Tamer warning: this post is going to be a half hour read.
Copyright: I didn’t have a camera this trip, so all of these pictures are my friends’ or google’s.
Tally and I left for Barcelona Friday morning. At the airport, we met up with 2 of her friends from school here. Drew was doing this trip by himself after his roommate realized that he had bought the plane ticket for the night before accidentally and missed the flight. So, we took him under our wing!
Once in Barcelona we made it to our hostel, which was in a great location (right off of “Las Ramblas” >>). We put our stuff down and headed straight out to explore and walk around. Since it was a nice day, we bussed up to Park Guell. This park was designed by Gaudi. No joke-- once I had booked Barcelona, Gaudi’s architecture was in my dreams…I guess you could say I was excited about seeing his masterpiece of a city that was Barcelona J. His intentions with Park Guell was for it to be a neighborhood for wealthy folks who wanted a view over the city. Well, not enough people (at the time) were interested. His funds got cut, but he still managed to build a huge beautiful park. My favorite thing there were the “gingerbread houses” that looked straight out of Hansel and Gretel.
By the time we explored for a few hours, it was getting darker out. Next on our list was the “magic fountain show.” At this point, it felt like we were at Disney World. A huge fountain, located in front of a gorgeous art museum, entertained us for a half an hour with a show that coordinated lights with music with water shooting in every direction.
When we got back to our hostel we met one of our roommates for the night—19 year old Graham from Canada. We couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. Especially after we heard about 10 English boys yelling, screaming and stomping around the hallways and knocking on our door! Anyways, Graham was just what the doctor ordered. He is traveling Europe by himself and has been since November. He is taking a break form 'university' and found a few different ‘work-away’ programs in various cities and towns in Italy. Barcelona was his first Spanish stop, as his trip was coming to an end. What a cool life!
We headed out that night to a famous shot bar called “espit chupitos” (clever right? Considering the Spanish word for shot is “chupitos…”). They had over 200 different kids of shots. Among the more popular were the Boy Scout Shot, Chupitazo and the Monica Lewinski. Nearly all of these shots involved either fire, straws, whipped cream or marshmallows, or a mix of these features! Although you may not admit it, I know you are wondering what the Monica Lewinski shot consists of. Here’s the story: Five minutes after being there, we see a male Asian tourist (who was with friends) get blindfolded. Behind the bar, the lady bartender brings out a big, green rubber penis big enough to fit over a beer bottle. Naturally, there is a hole in the top. But wait, she proceeds to squirt a bunch of whipped cream all over this thing. The whole bar is anxiously awaiting and staring at the blindfolded Chinese man at this point. After sticking out his tongue and getting a taste of some whipped cream, he takes off the blindfold to see what he is getting himself into. Weirdest part about the rest of this story…he was SO excited to proceed with this “shot” and took it like a champ! The bartender maneuvered this penis beer so he could eat all the whipped cream and eventually drink the beer from it. Keep in mind, these bartenders are used to tourists and will take advantage of them when they can—it was not classy, clean, nor appropriate, but hey that’s Barcelona for ya.
Don’t worry, no one in our group was tortured with this shot. I did the Boy Scout shot ^^ I got some delicious mixture of alcohol in a shot glass and then the bartender lit a half circle of alcohol on fire on the bar. I got a skewer with a marshmallow on it and roasted it on the bar fire. I dipped the roasted marshmallow in the shot, ate it and then did the shot. DELICIOUS! It tasted like a s’more. We went to a few other bars, but compared to Chupitos, the rest of the night was very tame.
The next day Graham, Tally, Drew and I headed out to find the chocolate museum! It was 3 euro to get in, and your ticket was a bar of chocolate…yum! It was pretty small, but they had a lot of chocolate sculptures which were VERY cool. We walked around, ate, sat by the pier and found a few markets. Night two was once again very tame. (All this looong typing is making me very very anxious to tell you about Sunday! eeek)
So Sunday comes along, and we missed breakfast in the hostel because of the time change. Both Drew and Graham left Sunday morning, so Tally and I were left to conquer this city by ourselves! We mainly wanted to meander around, pop in and out of stores and cafes and possibly check out the beach. We also had to find Mo (a friend of a friend who we were planning to stay with that night).
After visiting The Sagrada Familia ^^ and the FREE Picasso museum, by mid afternoon we made it to Mo’s apartment to put our stuff down and see what she was doing for the night. This is where this blog gets interesting…..
Mo goes, “so me and my friends go to this same bar every night, its like ‘Cheers.’ It’s called Queen Vic’s, nothing really ever happens there.” She then proceeded to tell us stories about tattoo night, soapy wrestling night, and slip and slide night. And lucky for us, Sunday was “crazy suicide tattoo night!” The deal was that Lenny, one of her homeless friends who works at the bar was letting people who paid 10 euro tattoo anything they wanted on his back for 3 minutes.
Lenny was one of the more memorable and controversial characters (anyone over 30, cover your eyes and ears for this part). Lenny has bounced around foster homes his whole life. A few years ago he set out to find his birth parents and did. Well one night, he smoked shrooms with his parents and bought a 1-way ticket to Barcelona. He came here with nothing but his passport and 70 euro ($100). The first day he was here, he was robbed of everything, and he’s been here ever since, 5 years. So needless to say, he is happy here in Barcelona working at Queen Vic’s in return for drugs and alcohol. It sure looks like the workers at the bar (who are all pretty much at his craziness level) are his new family. The thing is, he does not look like “our” homeless people. He is young, good looking, clean, funny and unique, just like each and every one of us! Also, Tally’s caring and psychologically-infused brain was completely captivated by his story and is determined to help him/care for him/be his friend. And I have no doubt that she will change his life in some way.
So, we get to Queen Vic’s for the night and meet all of the characters we heard about earlier that day. Here’s a list of stand-out things that night:
-After 20 minutes of being there, we saw a girl get her nipple pierced.
-Lenny did a line of coke not 3 feet from me and Tal (after asking if we were uncomfortable being around it. I appreciated that he was considerate about it.)
-Lenny told us that he did one earlier that day off of his boss’ ....you know what.
-We met 'baseball boy' who had a scholarship to UW-Madison. He was caught with 200 pounds of weed after his second year, lost his scholarship and has been in Barcelona ever since.
-We saw a real live, nasty, oily, plastic, half naked, transvestite prostitute at work. She had just gotten kicked out of her boyfriends house, so she brought her suitcase to the bar for the night. The bar owner has slept with her.
-Lenny’s boss was the first to tattoo him. He wrote “ADOPTED” in large letters across his back.
-We saw that one of Mo’s roommates (regrettably) had “Queen Vic’s bar” tattooed on her ass a few weeks back.
-Met a girl from London who backpacked in South America by herself. She also recently got hit by a car. She didn’t know it then, but they lady lived on the street where it happened, but “instead of being sorry and inviting me in for tea, the bitch drove off!”
-Met 2 Australian hotties with nice accents.
-Met a Belgium guy who says, “so guys, how was your Sunday night in Barcelona? You know, drugs, tattoos, hookers, drinks, the usual.” Hahaha J
-Met 5 northern Irish BEST FRIENDS (that is if I could keep them forever). Definitely the highlight of my night. From the minute I met them, I couldn’t go 2 minutes without smiling or laughing. There was Ricky, Willie, David and 2 others that were absolutely awesome. They were more “normal” than the rest of the crowd for sure. They weren't interested in the drugs, tattoos nor the prostitute. Instead, we drank lemonade and soko and laughed the night away, sharing stories about fireworks on Halloween in Ireland and the green Chicago river for St. Patty’s day in the US. Ricky recited the lucky charms slogan a couple times, we sang songs we both knew and taught each other new words for skank, douchebag or “that’s bullshit!” I also learned that Collin Ferrell is Irish, not British…oops. They definitely engraved my opinion of loving beginnings. I was completely me and it was really freaking fun. And if I ever go to Northern Ireland I would definitely have a few friends to meet up with.
Other noteworthy Barcelona quotes:
“1, 2, 3, Diversity!” –Pat, when talking with Graham about Canada and the USA
“Nothing says tourist like a red head with a Rick Steve’s book.” –Drew
“I mean, I don’t know much about Botany, but I did play Farmville for 2 months. I think those are artichokes.” –Pat
“I really like your nose.” –Bar manager, Carl to Tally
Willie: “Hey guys! I met this really good guy who wants to know if we want marijuana!!”
Drug dealer: “shhh”
“If you tattoo your phone number on me, I’ll let you do it for free.” –Lenny to Tally. He was absolutely infatuated with her. Apparently she made his knees go weak. Awwww.
Important life conclusion: I love beginnings. New people, new places, new situations, new food, beginnings of movies, beginnings of relationships, and the first bite of ice cream rather than the last.
