The night on Las Ramblas

The night of the world cup was the kind of experience that I truly lack the right words to fully describe.
A city wide explosion of celebration so loud and enthralling that even those of us new to the game were caught up in it and on that day I was the biggest football fan in the world. The world rolled with emotions, with screaming and crying. From one end of the city to the other bodies rolled and rocked and danced in waves of humanity. For you could not see the city streets for the bodies that celebrated on La Rambla that night, from the northern edge of the city the street party danced all the way to the sea.

The people milled and laughed and talked, then you would hear a crackle and fireworks would explode  into the center of a group. The crowd leapt back, laughing, the trickster gods were in full swing that night and no one seemed to mind. Dance circles formed and dissolved like waves. Circles of a hundred people, all strangers, laughing and enjoying what life had to offer. Then the dance party would meld back into the sea of people and we would wander further down the street and the cycle would begin again.

Every statue had people hanging from it waving Spanish flags. The sheer joy in the night, to think of it even now I could cry from the remembrance of the happiness that night.

Barcelona Day 1 and 2

Barcelona was not as impressive overall as I had hoped. There were a few notable events, namely Spain winning the world cup for which I will dedicate a whole post, but overall it was touristy and boring.

Upon arrival I found my couch surfing host and settled in. I was so exhausted from my bus trip I slept pretty much the whole day. In the evening I met my two fellow couch surfers, two lovely sisters from France. We made dinner together and talked about our travels. In the late evening we went out for a few beers at a local bar and played fosball but by 11pm, early by Barcelona standards we were all exhausted and crashed out.

The next day I headed out on my own. I found the Picasso museum and wandered the shops of las ramblas.

The Picasso museum was memorable for me, it showed not just Picasso's more famous works but also a large collection of the work from his early teens and the sketches he did while he was in school including a work book that he had sketched all over. It reminded me a little of some of Sean's sketchbooks. What I saw was more of the real person who was Picasso, I saw his uncertainties in early work, mistakes and lines that weren't quite right. It made me think about how critical I am of my own work. I have expectations of where I think I should be without having committed the years and years and years of bad drawing that I still need to finish. It helped me relax a lot and afterwards I found myself inspired to fill pages and pages and fill my first sketchbook so I was forced to go searching for an art store in Barcelona a few days later.

After the museum I found a little bar off of Las Ramblas called the Travel Bar which catered specifically to backpackers. There was free wifi and a ton of other travelers where you could just sit down with a beer and talk about your various journeys. While I was sitting at the bar a rather cute 20-something guy walked up to the bar and asked the bartender if she knew how to solve a computer problem he was having. She said she had no idea.
I was only half paying attention to their conversation as I was trying to solve my problem of having no couch to sleep on and no hostel to stay at when I arrived in Paris but I understood his problem with his camera and fixed it for him. He was very thankful and asked me if he could buy me a beer.

I was only partially paying attention to him and had gone back to what I was doing so I just shrugged and said, 'no, I'm good'.

He looked confused for a second then asked, "Are you sure, I would LOVE to buy you a beer."

I said no again.

It was only after he wandered away looking a bit defeated that I realized he had been trying to flirt with me. Oh well.

I finished up my work at the Travel Bar, having sent out numerous emails asking for a place to stay and went back to my hosts house to meet up with the French backpackers to get ready for the World Cup game.