Barcelona?!?!

So I just spent the past three days in Barcelona. Surprised? Not as surprised as she is...



This is my sister, she was not expecting me






Though London had been lovely, after about 10 days I needed something a bit different. In the UK, when they say discount airlines...they MEAN discount. I found a flight to Ireland for the equivalent of 2 dollars. The flight that I ended up with to Barcelona cost me 40 dollars. Mind you, I booked this flight about 36 hours before leaving.

I told absolutely no one that I was coming. Here was my thinking:

I know Tovah's address in Barcelona. I have an idea where her school is. I'll just show up outside of one of those addresses one morning and she'll be there!

This is clearly the result of my long years in special-ops traning in which every variable is accounted for and each plan is carried out in extraordinary detail...okay, actually my plan sucked. But hey, why not?

So I end up in Barcelona at about 11PM on Monday evening, and begin walking to my hostel. Without going into too much detail, lets just say that 1. Hostels that have locked gates and no call box are decidedly more difficult to find than say...they loud boisterous hostel right next door with the pool table, bar, and people clearly enjoying themselves 2. No matter what country you are in, there will always be chinese food delivery people who do not speak the language. This woman saw me trying to get into the hostel (which apparently she was trying to deliver food to) and spent the next hour following me around as I tried to figure out how to get in to the damn place. She spoke no english, and, more notably, no spanish. She also didn't have a cell phone. She also didn't know the area at all. I could be wrong, but she may have gotten off a plane from China with the full intention of sightseeing, but suddenly a bag of chinese food was thrust into her hand and she was charged with some mystic quest to get that food to the hostel. This is really the only scenario in which I could understand her unusual circumstances. 3. It is very difficult to check into a hostel at 1AM when no one speaks english, you're tired, dirty and have the sound of chinese babble ringing in your ears. Suffice it to say, my night could have gone better.

And then it did.

I decided to walk around a bit to clear my head and see the neighborhood. Then I hear..."hey! norm!" Yes thats right, even here, where noone knew that I was, and I, stupidly thought noone would, I ran into two guys from my fraternity, Will and Pat .




I look like a goober here





So we went drinking.

By the way, read the bottom line of this flyer. It's like the bar said "hey, we really want to target norman pentelovitch specifically, what could possibly guarantee that he would come drink here?"





Open the picture...be amazed. Bottom line.





I assure you, this was successful.

Will and Pat happened to be on the same program as my sister, so continuing the quest, they told me where I could "maybe" find her. The next morning, I started walking in that direction. As I did so, I heard two girls speaking with each other next to me:

girl 1: god I was SO drunk last night!
girl 2: I KNOW! It was awesome!

"Aha!" I thought, "Americans!"

Then, employing my not-at-all-shady ninja skills, I proceeded to follow these girls about 4 blocks. I knew that I was going the right way from the increasingly obvious presence of North Face jackets, Boston Red Sox hats, and sunglasses that could effectively solve the problem of the enormous hole in the ozone layer.

When they reached their destination, I, again, not at all in a shady manner, hid behind a corner. Then I saw Annie, Tovah's former roommate and friend who I knew she spent a lot of time with in Barcelona. So I said hi.

She was...ummmm...surprised



You're not spanish!!!





Annie texted Tovah, told her to meet outside after class. I wandered about for an hour, then came back to find her. Now, you may expect to be seeing a certain expression here. Most people, when surprised, at least have a bit of an idea that it is coming, so they respond with wide eyes, an open mouth and exclamations.

Have you ever seen someone really and truly shocked? Not just surprised, not just confused, but rendered completely utterly speech-and-emotionless because they can't actually fathom what is going on. If you haven't...here you go again.









She recovered nicely



Hey! Same color shirt!






Tovah then adjusted the rest of her week for me, which was very nice. I got to meet her roommates, (L to R) Lauren and Rachel.


Kickin' it, catalonian style







Many of her friends ,





He is just pausing for a moment, after which he will resume writing his novel.






and, best of all (with apologies to all others) Antonia and Lucia.


The people who you hope meet when you go to other countries







Antonia is exactly my grandmother, except that she speaks spanish, and...well...lives in Spain. She was one of the loveliest people I've ever met. And that praise has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that simply because I showed up unannounced, she made a VERY special dinner which included some of the best oranges I've ever had and champagne. Food is the currency of my soul, and by that measure, Antonia is riche than Bill Gates. Although, to be fair, Bill Gates makes a mean veggie chili...which I hate.

This is a picture of Antonia and her granddaughter, lucia. Though I do have some very strong opinions with regards to which may actually be the cutest babies on the planet, after my own family, Lucia is holding down the title of "other cutest baby on earth" and does not look to be relinquishing it any time soon.

By the way, if you think that there is anything....anything cuter than a baby trying to speak spanish with a lisp and spitting all over the place...you are wrong...so so wrong. I practically cried this was so cute...but instead I wiped off my face.

So, despite the fact that my feet were smelling just slightly better than the walking dead, I spent much of my time in Barcelona walking around. Per any number of people's suggestion, I went to Parc Guell, which is a park designed by Antonin Gaudi. I could go into the history, but this is much more useful, as is this. Suffice it to say, this guy basically designed half of the worthwhile things to see in Barcelona. Here are a bunch of pictures of the park
























These are all from Parc Guell. Gaudi used lots of pieces to create things

















Climbed up the side of a huge mountain/hill thing. Brazilian guy took this. Good shot huh?








I'm so terribly deep and introspective. I was also hungry






The best way that I can describe Gaudi architecture (without the obvious play on words that in a certain sense, it is fairly gaudy...hehehe) is it is exactly what you would get if you cross-bred a dwarf from any fairy tale with frank lloyd wright, and the artistic sensibilites of Salvador Dali. Then you MIGHT be getting an idea of what this stuff is like. The first structure of Gaudi's that I saw I thought was some sort of Disneyland promotion, but when you look a bit longer...it still makes absolutely no sense. It was sort of like trying to appreciate architecture on drugs, but without the drugs.

And of course, being one of the biggest party cities in the world...we went out:




These were all taken at a bar called "L'ovella negro", literally "the black sheep." To get to this bar, you had to go down an alley...sort of shady. Then you had to turn down another alley, shadiness factor increasing. Then you come to a kind of dungeon gate with two somewhat big guys standing outside. The sun has now been permanently eclipsed it's so shady. Then you go down a tunnel, and come out into a huge room, no windows, absolutely filled with people sitting at long wooden tables, benches etc. Pitcher of beer and a pitcher of sangria later, the place really felt warm and cozy. Or maybe I felt warm...and Adam felt cozy

This is the "big barrel", so named for its status as being larger than a normal barrel. Adam felt compelled by cosmic forces to get into that barrel. Though I consider him to surely be truly mad and beyond the aid of modern medicine, I took this picture and am will be providing it to the first witch doctor that I find in Namibia. Hold on buddy, help is coming.
The last place that Tovah and I went was Sagrada Familia which you truly have to see to get a sense of. It was without quetsion one of the most interesting buildings that I've ever been in. It's basically an enormous church, designed by Gaudi (of course), which has not only remained unfinished, but has remained mostly unfinished for nearly 100 years, despite constant work. Much of the exterior is done, and most of the work now is of the inside.



I'll edit some more stuff into this space later, but this has been a long post already and I have to go pack because I leave for Namibia in about 3 hours.

Oh, and this picture is for Chris Carsten. These were some Spanish guys who claimed that they "breathed metal" and since he was wearing a Motor head hat...who was I to doubt him.