New People, New Places

In the past two days, I think we've officially become locals.

Yesterday. Got breakfast in our area at some restaurant in this little courtyard. Reminded me of some Shakespearean town. And what did I order? toast. I can't tell you how much bread I've eaten in the past few days.

Checked out of our hotel apartment and met with our landlord at our new apartment in Port Olimpic. Our landlord, Aurora, is a super nice woman. It felt so good to finally settle in somewhere, and not be thinking about having to move any time soon. After unpacking, testing things out, claiming rooms (not hard since there's only 2 bedrooms) we went to La Rambla to check out the famous Mercat de Boqueria. Wow. Any kind of produce you could every want, you can find here. Got ourselves some fresh fruit juice (mm papaya). Bought some dried kiwis, mangos and strawberries, since I'm in love with dried fruits. There are stands that sell like every kind of dried fruit you can imagine. AND, of course, can't be in Spain without eating some spanish almonds. so amazing.

After the market, we decided to go shopping, since we hadn't had a chance to yet. I felt bad for eric, making him come into all these stores with me, and wait while i tried things on, and wait while i bought something at every...store...we...entered. bad bad bad! Everything was so cheap though! Plus, eric got this hook-up with this promoter here in bcn who said he'd take us out to the clubs that night. So of course I had to find something to wear. Dude, finding shoes that fit a narrow size 5 foot in Bcn is impossible! Ugh... I loved shoe shopping until yesterday.

Came home. Went to the supermarket to buy groceries. Made dinner for eric this time. Got ready to go clubbing. We were meeting Kyke the promoter at the beach, close to our place.

Headed down. So many clubs along the beach! Met up with Kyke and this girl from U of San Diego, Beren, sweet girl. First he took us to this club, Carpe Diem, where he is throwing an International Student welcome party next week. The club was like, Buddha-themed. Pretty dope.

Oh ya, we met up at like 12:30am. But ppl don't go to clubs until like 2am.

so went to the next club, Opium. 3000 people every weekend. It was HUGE! a lot of the clubs here have a restaurant area as well. what a good idea! cuz we all know how hungry we get when we're clubbing. here, there's people of all different ages in the club. we noticed a lot of older ppl, like couples in their 40's. weird to see. most clubs out here play like all house music, which'll take some getting used to. Anyways, when eric talked to Kyke on the phone earlier, he asked him "how much money should i take?" and he said "money? you don't need any"! he took care of everything! took care of cover, bought us drinks, which were all doubles =)

Anyways, eric, beren and i partied but couldn't party as hard as the barcelonians YET. left at like 4:30am. people were still going strong, probably until about 6am when most clubs close. walked home.

So, on the walk home, I had my first Barcelonian night-time freak-out moment. So, eric decides to throw this random rock across the street. suddenly, these rocks start flying at us. not just one. like 5. it was like we were being attacked by pebbles. i'm walking fast as hell. can't take cover anywhere. luckily we don't get hit. we take a quick detour down a cross street to lose our attackers. i yell at eric, ERIC! don't DO that shit! so we pretty much speed walk home. we were fine after that tho. phew.

wake up today at noon. because our landlord had to go over some last things with us. brought the contract. we had some questions for her too. like... how do we keep cockroaches out of our shower? DUDE, yesterday, i opened up the shower curtains to find little cockroaches scurrying around. i freaked. dude, i don't wanna be showering with them! haven't seen them since then tho, so should be okay.

fell back asleep after aurora left. til 5pm. FIVE! omg i felt so bad, cuz i wanted to hit the beach. but luckily, it was cloudy. went to the supermarket, only to find out its closed on sundays. dang, when even the SUPERMARKET is closed on sundays, you know everything shuts down on sundays! but the mall where the market is was busy! ppl just chillin, sitting in the bars watching the football game. sundays are so chill here. ppl just walking around enjoying the day. we went down to the beach and walked all along the walkway along the water. there were all these restaurants on the beach, playing loud house music. we saw this one dude, hella tanned, in this little black speedo. he was super cut too. and he was DANCING to the music on the beach, like a friggen chippendales dancer, straight up! he was like a dad too, he had a little daughter. anyways, as soon as me and eric saw that, we sat down and just watched him. it was soo hilarious. then we got up to walk, but on our way back, we saw the guy again, still dancing, so we sat down again to watch him a bit longer. we certainly found him amusing =P

came back. went into town for dinner. had the best paella in plaza reial, which we learned is the place to meet and drink. tons of ppl just sitting around the fountain, drinking. we had our first pitcher of sangria =) walked down to the water after along La Rambla, saw some topless woman sitting along the Rambla, putting make up on. Random. Ppl were just acting like she was fully clothed too. Cabbed home. Tomorrow, reality sets in. Eric starts school. Now, onto REAL life. No more vacation =( well at least, for him =P