretty much of his work.

Midnight. 12 grapes for New Years = 12 months of good luck. Done and done. We head on out to the bars at La Rambla, and a block away, Jackie gets her purse snatched off her arm by one of the many infamous pickpocketers. After a sobering high-speed (yah, right) foot chase through the bowels of Barcelona, the bastard got away. Warning - claw the hell out of your purse if you’re walking in a public crowd in ‘lona. In hindsight, it was great seeing a random cook come help us chase him through the city, and people on every corner pointing us in the right direction… but on the one 6-way humanless corner, he won. Back at our hostal and 6 hours of effortless partying later, everyone lost to the ensuing onslaught of an epic hangover.

We weren’t the only ones though. New Years day was hilarious. I’ve never seen an entire city move so slow. We didn’t wake up until 4pm, and I’m pretty sure we beat most of the Spaniards in arising. That night was pretty low key, and the next day we took off by train to Salamanca. En route we watched The Pink Panther dubbed in Spanish, but I’ll save the overall “dubbing” hilarity for a future post.

Sorry for lying about trying to keep these short, but sometimes you just have to write. Salud de Salamanca!