...Man, If '09 is the time that imma see mine, being cool ain't enough homie, imma freeze time...
May 30 (Evening), 31, and June 1
Classmates go to dinner and we come to conclusion that she needs to move out of her current living situation. Gave her my people's information. And she said she would pursue a place with them. Decided to walk her home seeing that she's had nothing but bad luck down there. It's about 10.30 and it's just getting dark in her area. And let me describe her area for you all. *Clearing my throat* IT'S THE HOOD! Just like home. Probably a little bit worse but with all the symptoms of the hood. There are liquor stores, clubs, and people selling drugs all over. And the really messed up part about it is that most of the Barcelona old city (this is the city that was around before they converted to the grided city plan) is the equivalent of alleyways. No matter what street you turn on, you're in an alley and none of them are well light. But I digress back to the story.
So as she and I are walking through the alleys, we encounter one in particular that's like a scene from a movie. Just her and I with a bum in a trash can and another rogue person walking towards us. It's at this point that my spider sense, which is a tingling of a certain part of my anatomy, starts to hit and my senses get heightened to everything. So I'm noticing that the bum looks at us quickly and then goes back to 'looking' in the trash while this guy walking towards us never looks at me or her. We passed the bum first; nothing happens, but I have him in the rear peripherals as well as the guy in front of me. Next we pass the other man (5'11" dark hair with a bucket cap that read 'USA' on the front, red white and blue shirt, blue jean shorts, muscular) and nothing happens, at first. As soon as we pass him he yells 'Hey, muthafucka.' Now in the next 5 seconds this all went through my mind *Inhale*:
Okay I'm going to have to fight this guy but he is bigger than me physically but I have the height and reach advantage which means I need to bob and weave and throw the jabs as much as possible. Now the girl needs to just stay behind me as much as possible so as to not get hurt and I ain't dying in an alley in Spain so this dude better bring it. The bum is no problem but if both of them come at me I have to get to the outside so I can use the one of them as a shield and run them into each other.
If they got a knife, so do I (bought one as soon as I got here).
If they got a gun, RUN and grab her too.
Be hard, show no fear.
*And exhale*
So after those five seconds transpired, I reply with 'who the fuck you calling muthafucka?! I got yo muthafucka?!' And so the guy comes and starts walking not at me but with me. Parallel with me. The bum never came so I figured he had nothing to do with it because we were too far for him to participate in the harassment. But anyway, the guy is walking parallel and proceeds to say how he hates tourists and doesn't give a fuck if everyone knows it but he 'likes' me and the fact that I have a white girlfriend (which I don't, she's my classmate and friend). It's at this point that he puts his hand on my shoulder and I give her the stiffest Bruce Lee arm windmill ever and now he gets angry and says 'Go ahead! HIT ME! KICK ME IN THE FACE!' It's at this moment that I realize that this man is drunk, a glutton for punishment, and looking for trouble. I just say I'm not going to hit him (unless he comes at me first). Luckily he doesn't harass my friend, and she gets to the end of the alley, where there is a plaza. Shortly after her, myself and this dude get to the end of the alley as well and he ends our interaction with: "You guys have a nice night and enjoy your stay in Barcelona." and walks away. F*cking INSANE! I was dumbfounded by what just happened. But I was complimented by my friend as being a 'calm cucumber'. LOL.
After all that excitement, I just finished walking her home and then watched a movie. My friend emailed the people I did housing with and I explained that they would probably reply the next day.
May 31,
So my friend did get a response today and she went to look at some of the properties in the area where I live. One happened to be in my apartment and it was nice to see her. I said hello and went about my day as usual which consisted of me sleeping, chilling out all day, eating, surfing the internet, drawing and designing. It's was a pretty lazy Sunday. Then I got a call from my friend who called to inform me that she got housing with my people and that she would be moving in today. It made me happy that I could help her out with a situation that she was having and let me tell you all: her housing was a situation. Here's a picture of the stair well:
Ridiculous I know. Shit was NOT cool. NO lift, stairs falling apart, sporadic electricity outages, and all around grimeyness. But like George Jefferson and Weezy, she moved on up to the East Side. So now I have someone to talk to every now and again which is awesome. Just coming home and not talking much is getting pretty tiresome.But back to this morning. I wake up pretty early. Well, I guess this video can show you better than I can describe to you:
June 1 -
So today was a catch up day for my professor with the tours of Barcelona. My walk got cut short because of a music festival that cut off some of the tour so we just did that and saw some other sites. But you know I keep you with the funny videos so here's one of myself. First, I will paint the picture for you. Basically, there's this playground on the beach and it has this huge hex-nut on it and the inside of the hex-nut is an enlarged hamster wheel. I get this bright idea to attempt to accomplish what many would think is impossible. I want to just grip the sides with my hands and feet and have some one turn the wheel ALL THE WAY AROUND. Of the 47 times I played this out in my mind, this only happened twice. Click here to watch. Now this didn't happen today but on my first walk, it was hilarious and I just got the video so I wanted to share. Yes, I can laugh at myself. It's hilarious. And I STILL think I can make it around.
June 2 -
So I just spent a TON of money on travel arrangements and it has made me realize a couple things: 1. Money is getting a little tight. 2. Europe is expensive. 3. I love McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC for the value menu. 4. I need to save some loot for when I get home. 5. I'm lucky as hell to be in Spain. So these travel arrangements are for Madrid, Portugal, and a small city called Toledo which is close to Madrid. Plan is to take a train to Madrid, stay there for a couple days, fly to Portugal, stay there for a few more days, then fly back to Barcelona. And in all this travelling and whatnot, I have to find time to finish these New Balance designs so I can enter this contest that is due June 10th. That's right! I'm trying to make some shoes. I'm not revealing designs cuz dudes might try and steal the idea juice and I need all that. If I win, I go to London and 600 pairs of my shoe get made and sold all over the world as a limited edition. Pretty smooth huh? I think so as well. I'm really new at this stuff so I don't know exactly what they are looking for. I just know what I like color-wise and that's what I designed. It's been pretty fun actually. But I'll get you some pictures after Wednesday when the deadline passes.
But I digress back to the day. I've been actually working on the class work that I have to do and I been getting really frustrated with it. It's all based on the market that's in the header of the blog; Santa Caterina Market. I'm supposed to use the plans, sections, and anything else I can come up with to investigate and capture the interactions of the building with people, the surrounding environment, and the city as a whole. Sounds hard huh? It is. I was supposed to meet with my professor today to show him what I been doing lately and I honestly don't have a concrete idea of what I am doing. One, because I haven't been doing much with it. I just draw other stuff in Barcelona and put that on the back burner. And two, I have no idea how to approach this idea. But hey, I'll figure it out. But I was supposed to go meet with the prof. sometime today and just show him what I had. My roommate and I don't really have much to show so we came up with the idea to just email him and set a time tomorrow because it's a free day to do what you want. So we email him and he says cool. And so our goal today was to actually do something for it. I went to take pictures at the market and really came out with nothing to inspire. No spark from pictures, no ideas from drawing there. Just nothing. But in my mind I always do my work so it'll get done. No worries.
So my classmate that moved in, who will now be known as Shortie Do Wop, and I accompanied some other people from class to this restaurant by the name of Inopia. Now the motto of this section is "Try something new" because new things are the spice of life. And to be honest, this evening was spicy as ever. I mean I tried things that I have never even thought to try includeing sardines stuffed with sardines (it was ok), octopus (actually pretty good), seared tuna (pretty amazing), olives (I still am not particularly a fan, but they were ok), and fried shrimp (they ain't like at home homie, they just bread them, deep fry them and serve them WHOLE, BRAIN AND ALL!). After racking up a bill that was about 192 euro between 8 people, Shortie do Wop and I walked home and attempted to work on studio for tomorrow and failed. Ended up drinking and watching Angels and Demons on bootleg. It was ok but nothing great like the first one. Seemed to just move so fast. *SPOILER ALERT* I thought is was raw as hell though when the guy who was the like the deafault Pope stole the bomb and then hopped in the helicopter and everyone thought he was gonna just die for his religion. Then dude jumps out of the helicopter. That was some realism if you ask me. I would have done the same thing (given I was default Pope and the Illuminati was trying to kill me and anti-matter had been created). I'm not trying to die baby.
So I watched that, Do Wop fell asleep, and I ended up going to bed around three without doing any of my actual work. Not a good decision. But I'll come up with something soon. I work well under pressure.
That's about it for now everyone, I probably won't update until two weeks from now because I'm going to Madrid and I don't know what the internet situation will be. And don't think I forgot about the contest(s). I haven't should be a good time. But for now, enjoy the flight, stewardesses will be around shortly to offer you a drink and headphones for the in-flight movie called "Tony and Kendal's Random Adventures." Look up & Look out!
