We made it to Barcelona finally with only one last hitch. While we were waiting for our train to pick us up from Narbonne, somebody committed suicide on the tracks at the station before ours. There was police everywhere and it was mayhem in the train station. There was a bunch of trains that were delayed 2.5 hours but luckily ours was only delayed 50 minutes. We were lucky because we had to catch a specific train into Barcelona that we thought we would miss due to the accident on the tracks but they held that train because it was the last one running for the night into Barcelona. We arrived in Barcelona Just after midnight and called Anna. Anna is our couch surfing host. Couch surfing is an internet data base of travelers who open up there home to travelers and let them stay with them for a little bit. We took a cab from the train station to Anna's because at the end of a 37 hour travel day the bus system in a foreign country is the last thing you want to try and figure out. The cabby dropped us off in some back alley off one of the main streets in Barcelona. It seemed pretty sketchy at first but it was the street that Anna lived on so it was a bit easier to justify to myself that it was safe. She lives in a flat on the 5th story of 6 story building. Once we got upstairs and introduced ourselves, we all decided to get some sleep because graham and I were pretty tired from travelling and Anna had to get up to go to work the next day.
We woke up around 9 and headed straight to the beach which was about an hour long walk. The beaches of Barcelona are gorgeous and I have never seen so many topless women in my life. At 430 Anna finished work so we met up near the casino for a quick beer and then we wondered around and she showed us a few cool spots in Barcelona. After stopping at a bar for mojitos and beer we went back to Anna's to shower and head out to meet a few of her friends for dinner. After the dinner, her friends went home and we headed out to a pub and bought 3.5 liters of Sangria to split between the 3 of us. The sangria came in a huge jug with ice and a built in tap. After about 40 minutes of drinking Sangria we had about a litre left and it was looking impossible to finish. But drunk me was not going to be defeated by this "sangria machine". We managed to finish the whole thing and we were all tipsy. After that we stumbled over to another bar that people drink at before they go clubbing. I have to explain the way it works over here though because it's completely different then the north american way of "clubbing". First you go for dinner which is around 930 and have a few drinks. Then you go to a bar/club that you predrink at before you haed of to the real club. By the time you are actually heading to the real club its about 2 AM and then you party there until 6 am. S around 130 we left the predrinking bar and made our way to the club and we danced and drank like machines for 5 straight hours which is unheard of for me lol. I don't know if it was the booze, the music or the lights in this club but I was dancing all night. It was the most fun I've ever had at a club. We came back to Anna's flat and we all passed out. Our first day in Barcelona was a great success.
The next morning Graham, Anna and myself went to the local market and bought ingredients to make a spanish Omellette. It was a really thick pie like omellette that was made up of potatoes, onions and eggs. It was very tasty. After breakfast we headed to a famous Barcelona park that was created and designed by a guy named Gaudi. He had a very unique style of constructing architecture. One of his most famous pieces was a park with a court yard with a very famous lizard sculpture. The entire court yard was raised about 30 feet off the ground with a buliding underneath. The court yard had benches all around its perimeter made of broken pieces of tile. It was very artistic looking and the way it was designed was really unique because all the water that gathered on the ceramic benches when it rained would go through holes spaced evenly throughout the benches and gathered in troughs on the back side of the benches and flowed to these dragon heads where the water would then pour out of the dragon's mouth. We then headed back towards Anna's flat and picked up ingredients to make some pizza from scratch and also a 40 of rum and some pepsi. We had a very relaxed night of drinking rum and making pizza and listening to music. We finished the 40 fairly quickly and had to move onto some other booze that Anna had laying around. Anna played some guitar for us and at that point the hole couch surfing thing seemed surreal. I never ever suspected that you could meet someone online that would take you into thier house and treat you like family. Two of her flat mates (room mates) showed up around 2 AM so we all played a round of Kings, the drinking game. Around 530 AM Graham, Anna and I hopped on the subway and went down to the beach to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was cloudy and started to rain so we only lasted about an hour there and didn't get to see the sunrise. This morning we all headed down to the beach around 130 in the afternoon and stayed there for 3-4 hours. I tryed to play some poker because the casino is right on the beach but I didn't have pants with me so they wouldn't let me in. Luckily Graham had pants so he let me where his pants. When I showed up at the casino with the pants on I figured everything was good to go and I would be playing poker shortly but that was not the case at all. Apparently you only need ID to get into the casino but you need a passport to play poker and other table games. Who knew! Anna headed off to tutor her brother so she gave Graham and I the keys to her place and she's going to meet us back here around midnight. We're just about to head out for some dinner and then head back to the Casino where I'm going to play poker and he is going to see some live music.
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