Day Eighteen - Saturday

WALKING THROUGH GENIUS

There are no words. Truly, there are no words.

Before you die, you must see this building. Even if you are in no way religious, you must see this building.

I will post a video of my tour of it, but seriously, I was in tears when I walked inside it. It is magnificent, truly and completely a marvelous work of genius by a man whose imagination and attention to detail are completely without rival.

Just, wow.

I JUST DON'T QUITE UNDERSTAND

After we finished up at La Sagrada Familia, we took the bus to another part of the city to check out the Museu Picasso, a great collection of Picasso's works. We studied his obras and how he began from a very early age as a master of advanced painting techniques, and then transformed into the Picasso we all know and identify today (like Guernica or his studies of Las meninas). Overall, it was a pretty nice visit – I am just not a fan of Picasso overall, so I wasn't jumping for joy while I was there. I mean, he's fascinating, sure, but I'm not a fan of his art.

YOU DO REALIZE THAT THEY OUTLAWED BULL-FIGHTING IN CATALUNYA, RIGHT?

After we had gotten our education done for the day, Jesus and Ramon dropped us off at the end of Las Ramblas and said that we could spend our free time starting there. They would be back with the bus promptly at 6, so if we wanted to come home at that time we were free to do so. If we didn't want to leave then, we could take the metro home (it was only something like 1.40 euros for a ticket) whenever we wanted to leave. Jess, Joanna and I quickly formed a team and started exploring Las Ramblas' delights.

One thing that people mentioned to me on several occasions was to hold tight to my bags in the major cities like Madrid and Barcelona, especially while watching a street performance; the cities are rife with thieves and pickpockets, and if you weren't careful you were liable to wind up broke and extremely unhappy. My mom skills came out when I kept reminding people to hold onto their purses... yeah, it was pretty funny.

We walked in and out of various shops, doing some shopping here and there in some of the less expensive tourist-based stores. One of them was run by a family of Indian brothers – they were singing along to (by this, I mean rocking out) Jason Derulo's “In My Head” when we walked into the shop, and quickly stopped when they noticed us. It was hysterical! They then proceeded to try to sell us pretty much the entire store... including these fans with pictures of bulls and “BARCELONA” written underneath them. This made me really mad, because Catalunya (which desperately wants to be considered its own country, apart from Spain) outlawed bull-fighting and anything to do with bulls in their autonomous community, in order to more effectively distance themselves from their bloodthirsty, occasionally-barbaric Spanish neighbors. This fan implied a clear lack of either cultural awareness or plain old stupidity. When I mentioned that bull-fighting wasn't part of the Catalan culture to one of the brothers, he looked surprised. “Aren't they Spanish?”

Where did they think that they set up shop?! This was only the capital of all that was Catalan! Wow... good times.

SHUT UP, I'M MAKING YOU GORGEOUS

Jess and I went home to get some rest before going out that night – we both felt grimy from the day and wanted to relax and get pretty for when we went out on the town later. After naps and some agonizing over clothing, we hung out in my room while I made myself up for the night, chatting about Harry Potter and hot guys (trust me, they're totally related) before we had to run to catch our metro downtown. Jess was just relaxing against the door to the bathroom as I put on my eyeshadow and mascara... and then I turned to her and said, “okay, your turn!” and without a response proceeded to give her quiet, understated face a kick in the rear with (minimalist) eggplant eyeshadow and slightly brighter blush. I really didn't do much, just added small touches here and there to her already great skin and eyes. The result was amazing!! She looked incredible (not that it's hard – she's just not one of those people that puts a lot of effort into her face or stuff like that) and even when she put on her glasses, I was blown away by it. The funniest part was that she didn't fight me at all – I turned and ordered her to close her eyes and let me put on some eyeshadow, and she just went with it. Gotta love friends like that!

SOMOS LOS CAMPEONES, MIS AMIGOS

Bonus points if you know what that says, what song it's from, and who sang that song!

Jess and I took the metro from our hotel (which was conveniently right behind it and quite easy to access and to navigate!) back to Las Ramblas, where we then had to deliberate what to eat. The girls were doing something else, so we would meet them at the club after dinner and dessert. We knew that the one thing that we didn't want to eat was McDonald's... that was just not acceptable while in Barcelona.

We walked along Las Ramblas, seeing the various nighttime street performers and the huge amount of club callers (the people that stand out on the street and talk up a club to you and your friends). One of them stopped us and described a bar-hopping fiesta being held that night, which Jess seemed interested in if just to see more of Barcelona. While we deliberated, I asked out loud, “I wonder what's going on in the futbol game right now?” As soon as I said that, I suddenly heard a low rumble from far down the street.

And then it got louder. And closer. And even louder. And even closer.

Suddenly, hundreds of people poured out of the local bars and shops screaming their heads off, singing canciones and chanting “VIVA LA BARCA! VIVA LA BARCA!”, “BAR-CE-LO-NA! BAR-CE-LO-NA!”... Men decked out in jerseys and flags for Futbol Club Barcelona or just Catalunya flooded the streets screaming for their campeones and their ganadores, waving their hands and beers in the air and shrieking their excitement to anyone that would listen. Women laughed and cried, and then cheered just as loud as the men. Jess and I turned to look at each other and she said to me, “I guess they won, huh?” and we watched as the sea of people grew and grew and grew, building in their frenzy and delirium at becoming the league champions – a few men climbed up onto a light post and started singing one of the songs for the FCB, their flags dangling from the lamps and a painted silver cardboard trophy waving around in the hands of one of the more low-placed guys. Somewhere down the road I heard explosions and saw that fireworks were being shot off into the night sky, which was only adding to the excitement of the moment.

The Catalan people have been described as being very taciturn, very quiet people that only ever make a fuss as a result of being oppressed for so many years. However, that night there was none of this – every single one of them was electric with passion, drunk on the victory of their jugadores that gave such pride to their city and to their region. Standing in that sea of people and having someone every few seconds either start cheering or singing was the best feeling – it was one of those feelings where you realize that you can't be an observer to your life, you have to live it, to experience it. I chose to do this by grabbing the attention of everyone on the street around me by howling at the top of my lungs and shrieking, “VIVA LA BARCA! MESSI ES REY!” Jess looked at me like I was insane, but the crowd went nuts – they echoed my cheer and added their own, continuing to sing and dance around. It was incredible! What a rush!

Andrea Gibson said it best: “I don't want to be a witness to this life / I want to be charged and convicted” and that is exactly what I did. I put the shackles on my own wrists and said, “I confess – I did it. I lived my life. I am guilty.” That, to me, is the best way to live.

WITH HIPS LIKE THESE, I DON'T NEED MONEY

The little pizzeria that Jess and I eventually dove into to escape the building madness out on the streets was a high-end place at a very reasonable price. We split a pie and chatted about life and love (mostly about kissing – it makes sense in context but would take way too long to explain here), and eventually also split a lemon ice cream to cleanse our palettes.

After dinner, we walked (and walked and walked and walked) to meet everyone else at Opium Mar, a super hot club right on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea that was known for its dancing and music. The cover charge for the club was 20 euro, but one of the girls in our group had gotten her name onto the list and had included enough “free passes” for everyone to go. The only issue was, this was done the night before, so I wasn't entirely sure if we would be allowed in for free. Another thing about this bar was that the bouncers were able to judge if you were “hot” enough to get in, and could deny you entrance if they declared you to not be attractive enough to meet their standards. Needless to say, Jess and I were feeling pretty nervous.

I walked up to the (very tall, very scary) bouncer, flashed him my biggest hi, I'm super friendly and you will love me in about thirty seconds smile and said, “hello, how are you this evening? I'm great, I'm hoping you can help me – I have a friend named Ashley _____ whose name should be on your list along with passes for friends. We're pretty sure that she got here already and are trying to join her. Do you see her on your list?”

The bouncer looks over his list for a few seconds, shakes his head, and says, “no, I'm sorry, she must have been with yesterday's group. Perhaps there was a mix-up.” Darn it.

I shrugged sadly, checking out Jess' expression. “She must be somewhere else, or she's here and didn't get passes for us. Ah well, thank you anyway, sir.” As we turned to leave, the bouncer stopped us. “Ladies, hang on a moment. Is it just the two of you going in to meet your friend?”

Hmm?! I thought. “Um, yes, she had some friends with her already, so there are technically quite a few of us, but we got lost and are incredibly late as a result. Why do you ask, sir?”

Like something out of a movie, he opened the velvet rope and said, “come right in and enjoy yourselves, then. I hope that you can find your friend in the crowd, but if you don't, enjoy your night anyway.” He gestured with his (very big, very scary) hand towards the entrance, and Jess and I thanked him and high-tailed it inside before he could change his mind! On our way down the stairs leading into the club, we bumped fists and giggled happily at not having to pay a cent to get into a club – talk about an ego boost!

First of all, the club was dark, except for the strobe dance lights. And the place was packed wall-to-wall with people, especially the dance floor. Jess and I did a few rounds and eventually found our friends, who were all dancing with each other and the various guys that would come pick one off to dance solo with for a while. After a few minutes of this, a guy came up to me – he was the definition of massive. Honestly, I kept looking above me and he just kept going, he was so freaking tall! He asked me to dance, I accepted, and we settled into the awkward club-dance sway that people tend to do. This went on for most of the night – someone would come up and ask, I would say yes, we would dance, maybe chat a little bit, and that would be the end of that. After a few hours of amazing music and one shot of this hazelnut vodka (Jess' suggestion – it was actually pretty good! I'll figure out the type and let you all know later), we were all pretty much exhausted and wanted to head home.

We left the club and walked about two blocks away to the nearest metro station, where we walked down into the bowels of the city to get from the seaside to further within the city. Along the way, we encountered more than a few drunk people, most of them belligerent: on one train, in which Jess, Joanna and I got separated from the group and had to take the next train, there were a group of guys getting absolutely harassed by another pair of guys, who were screaming at one of them while forcing the metro doors to stay open. Before the train operator forced the doors to close, the screaming man's friend spat into the man on the train's face and shrieked something at him. The entire conversation was in Catalan, so I could only get a few words here and there (I don't know enough French and Italian to make up the rest of it), but the first guy clearly wanted the train guy to get off to fight... either way, I was pushing Jess and Joanna behind me (because you know I'm just so big and bad like that) to make sure that they didn't get hurt. Hello, mothering instincts, nice to see you again!

By the time we got off the metro, walked upstairs to our rooms, changed and crawled into our beds, it was about 5:30AM. We had to be awake at 7:30 and on the bus by 8:30. Greeeeeeat.