Good Times

Soundtrack of the moment:

Outkast - SpottieOttieDopalicious, Stanklove, Slum Beautiful, Take Off Your Cool
Ghostface Killah - Run, BulletProof Wallets
Raekwon - OBFCL
Octane - Fresh

So I been trying to keep everyone up-to-date and I'm finding it harder than expected. But I still persevere through the struggles. For some reason my internet at home is not working so I have to trek all the way to studio to use it. And to remedy all the boring reading, I'll just give you the highlights of the trips. Some will be stories, others are random comments. Enjoy! But here's the update:

Tuesday May 26th
Since the last update many things have happen. I've been keeping you abreast with pictures of architectural stuff that I've been seeing but that's not all I have been up to. The real fun has been in the food and dance sagas. What I mean by this is the experiences that I have had with Spanish cuisine and the activities had at clubs.

So anyway the funny thing about the food is that I love it. But it does not fill up my American stomach in the least bit. I thought I was the only one on this trip that was not full off of the portions that these people serve until one amazingly fateful day when I food angel came to me and said "Kendal, I am still hungy too." It made me so happy to know that someone else suffered through the same struggles as I; her name is NoNo (character protection). NoNo feels just as I do about the food situation and we had an escapade. Where you ask? To a wonderful place where potatoes flow like the River Nile and Burgers come in sizes too large to hold with just one hand.

And they rain down from the heavens with rapidity and accuracy of lasers. A place where you can 'have it your way' so to speak. Yes my friends, I am talking about Burger King. Our hunger drove myself an NoNo to burger king and it was delicious. I've never attempted a double whopper before but I did that night and it was amazing. NoNo also delighted in a whopper. We delighted in our food tryste and then parted ways into the evening sun. Burger King is awesome.

And in reference to the club, Spanish people are crazy. Maybe it was not the club for me, maybe I was just tired, maybe I was an akward turtle for once but in all honesty this club was definitely a step out of my comfort zone, but in a good way. So there was this DJ by the name of MSTRCRFT (Mastercraft) that was supposed to perform at this club here in Spain. The guy is apparently an amazing electronic, techno DJ and some of my classmates were really excited to go to the concert. Myself, I really had never heard of the guy and just wanted to kick it with the group for a night on the town. I was not ready for what transpired. The name of the club is Razzamatazz and it's serious. It's like Clutch Cargos but on a more grandiose scale of lighting, music, and all around mayhem. There are people everywhere. So the first though in my mind is, "I need a vodka red bull." Not so much because I'm nervous or anything but because I find out that this club doesn't close until 7am, it's like 12:45am when we arrive and get in; I need more energy than I have and Red bulls give you wings so it only seemed right. So we dance and have a good time and kick it until like 3am. At this point, I'm getting to the plateau of my night where I would usually bid the group farewell and go about my merry way but I don't want to 'bail' on my classmates so I keep the vodka red bulls coming and 4 rolls around, then 4:30am. It's at this point that my eyes are burning from the CO2 gas and the shear fact that I'm exhausted from waiting for this guy. So I finally give up, leave, hop on the train and get home at 5am. The next morning, I find out that he came on like literally 5 minutes after I left. FML. But it was still fun.

Wednesday, May 27

So the day after that wonderful food (spanish and otherwise) our seventh walk commenced. This was by far the longest and toughest, but the most interesting of them so far. All in all the sites we saw were amzing. I got pictureques portraits of the city and architecture but a nine hour walk through barcelona was too much. Here are some of the pictures.

Myself climbing the many stairs of the Barceloneta

These lines are so sick! (They run all the way from one side to the other and up the wall)

Mies Van Der Rohe German Pavillion

Vertical Cemetary

So after this amazingly long (9hrs) walk through the wonderful Barcelonetta. I took my black butt back to my apartment thinking everything was sweet and the rest of the day was for me to recover. I forgot about the soccer game. Manchester United and Barcelona were playing for a championship tonight and some of my classmates were going to go out and watch the game at Placa Catalunya. For the past two and half days I haven't had internet at my apartment so I had been going to studio to check on things (email and whatnot) and got a gchat message about going to one of the classmates apartments to partake in some spirits before going out. They lived really close to the studio so I agreed and about 20 minutes later I was there having some beer and chilling with two of my classmates and some awesome apartment mates.

We never actually made it out to Placa Catalunya for the game but seeing that Barcelona won, we made if for the afterparty, which is everywhere in the streets. I don't know if you all have ever seen a soccer riot on television before but believe me, those reports only show half of what's going down. There was fireworks, dancing, drinking (of course), singing, and all around mayhem. But in a good way. See pictures below.

We hung out down there for about an hour and a half (it was roughly 2:30am) and then started back for their apartment. So we get back to the apartment and begin to kick it again with the roommates and they are honestly some of the coolest people I've met her yet. As soon as we get back to the room, they throw on some Outkast Spottieottiedopalicious and if you don't know what that is, kill yourself. Then we took it to Slum Beautiful, then to StankLove, and from there it was on. The conversation about music was SOOOO much fun and it could have just flowed forever. But I had to get up early the next day so I had to stop at like 3:30am and make my way back to my apartment. It was going to take a while seeing that I would have to go through the riot outside so I thought it best to start the trek because who knows what I'll run into out there right?

I say my goodbyes and start walking up the Ramblas towards my apartment. I was making great headway, very quickly. Then it happened. I don't know if you remember in Kings of Comedy but let me refresh your memory because this is poignant:

So like Cedric said, 'Nigga we break.' So as I'm walking up I stop because I hear police sirens. Then all of a sudden I see a crowd of people rushing towards me in the opposite direction of my travel. So what do I do, 'Nigga I ran.' Oh boy did I run. Did not even think about it. Just saw people running and I broke for the closest alley way thinking that I would avoid the cops that way. But when I got to the alley, there were people running towards me there, so I broke out again. And keep in mind, I have my laptop from earlier when I was at studio with me holding me break away speed to a regular man's pace. So I finally stop running and collect my thoughts and try to regain a sense of direction. After that was completed, I started walking parallel to the Ramblas but not on the Ramblas. But everywhere I looked, there were riot squads waiting and from what I hear, they aren't too nice so I am hesistant to encounter them.

With all that being said my first reaction was to get on the phone and call someone in the states who I thought would be awake because it would have been about midnight in Michigan and 9pm on the west coast. So I call my friend Lorenz, and she's really happy to hear from me but she was busy, which is understandable so I just hung up and called my brother hoping he was awake. And he was. So I basically talked to him until I passed the riot police. It was probably one of the scariest and funniest things ever. In retrospect, I have no idea why I ran from the police, but like Cedric says, I don't need no running coordinator, or coach or anything. If you running, dawg I'm running. And that was that. I got home but there was destruction everywhere. It was crazy.

Thursday, May 28

I just had one of the best experiences food wise that I've had here. It's a hole in the wall type place called campions I think. Basically take a Pete's Coney Island and put the place in Barcelona. It was amazing. Once again, the hamburger doesn't let me down. And guess what the compliment was to the food. Not fries, champagne man! I popped rose with my burger! What! It was awesome and I'm going back. Don't mind if I do! I would have posted a picture of the burger too but I smashed too of them before I even got my camera out. They were delicious. Don't worry I'll be going back very soon.

But until the next update. Look Up & Look Out!!!