Barcelona- Shenanigans up the wazoo

My trip to Malta and the subsequent time in Girona was exactly what I was looking for in a vacation: low-key, stress-free living with fabulous weather :)  However, I was really looking forward to seeing Wenlu, Mike, and Andrew in Barcelona and I’d heard lots of interesting things about the city, so I was anxious to see what kind of shenanigans would go down once I arrived in town.  First indication that Barcelona was different/more lively than where I’d been previously?  I was catcalled three times, honked at twice, and propositioned by a man on a motorcycle within my first hour of arriving.  And let me assure you that I didn’t even look good at this point, so I can’t imagine what women who’ve taken the time to pull themselves together go through! 

Mirador de Colom

This is not a joke.

Anyway, I took advantage of yet another beautiful day to walk around town and do some exploring to get the lay of the land.  Barcelona’s an interesting mix of past and present, as they have some amazing monuments and buildings but also a very young and vibrant population, from what I saw.  I of course headed down to the harbor, where the sailboats were packed in like sardines.  Honestly, I have no idea how they maneuver out of port!  There’s a mall along the gangway that I walked through to get to the other side of the port, and I was surprised to see a giant statue… of a man that had pulled down his pants and taken a dump.  I wish I were kidding about this one, but apparently, the “Caganer,” which literally means the “Shitter” or the “Crapper” is a typical figure of Catalan Christmas cribs and his stool is fertilizer that portends abundant crops for the New Year.  That means that the semi-inappropriate statue is a symbol of “happiness, good luck, and above all, growth.”  … Yeah, I thought it was pretty strange too. 

Parc de la Ciutadella

I stayed up late (aka 3:30am) to chat with my family in Chicago, celebrating Christmas Eve together.  It was tough, but good to hear all of their voices.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to miss Christmas again- we’ll see!  Andrew and I walked pretty much all over town on Christmas Day while waiting for Wenlu and Mike to arrive.  One of the coolest things we found was an enormous fountain in a park that we didn’t even know existed!  That’s the fun part of doing some random exploring.  We also played around with some photos- you’ll see what I mean below. 

I'm pretty much a giant.

Pretty close, right?

We had an interesting evening, to say the least.  We met up with some cool guys from North Carolina and a brother/sister pair from Arizona and drank a respectable amount of wine in the hostel before deciding to go out to a club that had been recommended to the NC guys.  It probably would have been best to take a taxi, but since there weren’t any minivan taxis available, which meant that the 9 of us would have had to split up into 3 different vehicles, we decided to go it on foot.  I’ll spare you the sordid details, but suffice it to say that the walk included beers bought from Spanish street vendors (which we later learned is illegal), getting lost and attempting to ask for directions without a real map or more than “un pocito” of Español, various levels of wading/swimming in the Mediterranean which led to several members leaving early to avoid hypothermia, and only three of us (Andrew, Will, and me) successfully making it to the club by, oh, I don’t know… two thirty in the morning maybe?  The club was absolutely ridiculous- hundreds of young (remember- they only have to be 18, not 21) Spanish clubgoers grinding to the beat of American songs blasting through the loudspeakers.  The guy to girl ratio was probably 7:1, so the two boys didn’t have much luck finding any Spanish sugar mommas ;)  The walk back was much less eventful, although we did have the chance to sing along to some Katy Perry with a group of three girls on their way home from a different club.  Biggest downside?  Reeking like smoke… it never fails to make me more glad that smoking in bars and restaurants is banned in Wisconsin!  I ended up showering at 5:30am, when we made it home, before hitting the sheets at 6am. 

Wenlu and me with Flora 

Our last full day in Barcelona was no let-down, that’s for sure!  We dragged ourselves out of bed to get to the Go-Car- yes, the Go-Car, place by 10am.  These vehicles are street-legal in Barcelona, so once we put down our deposits and put on our helmets, we were able to tear all through the city, following instructions given to us by a computerized GPS tour guide.  Well… some of us did, anyway.  Wenlu and I were the only ones who successfully went on a tour with “Flora” (we had to name her, of course), because we split up and the boys ended up in a different section of the city.  One of the cars didn’t realize that you had to push the ON button to get the lady to start talking/helping you out, so that may have been the cause of their difficulty ;)  Wenlu and I especially enjoyed when Flora decided to have a little fun on La Rambla, one of the busiest streets in the city.  She told us to turn our volume as high as it could go and then proceeded to wolf whistle and told us to wink at the cutest person we saw.  We weren’t really expecting that, and were both looking at a fat old man in a wheelchair haha :) 

Love it.

We headed to a really sweet Spanish food market for lunch, where we found delicious bread and killer fruit boxes, which even included coconut!  Mmm :)  Most of the crew took the opportunity to do some resting and relaxing in the afternoon, but I took the opportunity to talk to the best little brother in the world (love you, hon!) and then to do some souvenir shopping.  I pretended that I was French, which was both good practice and good entertainment for me.  Most of the vendors speak English reasonably well since there are so many English-speaking tourists, but their French is limited or nonexistent, so I didn’t get hassled as much as I would have otherwise.  The Christmas lights were gorgeous!  I came back, expecting a quiet night since I was tired and starting to feel a little under the weather, but was talked aka guilt tripped into coming on an all-included pub crawl, which took us to three bars (with a free shot at each one of the bars) and then into a club.  The “flaming asshole” shots at the second bar, which were literally lit on fire, was quite the crowd pleaser.  Four Moroccan guys and three Tunisian guys discovered that I spoke French and thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever, since none of the other girls there did, which made my night all the more entertaining.  I ended up pulling an all-nighter, getting back to the hostel around 4:30am and showering before catching a 5:30am bus to the airport!  Moral of the story?  If you’re looking for some extreme shenanigans, Barcelona, and specifically the hostel we stayed at (which was full of young travelers who wanted to have a good time) is definitely the place to be.  I said Hasta Luego, Spain and headed to Venice next!