Tochi's Hut

I have decided to break up my Barcelona recaps into two posts, since there were really two phases of my visit.  This post covers a lot more of the cultural and social aspects of the city that I got to experience, while the second post will cover more of the traditional sightseeing attractions.  Given some feedback from BlueOrca, I have decided to tweak my writing style in this post, hopefully for the better.

Barcelona

During the original plans for this trip, Spain was not part of the itinerary.  Later on, we considered starting in Madrid followed by Barcelona.  After trimming the trip down, Barcelona was left as the sole representative from Spain.  Despite having never been there, some people had expressed to me a strong distaste and disinterest in Spain.  However, after experiencing Barcelona, I have to say the city was one of the most interesting places I visited on this trip.

As I came out from Barcelona International Airport (BCN), my first thoughts were that this place is so different than Amsterdam.  The air is much warmer, more humid.  The architecture feels more open and less developed.  The people and atmosphere felt so raw.  Exactly the characteristics that I would expect from Spain.  This reminded me of my trips to Mexico in the past, except now, this is Spain, where it all started.  I am really here! :D

Since my flight arrived quite late in the evening, my first order of business was to find my hostel.  This is my first time staying at a hostel, so it should be an interesting experience.

Lesson #2: Directions from hostels are crap.

I got out at Barcelona Sants and tried to follow the directions provided by the hostel.  General flow was to follow this street, turn left, go down another street then turn left to arrive at the hostel – a 5 minute walk from the train station.  I walked around for 10 minutes and could not even find the first street.  -.-; Ended up punching the address into my GPSr and following that.  I also realized that a 5 minute walk for a Spaniard is a 10 minute walk for Tochi.

Except for location, Alberguinn Youth Hostel takes the cake as the best hostel I stayed at on this trip.  Right when you walked in, you will notice a very clean and bright atmosphere.  A very helpful and cute lady at the check-in counter gave me all sorts of useful information on the city.  The best aspect of my stay, and I will admit first that this is totally luck, was the other folks staying at the hostel. 

You might meet all sorts of people at places like these, hippies, druggies (XD) and weird people in general.  However, the bunch I met were all quite social and everyone was around my age group.  After I got settled in, we all hung out in the common room draining bottles of beer and Cava (Sparkling wine product from Catalonia that I had been meaning to try anyway).  I met two other fellow Canadians, one of whom is a girl who also hails from Toronto, but is currently studying in the UK, a couple Czechs, British, French, Americans and a guy from Peru.  To make things even more interesting, 2 of the Americans were from NY, with one being a 2007 Cornell ECE graduate!  What a small world!  One of the British guys, who had been backpacking for 3 months said that this was one of the best hostels he has stayed at so far, because of the people.  I could not appreciate his remark at the time, but after staying at more hostels on the trip, in retrospect, I totally agree with his statement.

I learned quite a bit about the cultural and living conditions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia Republic while having breakfast with one of the Czechs the next morning.  It is amusing that the Czech was so courteous, repeatedly apologizing for his poor English.  Cultural and political history always interested me, especially revolutions and their aftermath.  Hearing his first hand recounts of life for him and his family was quite intriguing.  Of course, the conversation naturally turned to sports and the upcoming all important Euro Cup. :)

If there is one thing Barcelona is renown for (at least to our age group), it would definitely be its nightlife.  As one of the central hubs in Western Europe for tourists, foreigners, students, with a very modern yet distinctly Spanish feel, Barcelona offers a very cool blend of clubs, pubs and bars to accommodate every taste.

A couple of us from the hostel decided to go clubbing that night.  Our group consisted of a French Canadian from Gatineau, QC, an Indian guy from Chicago and a Lithuanian.  Since two Canadians made things confusing, I was referred to as Hong Kong :P.  I have to admit, we were a most peculiar bunch.  The guys had everything stocked and planned beforehand, so off we went.

Everyone knows Europeans are much more liberal than North Americans.  I have heard stories and I thought I knew.  What I discovered was that I had absolutely no idea how liberal things really were.  Fortunately, we had the Lithuanian leading the way to showcase what it is like to party like a European.

Nightlife starts really late in Barcelona.  I suspect this is partially due to siesta, where everything seems to be pushed back a few hours.   We had time to kill before the club was going to open, so we headed towards the beach.  We were drinking some strange concoction of vodka and some pale orange gold stuff.  We nicknamed it Goldie.  This is the first time I have ever drank inside a subway train – I hardly see that in Toronto.  However,  it appears to be the norm in Barcelona, as a lot of people on the packed subway had drinks in their hands and were all heading out to party. 

We each took turns, hmm, trying to chat with any beauties we saw along the way.  Made for some quite embarrassing scenes and great laughs.  I also picked up a bit of Eastern European vocabulary to reply to people who ignore or reject us.  Now, there were things that the Lithuanian did that I could never do.  All I have to say was that any ladies travelling alone in Europe needs to be very careful.  You might be contacted in some of the most inappropriate places.  Surprisingly though, the ladies took it all in stride, no screams or slaps.  As North Americans, we just told the Lithuanian that there are some things one can only do in his country, not ours.

Perhaps the most hilarious situation was when we came up to this subway platform.  There was a blonde standing alone on the platform.  As vultures, we moved closer to our prey.  This time, it was Lithuanian’s turn to attack.  We started to egg him on and out of the blue, the blonde started laughing out loud (lol irl).  We were stunned for a second, before the Lithuanian exclaimed, “SHIT! (pointing at the girl) I can tell you understand English!”.  The rest of us doubled over in laughter.  She was the only Spanish girl who understood English that we met that night.  It was all in great fun though. 

Given the amount of liquid that we had taken, once we got out of the subway, the four of us felt the urge.  I had not expected this to be the case, but Spain would become the fourth country where I have watered some plants in public.  The sad thing is, as I was doing my job, my only thought was that if someone would take a photo of the four of us from behind, it would make an amazing capture.  My photography self was still awake.

We roamed around the beach area for a while.  All the really expensive nightclubs and restaurants are located here.  Cover charges for the clubs go for over 60 Euros.   A lot of night time revellers were coming out and we met angels, devils, ballerinas and all sorts of other weird fashions.  One interesting encounter was with a group of 10 British ladies, known as the “Red Ladies”, who were all dressed in bathrobes.  They wanted to take photos with each of us kissing a silver bull stuffed toy.  It was weird but as gentlemen, we just cannot say no to ladies.  I bet those photos are on Facebook somewhere.

We grew a bit hungry, so we roamed looking for food.  We came upon this lively restaurant serving Greek food and asked for a table outside on the patio.  Unfortunately, there were not any free tables, so they offered us a table inside.  However, Lithuanian saw a bunch of pictures of elderly customers who had visited the restaurant.  “Guys! We cannot go into a Babushka restaurant!!!”.  We ended up going to a small bar and got cocktails and some quick snacks.  After we had our fillings, American wanted to leave without paying, since there was no one really watching us.  He actually stepped out the door, but we told him, “Maybe in America it is different, but in our countries, we do not cheat Babushkas (the bartender lady).”  lol.  The bill came out surprisingly cheap - 4 euros per person.

We headed towards Razzmatazz, a 5 room club featuring techno, pop, electro, disco and other trashy music.  Cover was 15 Euros to get in.  We got there at 1am and the place was pretty empty.  In Toronto, clubs would be packed by 1am.  The main disco room reminded me a bit of Guvernment, with the tall multi-story room, and balconies looking over.  The interior decor was not as nice though.  The drinks are still as expensive.

People started filling the place at 2am.  Now, this clubbing experience was different than normal for me, mostly because I was here with people I did not really know.  Back home, half the time I was not allowed to be as free, especially if I did not want to be ignored forever. :P  I think the Lithuanian’s personality was rubbing off on me this night.  Never realized I could be this at ease.  Overall, a great night of dancing with many people.  People get a lot more intimate here that what I am used to.  One memorable dance sequence was with this brunette, with whom I exchanged kung-fu style manoeuvres.  As they say, creativity is everything in dancing. lol.

As it pressed closer to 4am, people started handing out drinks.  By 4:30am, the club was starting to make people leave.  The message that the party would continue at Espanya Plaza was being passed around.   We decided that we had enough for the night, as American had an early flight to catch, while I had to pick up BlueOrca at the airport the next morning. 

Got back at 5am and managed to get 2 hours of sleep.  My clothes smelled of smoke, so I was forced to do laundry on the second day of my trip!  

What a night I had.  Barcelona ranks as my favourite foreign nightlife city.  As I mentioned, this entire trip has been one of many discoveries, and on this night, it was discovery in more ways than one – an eye-opening experience that I will never forget.  It was truly special to have experienced the amazing Barcelona social life.