Some anecdotes, two bars, outdoor climbing
Yikes, dear readers, my year abroad is steadily drawing to a close. Although I will be travelling all the way until mid June and thus this site will stay alive – I will only be in Barcelona for three more weeks. It’s interesting how a time frame can change depending on what you want to use it for. Three weeks is a plenty long time for a vacation – hell, that’s how long my first Eurotrip was, and I seemingly months worth of memories from that. Yet when you live somewhere, it really is not all that long, as everyone is so caught up in their careers and studies and lives that you really only have one or two chances per day to rendezvous with someone. It’s certainly changed my attitude with dem ladies – “c’mon honey, I only have so many days left in this city; lets move beyond flirty looks already”. I’ve noticed a subconscious shift in how forward I am recently – because there’s nothing left to lose if you lay it on too thick, since I’m leaving soon. Why not live your whole life like that, though? What do you really have to lose with being forward? Just your pride, man, just your pride.
Let’s move past typical Tumblresque ponderings and cover a cool new bar I found last week – the Mau Mau Underground. Remember the opening scene of A Clockwork Orange, with all the droogs in the all white milk bar surrounding by weird decorations? This place is incredibly evocative of that. It’s a spacious room with clear sight lines, nonsensical video clips playing on the walls, all white furniture, and early 1900s music playing in the background. Drinks are a bit expensive, but you’re paying for the ambience more than anything. I don’t do drugs, but to me everything about here seems like the perfect place to do cocaine, for some reason. Maybe its all the white.
On Thursday I went and saw Netsky perform live at Razzmatazz. He put on a great show, yet also proved once again that any show with drum n bass in it seems to attract large amounts of people with dreads who smell strongly of marijuana. I guess my usual EDM audience mates are probably just as drugged up as these guys, but at least ecstacy doesn’t smell – it makes the whole scene seem more than a little dingy. Eugh.
I went with a new American friend I met here who I find absolutely hilarious and invigorating. He’s one of those guys bursting with charisma that you can’t help but like, who makes exciting things happen simply through his presence. After he relayed to us the incredible number of nights per week he spends out at loud clubs, we asked “Are you worried about your ears?” to which he replied “Naw, I’m worried more about my lungs, because of the cigarettes. Then about my heart, because of the drugs. Then probably my ears are next, so yeah, they’re pretty far down the list.” What can I say, the man lives his life on the edge.
Continuing with anecdotes about interesting people, I also heard a scary story from a friend about a recent attack on her person here in Spain. She was walking home when some guy tackled her from behind, held a knife to her throat, dragged here into the woods, and proceeded to take all of her stuff, take off her pants, cut her underwear, and then….put down the knife on her back while he undid his trousers. Wow, you wanna talk about #dumbcriminals. Luckily he picked the wrong woman to accost, as my badass friend took this opportunity to grab the knife (duh) and turn it on him, forcing him to flee into the woods. Apparently he got caught later and she got all her stuff back, so thank goodness for that. Rock on, sistah. Unfortunately, study abroad ain’t all fun and games.
Our last anecdotal guest this week surprised me on Saturday with the information that he is 31! Even though he is in our same Erasmus program and doing more or less the same things all the rest of us do (too easy schoolwork, going out every other night). I don’t know about you, but in ten years I sure don’t want to be doing exactly the same thing I am doing now. One would hope that you would evolve as a person on to different pastimes by then, yikes!
We went to the famous Heliogabal this week, which is a tiny live music venue famed for its staunch Catalan nationalist tendencies. It was certainly an authentic experience- I was so close that I could have played the singer’s guitar for him, and we were the only guiris in the tiny, bright red space. Definitely recommended if you are into intimate live music.
I discovered an awesome makeshift climbing gym that local climbers made out of a disused tunnel in Montjuic. They just took over the tunnel and covered it with climbing holds, and now it is a sweet hangout spot to schmooze and try out new routes. I saw some rather ingenious holds there, ranging from a jack o lantern to fake stalactites to punctuation marks. Awesome place.
Next week I’m headed to Las Fallas, the pyrotacular festival in Valencia where they basically set the city on fire for a week straight. All you need to know about this event is that “each year the pregnant and faint are prohibited from attending because of the noise”. I’ll have some stories for you.