Thursday May 20, 2010
Worse. Hangover. Ever. You would think that slice of “toast,” watermelon, and water Jo made me choke down would do me some good. But no. Those just ended up in the toilet bowl of the
hostel. You would think that taking a warm twenty-minute shower (yeah… sorry environment!) would help. But no. I still felt like shit. You would think that dressing up in a pretty floral dress and getting fresh air on La Rambla would make me feel better. But no. I ran off the metro two stops early to empty the rest of my stomach contents in a trashcan on the platform. You would think hiking up to see the breath-taking Park Güell with the rock columns, buildings with facades made entirely of colourful mosaic, the famous winding mosaic bench, and so on would cheer me up. But no. My
nausea was a total pooper. I told Jo and Nat to go explore the rest of the park without me, so that I could sit as still as possible for at least an hour or two in the shade. And that worked! Yayayayayyyy. By two o’clock I was all myself again: a cheerful, hungry picture-whore.
We visited La Sagrada Familia. The architecture was amazing with so many detailed statues carved on the walls of the huge cathedral. We also visited Gaudí’s La Pedrera. Having walked five million kilometers to visit those places, we rested back at our hostel, eating fresh fruit that I could actually enjoy this time. Our American English attracted another American girl, Sapna, who was visiting from Prague (where she’s been working for a year). Apparently meeting up with her U.S. friend in Barcelona was a big-ass fail, because they booked tickets for different weekends [sweatdrop]. When Sapna told us she’s from Arizona, I was tempted to be very unPC by saying, “Oh no ways! My South Asian friend from school is also from Arizona! Lawlz. What’s up with that?” But I refrained.
We invited her to our nighttime festivities that evening. We decided to give Catwalk another go, this time with actual directions and information on what night bus to take there. While we were riding the N0, a club promoter approached us telling us to come to Shoko before going to Catwalk, because Catwalk was usually empty before 2 or 3 am. Having been approached by so many of these club promoters on La Rambla, we were weary at first, but we ended up agreeing since there was no cover charge and no required drinks. Decorated in Japanese style, Shoko actually turned out to be pretty tight with random Japanese and weird American videos playing to American club music. Three breakers/poppers danced onstage, drawing most of the attention as clubbers started the night. The three dancers: Asian (good with hat tricks), muscle-ly black (hard-hitting), and skinnier black (smooth-moving), reminded me of Justin, Jeff, and Muata from RB. It was very strange that their dance styles were so similar to the three guys, although I’d have to say that our RB boys are better at listening to the music. The performers were too keen to do tricks and look hard that they sometimes didn’t perfectly match the beat or the details.
We moved next-door to Catwalk at 2:30. It was less classy, but the dancing was better. Maybe people are drunk enough by that time? The three male performers also migrated with us to perform at Catwalk. Joining them, two female dancers slowly and “seductively” moved in their heels and leotardish outfits in cages. We kept saying no to constant predators until Nat found herself a cute preppy boy: dark blonde hair, blue eyes, nice bone structure, tall enough, and light-blue button-up shirt. He, later named “Swiss Boy,” turned out to be a new French-speaking club promoter fresh from Switzerland. A very persistent young Spanish guy, later named “Smiley Boy,” pursued Jo, who refused him the entire night (¡Pobrecito!). At one point, he even executed the bring-in-my-friend-with-the-real-dorky-dance-moves tactic to humour us, but alas, it didn’t work on Jo.
After getting some help from a white Australian boy (why does everyone have hot accents around here?), Jo and I took the N2 bus back to the top of La Rambla. We didn’t expect to meet anybody but peddlers and creepers at 4:00 in the morning. A tall English boy (+ one) asked us for a light. Instead of just saying no and avoiding eye contact (i.e.: strategy to avoid unwanted attention in Spain), I told him he shouldn’t smoke because it’s bad for him. After hearing my persuasion, the English Boy flipped his unsmoked cigarette into the air, causing me to accuse him of littering, which could arguably be worse. And thus, our beautiful friendship with Stevie (“the new, improved Steve”) in multiple necklaces and purple trousers and his friend “Grizzly” (“because he looks like a bear, so huggable! But don’t get the wrong idea or anything. I don’t swing my bat that way. I don’t play on the wrong team.”) began.
Oh man, I could go on and on about Stevie, probably because the newly (and by newly, he meant a month ago… but his eight friends and he were “celebrating” his b-day anyways in BCN) 21-(or was it 23?)-year-old spoke/joked/made references a million miles a minute so that it was a bit difficult to catch them all. Imagine a dialogue between Lorelei and Rory Gilmore running for, like, an hour. Out of breath from laughing the whole time, I might have fallen in love. He was keen to tell Joanne that LA was a great disappointment when he stayed on Sunset Boulevard, because he failed to find his dreams or that Hollywood glamour. Stevie and Grizzly tutored us on our British words (rubbish, torch, lift, Brouhaha, balderdash, and so on) and on our English accents with sample sentences, “Have you taken tea with the queen in Buckingham Palace today?” They said that even though mine had a bit of an American twang, it wasn’t actually bad. Yesss! Suck on that, Melbearrr! Grizzly and Stevie shared an awkwardly tender embracing moment, causing me to bring up the common “Is he gay or European?” question. Stevie got quite defensive but then admitted that the fact that he was wearing purple trousers from Tommy Hilfiger probably didn’t help his case. I think the weirdest reference he made that night was when he asked Jo if she would press her chest against a pane of glass if he were to have one on hand. The reference to Midnight Express was clearly lost on the present audience. At one point, a homeless man came to ask for money. Stevie, being the helpful boy he is, pointed him to the metro station, “Yes, you should go over there. You see Liceu? Yeah, that’s right. I think I saw some lady, she was a red-head, yeah, that’s right a gingha, passing out stacks of money. Yeah! Just handing them out like they were nothing, stacks of it! Can you believe it? I couldn’t believe it myself when I saw. But she’s definitely the one to hit up, not us. Go on. Go on. Don’t wait for too long before she gives it all out!” The very confused (and probably drunk) homeless man wandered off toward the metro station.
While we were standing there, different people came in and out of the circle. Some were Stevie’s friends, who were also walking on La Rambla, and some were strange men who Jo and I thought Stevie knew and Stevie thought we knew (Grizzly had left at that point). One such person from the latter group was this short, abrasive, obnoxiously American, Texan in a crème-coloured blazer. It’s funny how embarrassingly rude Americans can seem in Europe. Before the American entered our circle, Stevie said to him, “So are you going to join us, or are you going to keep circling us like a shark?” The American proceeded to laugh at (not with) Stevie’s fittingly 3-inch long messy hair, which Stevie claimed looks just so when he wakes up, but I countered with it takes him a few hours to sculpt each day, and that the American should respect true art. Sticking his potbelly out, the American laughed at Stevie’s energy and said that he was a piece of work. “I’ll take that as a back-handed compliment…” When the American said he never met someone who talked so much in his life, Stevie replied, “Well, I would certainly hope you don’t meet a mad English man in purple trousers everyday!”
Jo and I got pretty annoyed at this Texan, who made the entire situation unfunny and uncomfortable. As if reading our minds, Stevie, Jo, and I excused ourselves and walked to the hostel. When we got the hostel’s front door, Stevie said he didn’t want to be a creep or intrude, but he had too much energy to go to bed. And asked if he could entertain us for a walk around the block. As we were taking our walk, we laughed about how abrasive and unpleasant the shark was. Stevie said, “He’s so typically American! Like this guy here is so stereotypically Indian!” as an old South Asian man walked by in a white linen Kurta. I gave him ear-plugged silence for that racist comment, as I had given him disapproving looks after he joked about mass death. Giving us each a “cuddle” at the door of our hostel, Stevie was quite disappointed to hear that we were leaving La Rambla tomorrow afternoon. And believe me, I was too. It’s not often you meet and fall in love with character like that.
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