Time to get my awards show on. Battery’s about to die on the laptop so let’s see if we can tear through this!
Best food: Italy.
Nicest people: Bosnia.
Best atmosphere: Barcelona.
Best hostel: The Groove in Budapest.
Best beer: Prague.
Most historic: Rome. (Barely beat out Athens which has the Acropolis. But I saw more of Rome more often so I had to give it the edge.)
Best nightlife: Barcelona.
Most chill location: Athens. (Budapest very, very close second, but drinking at the Acropolis is hard to top.)
Most surreal trip: Athens.
Best “I can’t believe I’m here” moment: First time I saw the Colosseum.
Best airport: Barcelona.
Worst airport: Athens.
Best site visit: Tivoli.
Best class: N/A. (I haven’t seen my grades yet.)
Best restaurant: Any restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto that serves fried artichokes.
Best single night: Last night in Budapest.
Best club: La Masione. (Awesome club, still can’t spell the damn thing.)
Best bar: Scholar’s Lounge. (Close call between the top three which also included: Abbey Theater and, of course, Drunken Ship.)
Best foreign McDonalds: Prague’s “Swiss Burger.” (Cheeseburger with a hashbrown patty on top. We love hashbrowns in America! Why has nobody thought of this yet?)
Best sunsets: Budapest. (You can’t top the “Budapest Glow.” Rome came close, though.)
Best cheap airline: Wizz Air. (Awesome name, gorgeous flight attendants.)
Worst airline ever: Croatian Airlines. (Two hour delay on the way out of town, put us in a rickety, tiny-ass propeller plane on the way back into town. Sat me next to the most annoying woman ever. No room for my backpack-except where my feet should’ve been. Very expensive baggage fees. They may as well just change their name to “David Krueger we hate you Airlines.”)
Most awkward experience: Cancelling an order I apparently made for a whole pizza…95 seconds after I realized what was happening when they started rolling dough for a brand new pie. I just wanted a slice. (This kind of stuff happened waaaaaaay too often, but was usually funny in the end. This was not one of those times.)
Best “I got shit on” moment: Abby in Athens. (This was a landslide victory.)
Best gelato: Blood orange at Old Bridge. (One of the many good pieces of advice on Roman living given by Professor/Father Zimmer. The honey flavor at Crispinos was 2nd, followed by “Viagra” at the place by the Pantheon, which happened to be my first gelato ever in Italy. I’m very proud of that fact. Still not sure what flavor it was. But it tasted good, and was blue, so I was satisfied.)
Best soccer game: AS Roma 2, Sienna 1. (Roma scored in the 85th minute to break the tie and earn the win. Honorable Mention: FC Barcelona 2, Malaga 1. Same thing happened. And the stadium was packed and crazy.)
Best class assignment: Final video.
Worst class assignment: Everything else. (Shout out to those awesome reading quizzes!)
Best final video: Shelby and Natalie.
Best surprise: Pineapple Mentos and not having to pay to ride the bus everytime. (I couldn’t decide between the two. Once I ate Pineapple Mentos while on a bus ride I didn’t pay for. I don’t remember what else happened that day, but it was definitely one of the best days of my life.)
Best supporting classmate (that I didn’t previously live with): Matt “Sackers” Sackman.
Best group outing: Shelby’s 21st birthday party.
Best drama: “So, I’m a lesbian.”
Best comedy: discussions in P. Moy’s class.
Best romance: Tie. (But I’m not saying who between.)
Best horror: Getting our Campaign Plans for fricken Traverse City, Michigan back.
Best action: Running around Rome during the Colosseum Pub Crawl. (And the confrontation with Tak soon after that almost won Best Drama. Not really. That was another landslide.)
Best decision I made: to come on this trip.
Best weekend trip: tie between Budapest, Prague, Athens, Barcelona and Bosnia. (I really did try to pick, but it was impossible. They were all amazing, and I’ll never forget any of them…or the stories I picked up from any of them.)
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Top 10 Moments of David's Eurotrip
24.3.10 - 00:56 - Fiumicino Airport, Rome, Italy.
So the trip is pretty much done, and I’m sitting at the airport reminiscing, which means: double blog post! I know you’re as excited as I am. So without further ado:
The Top 10 Moments of David's Eurotrip
10. Drinking at least once every day while abroad (until the program was over, there were a few sober days in Bosnia, especially after the hospital visit…more on that later).
9. Seeing “the David” in Florence (it was cool seeing a David that’s almost as famous as I’m going to be someday).
8. Singing karaoke to “World’s Greatest” by R. Kelly with two girls I had just met (that’s right, D-Kru made his European debut).
7. The entire Sarajevo trip and Bosnian Hospital excursion (nicest people in the world; not the nicest machinery…but two shots in the ass later everything was back to normal).
6. The beginning of International Pub Crawl 2010 in Prague (12 hours, 8 bars, 4 liters of beer, 1 hell of a day).
5. All 3 AS Roma Soccer games and the one FC Barcelona contest (fans are crazy).
4. Drinking on the rock under the Acropolis in Athens (one of the best “I can’t believe I’m here moments” of the trip).
3. The last night in Budapest.
2. Everybody going out for Shelby’s 21st birthday (in the beginning of the program before sh*t starting hitting the fan…and Abby’s head).
1. The first (and every subsequent) time I saw the Colosseum (the best “I can’t believe I’m here moment” of the trip…that place is fricken amazing).
Honorable Mentions: seeing Richard Branson running along the beach in Barcelona; seeing the Pope do his thing at the Vatican; visiting 3 countries in one day…twice (Italy, Vatican, Spain; Italy, Croatia, Bosnia); getting a 4.0 on a paper in P. Moy’s class; stepping in the Mediterranean Sea; going on a boat (to a Greek Island); watching the Olympics in Greece.
Needless to say, it was a hell of a trip.
So the trip is pretty much done, and I’m sitting at the airport reminiscing, which means: double blog post! I know you’re as excited as I am. So without further ado:
The Top 10 Moments of David's Eurotrip
10. Drinking at least once every day while abroad (until the program was over, there were a few sober days in Bosnia, especially after the hospital visit…more on that later).
9. Seeing “the David” in Florence (it was cool seeing a David that’s almost as famous as I’m going to be someday).
8. Singing karaoke to “World’s Greatest” by R. Kelly with two girls I had just met (that’s right, D-Kru made his European debut).
7. The entire Sarajevo trip and Bosnian Hospital excursion (nicest people in the world; not the nicest machinery…but two shots in the ass later everything was back to normal).
6. The beginning of International Pub Crawl 2010 in Prague (12 hours, 8 bars, 4 liters of beer, 1 hell of a day).
5. All 3 AS Roma Soccer games and the one FC Barcelona contest (fans are crazy).
4. Drinking on the rock under the Acropolis in Athens (one of the best “I can’t believe I’m here moments” of the trip).
3. The last night in Budapest.
2. Everybody going out for Shelby’s 21st birthday (in the beginning of the program before sh*t starting hitting the fan…and Abby’s head).
1. The first (and every subsequent) time I saw the Colosseum (the best “I can’t believe I’m here moment” of the trip…that place is fricken amazing).
Honorable Mentions: seeing Richard Branson running along the beach in Barcelona; seeing the Pope do his thing at the Vatican; visiting 3 countries in one day…twice (Italy, Vatican, Spain; Italy, Croatia, Bosnia); getting a 4.0 on a paper in P. Moy’s class; stepping in the Mediterranean Sea; going on a boat (to a Greek Island); watching the Olympics in Greece.
Needless to say, it was a hell of a trip.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Sara-YAY!-vo
[Quick note: This, along with the next three blogs, were all written in the airport in Rome while waiting to come back to America. That will explain the ending, which could be confusing otherwise.]
That was by far the weirdest title I’ve had while on this trip. All the punctuation and capital letters is kind of confusing. The point is Sarajevo was awesome, and a wonderful end to the Pimping all over the World tour.
I have three other blogs I want to tear through tonight before my laptop battery dies, so I’m going to tear through this. Some highlights of the trip:
First off is the usual, the food. It was delicious, and really cheap. Definitely helped counteract the previous weekends in Greece, Spain and Italy, where the food was also delicious, but fairly pricey. I also had my first coffee, ever. It was pretty strong, but not too bad. Some might think it’s crazy that I was in Italy for two and a half months and had no coffee; I feel like it’s perfectly normal.
Two awesome experiences at bars: the first one was going to a bar called “Cheers,” just because it was a bar called “Cheers.” The other occurred at Guiness Pub, where we ran into Kevin McClain, an electrician from South Carolina. More importantly, he was a drunk electrician from S.C. with advice for two youngsters on life. He stressed the importance of knowing a trade, just because “no one can take it away from you.” He was pretty heavily gone, but he made a good point. And, more importantly, he bought a round of beers, so it was very hard to dislike him.
The Cathedral. I'm not being all cocky, that's really what it's called!
Another highlight was all of the sights. Visiting Old Town, and looking at the epic Cathedral, which was a five minute walk from several beautiful Mosques. We climbed up a (pretty steep) hill to an old military base that overlooked the whole city, and got a couple pretty epic pictures there. We walked down to the bridge where World War I started and saw the Eternal Flame. Then we drove out to a tunnel that was used to sneak in supplies during the war in the mid-1990s, but couldn’t go in because it closed 10 minutes earlier, which kind of sucked. But then we went to the Twist Tower and got to go 36 stories up in the air (for free, because we flashed our million dollar smiles at the girls at the desk, so they didn’t charge us the one mark [60ish cents] it cost to go up) and be utterly terrified. You know how the Space Needle has a barrier to keep people from jumping/sneaking/drunkenly falling off? Yeah, the Twist Tower doesn’t have that. It’s a little unsettling. Then we went to the café and I got a lemonade (no idea why) and then the local beer all the while looking at the city from above.
Where World War I started. Doesn't seem like a very war-y spot does it?
At the top of Twist Tower, which was pretty high up.
One sight we didn’t see: Sloga, one of the many epic clubs in Sarajevo. This isn’t because we didn’t try. We got directions from about 124 people, and tried three times to find the place which apparently, is “very easy to find” and “right there!” Well we didn’t see it, but we went to a few other places (including “Hacienda” where I was finally able to score some Spanish food for the first time since Florence!) and had a good time. We also met a couple pretty awesome people in our hostel. There was Josh, the Walmart gun-salesman from St. Louis, three Canadian girls who were on their own epic Eurotrip and a class full of drunk Bosnians that were unbelievably fun to hang around and even knew a little English! Which was wonderful for me.
Looking out over Bosnia from that pretty steep hill.
So, as is painfully obvious, this trip was a blast, and a wonderful end to the trip. We went back to Semir’s town in Bosnia, Bosanski Petrovac for a few more days afterwards to wrap the trip off before we flew back to Rome, where I now sit waiting to go back home. Bosnia is beautiful, and the people are wonderful, and some of the nicest that I’ve met. I had an experience at a Bosnian hospital that I will cherish forever. I was having a hard time adjusting to the elevation (about 600 meters above where I usually hang out) and found myself having a hard time breathing one night. So we walked to the hospital, was ambulanced to a specialist in a town about 40 minutes away. Long story short: two shots in the behind later and I was fantastic and ready to roll. And I tore through Bosnia just fine after that.
One last picture of the two of us.
Not knowing the language was hard, but it was great having Semir there to translate for me, especially at the hospital. I’m not sure how to mime “can’t breathe.” It also helped at restaurants, because it’s always fun to know what you’re going to get after you order it, a luxury I didn’t have in a couple countries I went to.
Much like in Bosanski Petrovac, the sun is setting on our trip (see what I did there?).
This was a perfect, epic end to the trip, and believe it or not, there’s no other place I would’ve rather spent my last 11 days in Europe. Now, it’s time to be Back in the USSA (United Spectacular States of America, which I think the country should consider changing it’s name to…it has a nice ring to it, I’m just saying). America, here I come!
That was by far the weirdest title I’ve had while on this trip. All the punctuation and capital letters is kind of confusing. The point is Sarajevo was awesome, and a wonderful end to the Pimping all over the World tour.
I have three other blogs I want to tear through tonight before my laptop battery dies, so I’m going to tear through this. Some highlights of the trip:
First off is the usual, the food. It was delicious, and really cheap. Definitely helped counteract the previous weekends in Greece, Spain and Italy, where the food was also delicious, but fairly pricey. I also had my first coffee, ever. It was pretty strong, but not too bad. Some might think it’s crazy that I was in Italy for two and a half months and had no coffee; I feel like it’s perfectly normal.
Two awesome experiences at bars: the first one was going to a bar called “Cheers,” just because it was a bar called “Cheers.” The other occurred at Guiness Pub, where we ran into Kevin McClain, an electrician from South Carolina. More importantly, he was a drunk electrician from S.C. with advice for two youngsters on life. He stressed the importance of knowing a trade, just because “no one can take it away from you.” He was pretty heavily gone, but he made a good point. And, more importantly, he bought a round of beers, so it was very hard to dislike him.
The Cathedral. I'm not being all cocky, that's really what it's called!
Another highlight was all of the sights. Visiting Old Town, and looking at the epic Cathedral, which was a five minute walk from several beautiful Mosques. We climbed up a (pretty steep) hill to an old military base that overlooked the whole city, and got a couple pretty epic pictures there. We walked down to the bridge where World War I started and saw the Eternal Flame. Then we drove out to a tunnel that was used to sneak in supplies during the war in the mid-1990s, but couldn’t go in because it closed 10 minutes earlier, which kind of sucked. But then we went to the Twist Tower and got to go 36 stories up in the air (for free, because we flashed our million dollar smiles at the girls at the desk, so they didn’t charge us the one mark [60ish cents] it cost to go up) and be utterly terrified. You know how the Space Needle has a barrier to keep people from jumping/sneaking/drunkenly falling off? Yeah, the Twist Tower doesn’t have that. It’s a little unsettling. Then we went to the café and I got a lemonade (no idea why) and then the local beer all the while looking at the city from above.
Where World War I started. Doesn't seem like a very war-y spot does it?
At the top of Twist Tower, which was pretty high up.
One sight we didn’t see: Sloga, one of the many epic clubs in Sarajevo. This isn’t because we didn’t try. We got directions from about 124 people, and tried three times to find the place which apparently, is “very easy to find” and “right there!” Well we didn’t see it, but we went to a few other places (including “Hacienda” where I was finally able to score some Spanish food for the first time since Florence!) and had a good time. We also met a couple pretty awesome people in our hostel. There was Josh, the Walmart gun-salesman from St. Louis, three Canadian girls who were on their own epic Eurotrip and a class full of drunk Bosnians that were unbelievably fun to hang around and even knew a little English! Which was wonderful for me.
Looking out over Bosnia from that pretty steep hill.
So, as is painfully obvious, this trip was a blast, and a wonderful end to the trip. We went back to Semir’s town in Bosnia, Bosanski Petrovac for a few more days afterwards to wrap the trip off before we flew back to Rome, where I now sit waiting to go back home. Bosnia is beautiful, and the people are wonderful, and some of the nicest that I’ve met. I had an experience at a Bosnian hospital that I will cherish forever. I was having a hard time adjusting to the elevation (about 600 meters above where I usually hang out) and found myself having a hard time breathing one night. So we walked to the hospital, was ambulanced to a specialist in a town about 40 minutes away. Long story short: two shots in the behind later and I was fantastic and ready to roll. And I tore through Bosnia just fine after that.
One last picture of the two of us.
Not knowing the language was hard, but it was great having Semir there to translate for me, especially at the hospital. I’m not sure how to mime “can’t breathe.” It also helped at restaurants, because it’s always fun to know what you’re going to get after you order it, a luxury I didn’t have in a couple countries I went to.
Much like in Bosanski Petrovac, the sun is setting on our trip (see what I did there?).
This was a perfect, epic end to the trip, and believe it or not, there’s no other place I would’ve rather spent my last 11 days in Europe. Now, it’s time to be Back in the USSA (United Spectacular States of America, which I think the country should consider changing it’s name to…it has a nice ring to it, I’m just saying). America, here I come!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Barcelona Baby!
Well, the month of European exploration has come to an end, and I think we saved the best for last. I’m not really sure where to even start. Barcelona is obviously where the party’s at, and I was happy to attend it for a couple days.
After our flight was delayed Thursday afternoon for about two hours due to unknown reasons, we finally arrived in Spain. First order of business: check into the hostel. Next: tapas! My first Spanish meal consisted of two tapas (appetizers), potatoes with a delicious “spicy” sauce, artichokes in vinegar, and then the main dish: chicken paella (a dish made with chicken, vegetables, rice and heaven). That night we went out to a club called “Catwalk” with our hostel, Kabul, which, by the way, had a bar inside the hostel. We didn’t leave to go to the club until 1:45 in the a.m., which is perfectly normal for Barcelona. Needless to say, it was a good night.
The next morning we had to check out of Kabul, and head over to our residence for the next couple nights, Barcelona Mar. It didn’t have quite the same atmosphere as our first hostel, but honestly we weren’t sitting around there long enough for it to really matter. Then we walked up and down the Rambla, a main street full of markets, stores, living statues, and restaurants. Got some more tapas for lunch, then headed to a HUGE farmer’s market (it was under a tent, and went on for a couple blocks, then looped back around). We then headed to a park, grabbed some dinner, and went out to watch the Magic Fountain. With jets of water synched with music (all classical, with a cameo from “Apologize” by OneRepublic) it put the Seattle Center Fountain to shame.
Magic Fountain before the show began.
Day 2 (I don’t really count Thursday as a full day because of the freakin plane delay) was full of surprises. We started at the Sagrada Familia church, which construction began on in 1882. It’s slate to be done in 2026. That is one heck of a project! I thought they were slow constructing stuff in Seattle. It’s gone through numerous design changes, and really is pretty spectacular. It’s going to open for worship in September, so it’s on its way. Then we met up with Jasmine’s older sister and her husband who was in Barcelona too. We went out to lunch for some seafood paella (fish, mussels, shrimp, rice, vegetables, more heaven) before strolling down the beach. That’s when the day got started. [Quick congrats to Ian and Rose, who we learned at lunch were pregnant. Rose, not Ian. That’d be pretty impressive. But it’s kind of a couple thing. Anyway, congrats!]
Under Construction...but still beautiful.
My dip in the Mediterranean had to wait one more day, but as we were walking down the beach guess what (or who) we saw running toward us? Richard Branson, the bajillionaire owner of Virgin Mobile. I know it’s a pretty weak “celebrity” sighting, but it was still kind of cool. On his way back I was able to snag a pic with him and Semir.
Semir and his new buddy.
After a Magners on the beach (nothing like sitting around, secretly drinking a hard cider on a bench on the beach-suck it open container law!) we headed to Catalunya square to: a.) go to the bathroom, and b.) waste some time shopping and walking around. The first experience was not good (it cost 20 Euro cents to go to the bathroom; most expensive number one of my life; I was not pleased), the second was better (got a cool shirt for 3.95 Euros, 4.15 if you factor in the pee tax), and then it was off to Camp Nou for a FC Barcelona soccer game. Yeah, that’s right! Let the party begin!
It was a blast and a much different experience from Roma soccer games (there will be a much more in-depth blog on this before I’m done) some good, some bad, some just different. The good: the game (was very exciting), the passion of the fans, the popcorn, the seats, the cute girls in the section next to us. The bad: EVERYBODY smokes (you could see all the smoke by the stadium lights), the gentlemen down the row from us who loved to smoke and blow it our way, and the fact that the only beer I could order at a FC Barcelona game was a non-alcoholic one. Oh well, it was pretty easy to get over that last one, and at least when I went to the bathroom at halftime it was free.
Barca baby!
The game was different than a Roma one. It was more calm, despite the fact there were 80,000 people there. It was much more family friendly than Rome. There was yelling sure, but people actually sat down during the game and no one was shoved around when the team scored. They just jumped for joy and high fived. I was also impressed with the soccer IQ of the fans. They cheered and applauded for good passes, controlling possessions and some pretty impressive footwork. [Stay tuned, because later in the blog there’s one more important, exciting soccer note.]
After the game the night was just beginning. We grabbed some quick food with Ian and Rose who were at the game across the stadium from us, then ran to our hostel to change, then ran to Kabul to meet back up with the girls and go to Razzmatazz, one of the largest nightclubs in Europe. It has five rooms in a warehouse style building. It was insane! I can’t even try to describe it. It won’t do it justice. But we got there around 2, didn’t get home till about 5:30, and had 3 1/2 wild, crazy, awesome, amazing hours in between.
The next morning the girls headed home right after our 11 a.m. checkout, which came way too early in the morning. Semir and I had a plane at 8, so we still had the day to explore. And explore we did. We loaded up on energy at the Hard Rock Café at noon and took off for the beach. On the way we stopped by a monument in honor of Christopher Columbus, a person who we, as Americans, really owe a lot to. Then we took a stroll through the Olympic Village from 1992 and headed back down to the beach, where I finally got to step into the Mediterranean Sea! After a few pictures we subwayed it back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff, and took one last walk down the Rambla to Catalunya square, for the return trip home.
I know what you're thinking, the resemblance is uncanny!
Olympic Villiage: Go USA!
This is as deep as I could go...I'm not a strong swimmer.
It was an amazing weekend, and I can’t even begin to try to rank the trips in order of awesomeness because they were all so unbelievable (although I feel a reflective blog on all of them coming out pretty soon). We definitely went out with a bang. I loved absolutely everything about Barcelona (minus the pee tax, although it’s so much fun to type “pee tax” and I suppose you have to combat the poor economy somehow…), especially that I got to utilize my high school Spanish, and actually have a small idea of what was going on for the first time in a couple months. It will definitely warrant a return visit when I come back to Europe in the future.
My last weekend of the program will be spent in Italy. It seemed fitting. Tomorrow is a day trip to Pompeii, followed by the AS Roma v. AC Milan soccer game Saturday. You know what that means! Crazy soccer fans and David Beckham (OMG DAVID BECKHAM!). I can’t wait. Sunday I’m going to get some souvenirs at the flea market, then head to the Vatican to see the Pope. See, Roma knows how to party too.
Kicking it on the beach.
Some impressive sand art.
The national museum, looking pretty cool at night. And this was before the Magic Fountain (in front of it) started going off.
My own sand art.
Adios palm trees!
After our flight was delayed Thursday afternoon for about two hours due to unknown reasons, we finally arrived in Spain. First order of business: check into the hostel. Next: tapas! My first Spanish meal consisted of two tapas (appetizers), potatoes with a delicious “spicy” sauce, artichokes in vinegar, and then the main dish: chicken paella (a dish made with chicken, vegetables, rice and heaven). That night we went out to a club called “Catwalk” with our hostel, Kabul, which, by the way, had a bar inside the hostel. We didn’t leave to go to the club until 1:45 in the a.m., which is perfectly normal for Barcelona. Needless to say, it was a good night.
The next morning we had to check out of Kabul, and head over to our residence for the next couple nights, Barcelona Mar. It didn’t have quite the same atmosphere as our first hostel, but honestly we weren’t sitting around there long enough for it to really matter. Then we walked up and down the Rambla, a main street full of markets, stores, living statues, and restaurants. Got some more tapas for lunch, then headed to a HUGE farmer’s market (it was under a tent, and went on for a couple blocks, then looped back around). We then headed to a park, grabbed some dinner, and went out to watch the Magic Fountain. With jets of water synched with music (all classical, with a cameo from “Apologize” by OneRepublic) it put the Seattle Center Fountain to shame.
Magic Fountain before the show began.
Day 2 (I don’t really count Thursday as a full day because of the freakin plane delay) was full of surprises. We started at the Sagrada Familia church, which construction began on in 1882. It’s slate to be done in 2026. That is one heck of a project! I thought they were slow constructing stuff in Seattle. It’s gone through numerous design changes, and really is pretty spectacular. It’s going to open for worship in September, so it’s on its way. Then we met up with Jasmine’s older sister and her husband who was in Barcelona too. We went out to lunch for some seafood paella (fish, mussels, shrimp, rice, vegetables, more heaven) before strolling down the beach. That’s when the day got started. [Quick congrats to Ian and Rose, who we learned at lunch were pregnant. Rose, not Ian. That’d be pretty impressive. But it’s kind of a couple thing. Anyway, congrats!]
Under Construction...but still beautiful.
My dip in the Mediterranean had to wait one more day, but as we were walking down the beach guess what (or who) we saw running toward us? Richard Branson, the bajillionaire owner of Virgin Mobile. I know it’s a pretty weak “celebrity” sighting, but it was still kind of cool. On his way back I was able to snag a pic with him and Semir.
Semir and his new buddy.
After a Magners on the beach (nothing like sitting around, secretly drinking a hard cider on a bench on the beach-suck it open container law!) we headed to Catalunya square to: a.) go to the bathroom, and b.) waste some time shopping and walking around. The first experience was not good (it cost 20 Euro cents to go to the bathroom; most expensive number one of my life; I was not pleased), the second was better (got a cool shirt for 3.95 Euros, 4.15 if you factor in the pee tax), and then it was off to Camp Nou for a FC Barcelona soccer game. Yeah, that’s right! Let the party begin!
It was a blast and a much different experience from Roma soccer games (there will be a much more in-depth blog on this before I’m done) some good, some bad, some just different. The good: the game (was very exciting), the passion of the fans, the popcorn, the seats, the cute girls in the section next to us. The bad: EVERYBODY smokes (you could see all the smoke by the stadium lights), the gentlemen down the row from us who loved to smoke and blow it our way, and the fact that the only beer I could order at a FC Barcelona game was a non-alcoholic one. Oh well, it was pretty easy to get over that last one, and at least when I went to the bathroom at halftime it was free.
Barca baby!
The game was different than a Roma one. It was more calm, despite the fact there were 80,000 people there. It was much more family friendly than Rome. There was yelling sure, but people actually sat down during the game and no one was shoved around when the team scored. They just jumped for joy and high fived. I was also impressed with the soccer IQ of the fans. They cheered and applauded for good passes, controlling possessions and some pretty impressive footwork. [Stay tuned, because later in the blog there’s one more important, exciting soccer note.]
After the game the night was just beginning. We grabbed some quick food with Ian and Rose who were at the game across the stadium from us, then ran to our hostel to change, then ran to Kabul to meet back up with the girls and go to Razzmatazz, one of the largest nightclubs in Europe. It has five rooms in a warehouse style building. It was insane! I can’t even try to describe it. It won’t do it justice. But we got there around 2, didn’t get home till about 5:30, and had 3 1/2 wild, crazy, awesome, amazing hours in between.
The next morning the girls headed home right after our 11 a.m. checkout, which came way too early in the morning. Semir and I had a plane at 8, so we still had the day to explore. And explore we did. We loaded up on energy at the Hard Rock Café at noon and took off for the beach. On the way we stopped by a monument in honor of Christopher Columbus, a person who we, as Americans, really owe a lot to. Then we took a stroll through the Olympic Village from 1992 and headed back down to the beach, where I finally got to step into the Mediterranean Sea! After a few pictures we subwayed it back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff, and took one last walk down the Rambla to Catalunya square, for the return trip home.
I know what you're thinking, the resemblance is uncanny!
Olympic Villiage: Go USA!
This is as deep as I could go...I'm not a strong swimmer.
It was an amazing weekend, and I can’t even begin to try to rank the trips in order of awesomeness because they were all so unbelievable (although I feel a reflective blog on all of them coming out pretty soon). We definitely went out with a bang. I loved absolutely everything about Barcelona (minus the pee tax, although it’s so much fun to type “pee tax” and I suppose you have to combat the poor economy somehow…), especially that I got to utilize my high school Spanish, and actually have a small idea of what was going on for the first time in a couple months. It will definitely warrant a return visit when I come back to Europe in the future.
My last weekend of the program will be spent in Italy. It seemed fitting. Tomorrow is a day trip to Pompeii, followed by the AS Roma v. AC Milan soccer game Saturday. You know what that means! Crazy soccer fans and David Beckham (OMG DAVID BECKHAM!). I can’t wait. Sunday I’m going to get some souvenirs at the flea market, then head to the Vatican to see the Pope. See, Roma knows how to party too.
Kicking it on the beach.
Some impressive sand art.
The national museum, looking pretty cool at night. And this was before the Magic Fountain (in front of it) started going off.
My own sand art.
Adios palm trees!
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