July 17th-July 28th: Nice, Barcelona, Madrid

My ‘”friend;” Kasey, told me to stop drinking and actually write a post.

Even though it’s Saturday morning in Lisboa, Portugal, I’ll put down the tequila and try to write one out.

I’m depressed.

My list has dwindled:

Dublin

Galway

…

Potomac, Maryland.

There are no pub crawls in Potomac

There are no weird-maybe-this-shouldn’t-be-called-a-museum museums in Potomac

There are no topless beaches in Potomac.

Except when I tan on the front lawn.

So.

I think we left off at Switzerland.

Next I went to Nice and it was Nice.

ROFL!

But for real.

I wasn’t there for long-but I managed to squeeze in a scuba diving session.

? Do you have a scuba license?

No! But you do not need one in Nice.

That’s so cool, Gianmarco! How deep did you go??

Pretty deep.

C’mon, how deep?

…

Gianmarco?

6 Meters.

Oh…

And the guy held onto me the entire time

That’s romantic

Yes.

So that’s pretty much all I did in Nice. I got back and people were watching movies so I vedjed out with Borat, The Rock, and The South Park Movie. I’m so cool.

Next: Barcelona.

Wonderful.

There isn’t much comedic material because it was really nice.

Apparently, Spain has more bars than EVERYWHERE ELSE in EUROPE

Nice.

No! Not Nice! Barcelona!

ROFL!

The first bar I went to was called Wallstreet.

It is a shot bar where you the prices of the shots change depending on how much they are being ordered. Then, every hour, the stock market ‘crashes’ and everything is cheaper (by 10 cents…)!

I have never understood how the stock market works but this place cleared things up for me.

When I woke up at 1PM the next day, I went on a walking tour of Gaudi’s buildings.

Gaudi is a magical, mystical, megalomaniacal (he’s not megalomaniacal, I just like alliteration) architect who designed the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. 

His cathedral, which is still not done (it’s been over 150 years…) is the most beautiful man-made thing I’ve seen in Europe. Please google him now. Okay…I’ll post my first picture: NOT

(Borat.)

(BTW, next post is going to be my top-ten posts.)

The second, and last, Barcelona bar was called (and still is called) Chupitos.

This is where dreams are made. And then you throw them up.

There is a board upon entering that lists 100 different shots.

The memorable ones were:

Boy Scout: The bartender lights the bar on fire, you roast a marshmallow over it, dip it in the shot, eat it, take shot. Just like my days in the boy scouts until they found out I liked musicals and kicked me out.

Harry Potter: The bartender lights a shot on fire…then plays with the fire…then you drink the shot.

I’d go on-but basically every shot involves fire in a stressful way.

You are so stressed that you need a shot, which is convenient as you are in a shot bar.

Genius.

Except for one. The Monica Lewinsky.

This mysterious drink required a 5 euro payment before you got it. 

A stranger told me “Dude. Don’t do it.”

Little did he know that I had recently sky-doven and thus was fearless.

The bartender blindfolded me. Then he placed a helmet on my head.

He shook my hand-told me my name was now Monica and he was Bill.

I was to keep my hand on the bar at all times.

I won’t go into the details of what he proceeded to do with the beer bottle covered by a whip cream laden plastic penis…but there are pictures somewhere.

When I woke up at 3 pm the next day, I went to the beach, drank sangrias, got a massage on the beach. That’s when it hit me: FUCK! I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK!

I found a pull-up station on the beach, did 3 pull-ups, needed to sleep.

Next was Madrid.

This post is rambling so I’ll sum it up fast:

Saw a bullfight.

If I go to hell for any reason-it will be because I watched this. The hottest places in hell…

Basically the bull comes out, a man on a horse stabs him with a spear, more men come out and stab him with hooks that stick into his body, a guy with a red cloth fucks with it a little, the bull falls down, they stab the bull until it dies. Rinse and repeat 6 times.

And people applaud!

(fun fact: Bulls are vegetarians.)

The only + is that the meat is given to homeless people, which in Spain right now is a lot. Unemployment rate under 30? 50%.

Don’t’ quote me on that.

I did 2 tapas tours.

I could not find horse anywhere. That’s why I came to Europe in the firt place! To consume a horse. Fail.

I settled on pigs’ ears, a lamb’s stomach, and razor back clams. And Sangria.

Notice that I capitalize Sangria.

I saw a flamenco show.

If I could go back and start over-I would want to be a dancer.

The show, as someone I knew once said about Ryan Gosling, “Dripped Sex”

They were sweating like crazy so dripped it is very apropos. Vocab word.

Last night in Madrid. I had an early flight to Lisboa the next morning. I was going to be in bed by 10. I brushed my teeth, read 3 pages of Anna Karinininina, went back to my room.

In my 14 bed room was a group of 13 just-moved-in, drunk-off-their-asses 20-something-ers from England going to a week-long-techno-concert the next morning.

Dam. It.

I tried to ignore it. This is why I practice meditation right?

That’s when one of them threw a shampoo bottle at my head.

I slept in the lobby. A solid 30 minutes.

I went back to the room to get my things. They were all asleep, undoubtedly hungover.

I had a brilliant revenge plan.

One of them left their phone on the floor. I would set an alarm on their phone, full volume, for five minutes after I left the room. I would then put the phone into my locker (in the room), lock the locker, return that key to the front desk…and just wait.

Then, one of them woke up and wished me a safe flight.

DAMN CONSCIENCE.

Now I’m in Lisbon, which I will write about next time.

Send me love. I’ll be in NYC soon. To celebrate my 2^nd 23^rd Birthday.

Thank you for reading.

:*

GM

 Gaudi (I did it!)