Exhausted from the trip back from Ireland, I took Monday easy and finished up some work and rested up. Tuesday I had a pretty usual day with class and Peixets practice at night. Wednesday, however, turned out to be not so ordinary. Since my one class was cancelled, I decided to stay in and crank out a paper that was going to be due soon that I needed to get out of the way. After spending all day inside working on it and nearly finishing it, I figured I should reward myself by going on that evening. I met Ian and Fil at La Cigala for some drinks before we decided that we should attend razzmatazz Wednesdays. Part of this story unfortunately has to be left out due to privacy issues but should you wonder what it is that fully went on, feel free to ask me. Mind you that this evening can also be considered an enlightening point in my time in Barca as after this ridiculous time, I realized that there is more to life than being really really good looking (and by that I mean that I realized I needed to start taking advantage of Barcelona during the day time). Anyways, on the metro from Cigala to Razz, Ian, Fil and I are talking and Ian notices that this girl is intensely glaring at Fil. Ian tells Fil this and Fil proceeds to shoot back a glare at this girl to see what her deal is. Out of nowhere, she starts shouting and yelling at us and cursing us out (mind you entirely in Spanish). Fil starts trying to talk to her and ask her why she is so upset with us but she just keeps yelling at us. Eventually Fil slides closer to her (they were sitting on opposite ends of the bench with Ian and myself sitting together across) and asks her if she is just an angry person. She seems to take this as threatening and pump fakes a slap at Fil’s face. Fil somehow decides to egg her on and she ends up bitch slapping him really really really hard. He taunts her to hit him again and after a couple more pump fakes, she does. Everyone on the metro (including myself and Ian) are bewildered as to what is going on and as Fil curses back at this angry girl, we realize ours is the next stop. We leave still confused as to what happened. Realizing that we have a bunch of time before Razz, we go back to my room at Melon and chill for a while before heading to Razz. Thursday was devoted to being a day of recovery after a previously tough night and after turning in my paper at UPF, I came back and slept before Peixets practice. This was the first practice where I was asked to lead some drills and I participated in the combine as well. Both things went over well and the team was happy to have a change of pace from the usual activities.
After class on Friday began the real fun as I walked up to Fontana with Ami, Tom, and Fil to get kebabs at Restaurant Istanbul. After a delicious lunch there, I walked all the way down to Placa Catalunya with Tom and we parted ways. When I got back, Matt and I left to explore the city for the afternoon. He showed me the magnificent fountain at Parc Ciutadella which I had walked past everyday on my way to class but had never stopped at. Afterwards, we metro’d to Port Forum to discover that area as I had never been around there before. We walked along the water, up to see a view of the harbor, through Decathlon, and up to a tower to see a view of the city. A beautiful and newly developed area, Forum is definitely a spot to see if you ever find yourself in Barca. Later I met up with Orion and we walked around Gracia where he gave me a brief history of the Canary Islands (his home) and how he ended up in Barcelona. Orion is one of my friends from Peixets and the one who invited me to play with them at Lliga Catalana. I really owe my involvement with them to him and I am so happy I got to play with them. I caught the last metro back and grabbed some drinks with Hank, Matt, Brian, Jon and his sister before calling it an early night. Saturday proved to be spectacular as Hank, Matt, Brian and myself headed up to Tibidabo. We wandered through the Parc and streets to get up to the funicular, admiring the amazing views of the city along the way. We wandered around the amusement parc and various other parts of the mountain community. We played in numerous slide parks (which would become a great tradition), devoured tons of waffles (chocolate syrup and whip cream covered), and also cotton candy. Hank and I decided that we should walk home since that way we would be getting to see the entire length of the city (Tibidabo basically borders the city on one side and the ocean borders it on the other side). An hour later we arrived at Melon after a beautiful walk through the city. We hit a range of topics on the walk ranging from music management, to life plans, to love, to Hank’s current family situation. After we got back I walked over to Tetuan to catch the Barca game with Steph which they ended up drawing 1-1 with Atletic Bilbao.
Sunday proved to be another great day. It was supposed to be Matt, Hank and myself but Matt never woke up (per usual) so Hank and I headed out just the two of us to catch the train to Figueres. The train took about 2 hours to get to this small town in the northern part of Catalunya. After we got in, we wandered around the town for a bit before heading to the Dali Museum (our main reason for going). We passed through their versions of Placa Catalunya, La Rambla, Centro Comercial before arriving at the incredibly designed Teatro Museo Dali. Dali himself converted this old theater into a museum for many of his works. We wandered through the museum absorbing his various works and were in awe of how many different types of art forms he engaged in. After spending a few hours there, we headed over to a special exhibit of jewels that Dali had designed. Overwhelmed by all the amazing art that Dali had produced we decided that we had had enough and walked around the town a bit more including stopping at Parc Del Bosc and playing on the playground there. Figuring we were ready to head back we went to the train station where conveniently a train was arriving right then. Needing to go to the bathroom we went really quickly but upon coming out, the train was departing! Frustrated that we had just missed the train back and the next one wouldn’t be for an hour, we decided to explore more of the town. We wandered over to Passeig de John Lennon and further for a nice view of the Pyrenees in the distance. We made sure to catch the train back this time since it was going to be the last one of the day! After arriving back in Barca, I took the rest of the evening easy.
Matt, myself, and hank with one of our many amazingly delicious waffles on Tibidabo.
Me with one of the waffles with the view from Tibidabo in the background.
The church on Tibidabo that you can see from anywhere in the city at night when it is lit-up.
Can you see the outline of someone famous in this Dali work? (It is Abe Lincoln if you couldn't tell).
A massive painting on one of the walls of the atrium of the building.
The courtyard at the Dali Museum.
Me outside the egg-decorated Teatro Museo Dali!
