Margaret was feeling slightly better, so we decided to go out with the hostel group at 11. At 10:30, we went up to our room to reorganize and instead got caught up in meeting our six new bunkmates and realizing that the last girl who got checked in, coincidentally also a Kate, got a wrongly configured key card that apparently screwed up all of our cards and enabled us to open eachother's lockers (oh yeah, the lockers here are key card operated...it's pretty spiffy...until it's not)
After much Benny Hill-esque ridiculousness, we got the card situation all figured out. It was 11. Margaret, KiwiKate, and I ran downstairs to catch the group, fully expecting them to still be in the common room, and found that they had already left (so much for Spanish time, eh?)
Apparently we were not the only people in this boat...Also joining us in failure? Two girls from Toronto...One of whom is *also* named Kate...
KanadaKate (purposely misspelled for the sake of alliteration...Whatever guys, artistic licence) decided that missing the group was a sign from the party gods that she should stay in, but KiwiKate, Margaret, and, to a lesser degree, myself were still pretty set on making it *somewhere*. Upon hearing this, the Canadians got really excited and handed us a flyer for a "Great Gatsby Party" at one of the top Barcelona beach clubs. They had put their names on the guest list the night before which entitled them to entry sans cover until 1:30 and they didn't want it to go to waste.
A top club hosting a speakeasy 20's party that "we" were on the guestlist for? SOLD! So we hopped in a cab and headed toward the beach. We flashed our guestlist flyer and after some mild lying about how upset we are that they only wrote "Kate" down once when CLEARLY there were two of us...Oh, and pretending Margaret's name was Robyn... We descended the stairs with promise of flappers, gangsters, gin, and jazz and were greeted with...A house music remix of the jazz age greats FloRida and Sia and their smooth jazzy hit WildOnes...Yeah...
We wondered how this was in any way Gatsby themed...Then the dancers came out... A stripper chick in nothing but a line of fringe and stilettos and two men in skinny ties and fedoras... They swayed back and forth for a while in a sexual manner (I didn't know it was possible either...) and then, well, I don't even know because we gave up and left... it was not even worth the price of admission.
Once outside, we made our way to the beach and curled up in the sand. Once happily sandy, new friend-making ensued. First we were joined by a Brit, then his two American friends got jealous that we accidentally stole him and they joined us.
The cops then came by to kick us off the beach so the sand-zamboni things could come through without killing us. At this point, the American boys decided to head back to their hostel to watch the Celtics game, Margaret went home, and in two
We talked film, befriended Iranian girls, talked life philsophy, went swimming, talked music, meandered the beach, and when we realized it was already 5 in the morning, made the executive decision to stick it out until sunrise (and, for me, until the metro opened)
One glorious beach sunrise later and still 30 minutes until the metro opened, we walked towards Las Ramblas, ate ice cream, and parted ways, he to his hostel and I to the metro stop, still encrusted in sand.
It's things like this that really stick with you when you travel. It's not every church and monument (let's face it, half the monuments you remember as "guy on horse" or "maytag man looking dude") it's the people you share the adventure with, the ones you keep in touch with and the ones you'll never see again, they're what you remember.
Ok, shit just got deep... I blame equal parts not sleeping and impending nostalgia.
I'll tell you about today tomorrow...Tomorrow we're going to the beach during proper daylight hours...
No comments:
Post a Comment