I know... it's been a while. But I'm back, and you can stop worrying. It's been a busy three weeks, full of... stuff. I guess I'll throw it back to a couple Saturdays ago, the sixth of February. My Spanish class and I won a scavenger hunt around the city of Barcelona in the first few days of class (Dothage finished second... as usual), so we won a free field trip to a place called Montserrat. Montserrat translates to "Jagged Mountain", which is pretty much what it was. It was about a 45 minute drive from the city, and we hiked to the top of the mountain and visited a Monastery there. The view from the top of the mountain was pretty epic, and it made for an outstanding Facebook profile picture, as you can see.
The next night was the Super Bowl. We went to an Irish Bar called Ryan's Pub to watch the game. The downstairs of the place was like a dungeon packed with Americans, Brits, and Spaniards all there in hopes to see the Colts drop it to the Saints... suffice it to say that nobody was disappointed. Probably one of my favorite moments here was the singing of the National Anthem at the start of the game. All the drunk Spaniards and Brits shut up for a couple minutes and let us soak it in. And boy, did we. I belted that tune as loud as my lungs would let me. I took a video of it on my camera, but it isn't uploading properly so that will have to come later. It was hard to see the TV through all the cigarette smoke down there, but it ended up being a great place to watch the game and argue with Brits over why American football is better than soccer. On the bus ride home, we met some people from Finland who were decked out in black and gold singing "When the Saints Go Marching In." Pretty hilarious. On the whole, a pretty solid weekend.
Not much went on that week, with the exception of one pretty crazy night out at a club. The next Saturday (the 13th) started festivities for Carnaval. There was a parade in the Poble Sec area of Barcelona, and despite the pouring rain and, at times, hail, the people of Barcelona put on a very good show. We ended up hanging out at our buddy Taylor's apartment for the night and had a great time there. But this was a mere teaser for what was to come. Tuesday night was the last night of Carnaval. We celebrated this in a small town called Sitges, 30 minutes south of Barcelona by train. Sitges also happens to be the most popular gay tourist destination in all of Barcelona... ZK felt right at home in his cop outfit. The place was nuts. LOTS of drag queens, but on the whole, just a bunch of people looking to have a good time. Lots of singing, dancing, and drinking in the street. I dressed as an Indian, and Doth got a mask and wore it backwards. Our host brother called him "El hombre de las dos caras..." The man of two faces. The picture at the top is Steb's costume, with me in the mirror in the background. It was a pretty ridiculous night, capped off by what was essentially a rave on the beach.
This last weekend, a bunch of girls we know from IU came to visit, and it was a friend of our's birthday. This made for a pretty rowdy Thursday and Friday, which led to a Saturday indoors. Sunday was actually a day of work for a change, with two essays due Monday, a quiz Tuesday, and a midterm Wednesday. It's all going to be worth it, though, when we go to Interlaken, Switzerland on Thursday. It will be our first trip outside Spain so far, and I couldn't be more excited to get started travelling. Next weekend we head to London to visit the most interesting man in the world, then Munich the weekend after that, Valencia after that, and then Spring Break, which we have yet to plan... we should probably get on that.
One last note: the late night food options back in America are one thing that I miss dearly. After a long night of clubs, we have pretty much one option... Maxipa. I know, the name doesn't necessarily conjure up images of good food, but trust me... it's good. It's a 24 hour bakery, and I do love the food. But any time I'm walking (staggering) home with a quiche or a croissant in my hands, I constantly think of how badly I wish it were a cheesy gordita crunch. Don't take it for granted, fellas.
I'm also posting a video of the parade from Carnaval For some reason it won't let me post the video from the beach afterward, but I'll get it up here at some point. I expect a couple comments on here to keep me posted on what's going down back home. Vito... tell me something about yourself. And again, sorry for the three weeks in between posts... I'll do better next time.
Take care homies,
Lodge OUT.
