I know you have all seen this, but it's relevant, hilarious, and truly a classic. Enjoy!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Barcelona
I’m not a big believer in luck. I usually like to look at it as God dealing you certain cards for some unknown reason (or sheer coincidence). And I think He dealt me a Royal Flush this weekend in order to save my butt.
We left for Barcelona Thursday afternoon after class. We were supposed to take a train from Toulouse to Narbonne, change trains in Narbonne (about a 35 min layover), and take different train to Barcelona (the last one of that evening). We were traveling in a group of about nine, but we were kind of spread out on the train. A few of us, including myself, were all in one car, though a couple of them were not supposed to be. Well I was reading on the train and got a little sleepy, so I put my head down on the tray table, figuring that, in the off-chance that I fell asleep, my friends would let me know when we were getting close to our stop.
I’ll give you the moral of the story now: don’t rely on the group. I’m sure you can see where this is going. I fell asleep and never noticed the train stop and my friends didn’t notice that I wasn’t there until the train had already left the station. A few minutes after the Narbonne stop, my friend Roudabeh called me and asked me where I was. I then realized that she was at the station in Narbonne and I was still on the train going to Lord-knows-where, Europe. After I spent a few minutes freaking out in my head, I calmed down and realized that the worst thing that could happen would be that I would have to spend more money on another ticket and/or a hotel in some random French village and get to Barcelona late. So, about 20 min after the Narbonne station, the train stopped at Beziers. I got off the train, contemplated taking a bathroom break, but decided I couldn’t spare the time and that I should take care of more important matters first. I went to the ticket window and explained to the lady (in French; please be proud) what my problem was. She pointed to the schedule on the wall behind to indicate that there was a train for Barcelona scheduled to leave the station at 17:42. I looked at my watch, which read 17:44. The lady started running around behind the counter calling people and asking questions. A minute later she informed me that the train was there at platform B and that I just needed to show my ticket to the man at the platform. I said thanks and ran to the platform. The train pulled up as I was climbing the stairs to the platform. I showed the man at the platform my tickets and he told me to get on the train at the car right in front of us. He closed the door behind me as I climbed on, and the train pulled out of the station. This train went right back to Narbonne, where it picked up my friends so we could all go to Barcelona.
The train was crowded, so I found a seat next to a 60ish-year-old man. After hearing me talking to my friends on the phone (in English) to let them know that I was fine, the man asked me, with a British accent, what part of the states I was from. This jump-started a long conversation that took up a fair portion of the rest of his trip (he was getting off the train a few stops before mine).
This is what I found out about him: he was on his way back from Malaysia; he worked in construction all over the world and only got to go home every 8 weeks for about 2 weeks at a time; he had a wife, a daughter, and a girlfriend; his wife was Italian; his girlfriend was Peruvian; he met his girlfriend on a tour in Peru when her husband had ditched her to go be with his girlfriend (did you follow that?); his girlfriend had moved to Spain, which is where he was going currently to visit her, then it was back to the U.K. to see his wife and daughter; he had a sailboat; he had a house in the country in Spain (which was solar-powered, so I thought that was pretty chouette); and he seemed to think very highly of himself. I didn’t. He merely seemed pompous (which was increased greatly by the British accent) and shallow. He could have been making it all up to look impressive for all I know. So you can imagine what kind of company he was for two or three hours.
There is a large group of students from Georgia Tech that goes to Barcelona every year, and one of my friends told me that she was going. So when I thought about going to Barcelona, I figured that my friend would probably let me stay with her (saving me the trouble of finding a hotel or hostel and saving me money). I found out a couple of days before going that she wasn’t in Barcelona or abroad at all for that matter (which is strange because I distinctly remember talking to her about it at the study abroad informational meeting in April). So I didn’t have any reservations for a place to stay. I began researching online only to find out that Barcelona is a ridiculously popular place to travel to. Everything was booked. The cheapest thing I could find with availability was about €500 (I don’t know if that was per night or for the whole weekend, but either way, I don’t have that kind of money). So I went to Barcelona without a place to stay (but knowing that my friends wouldn’t leave me to sleep in the streets of some foreign city). We got into Barcelona pretty late Thursday night, and immediately got some maps from the train station (the usual procedure upon landing in a foreign city). After a few of my friends had checked in the apartment they had rented (and let me in to put my stuff there; they were going to let me sleep on the floor the first night, and I promised that I would go hunting for a hostel the next day), we wandered around for a little bit looking for food. At this point it was after midnight, so even though a bunch of places were open, they weren’t serving food. I found that interesting. In Spain they don’t eat dinner until about 9 or 10 at night, but apparently you have to be done by midnight, leaving you a small window of time to eat dinner. No wonder everyone is skinny; they don’t have much time to eat, so they can’t eat as much. Anyways, we finally found one of those kebab type places (I don’t think those places ever close). Afterwards we returned to the apartment so that we didn’t waste all of the next day sleeping (only to be serenaded in the middle of the night by some very drunk girl in the street outside our window).
So the next day, Firday, we got up and went to the Sagrada Família, the cathedral designed by Gaudi, a famous architect from Spain who is known for his unique style. They have spent about 120 years building this church, and it’s still not done.
It was so interesting though. It was clearly a cathedral, but everyone pictures cathedrals as being old and gothic. This one looked new (since it is, relatively) and had very unique, modern architecture. I liked it. We were allowed to take the elevator up to the top of the towers on the cathedral, which we did and took lots of pictures at the top. We were allowed to take the spiral stairs back down to the main floor. I got pretty dizzy just walking in corkscrew for several minutes. After we left the cathedral, we went to lunch and did a little bit of shopping. We wanted to visit this famous house in Barcelona that Gaudi had also designed for some family, but it was €13 to get in, so we decided not to go. 
My friends went back to fit in with the Spanish culture and take a “siesta”. I decided then to go out and look for a hostel. Most that I passed had signs indicating that they were full. Finally I found one that had two beds left (more cards in my winning hand). I went ahead and reserved the bed and returned a few minutes later with my stuff.
This was my first experience in a hostel, and I don’t know if any of you have ever stayed in one, so I’ll tell you about mine. This one was a shared hostel, so there were lots of people, who probably didn’t know each other, all in one room. You get a locker and the key to your locker. The locker wasn’t very big. Certainly not big enough to fit my entire backpack in. So I took out my more important (and expensive) things and locked them in my locker, leaving only my clothes in my backpack sitting out. There was a fitted sheet and a pillow on the bed, but no blanket. Upon request, you could get a towel. The showers were communal, but thankfully my hostel had separate ones for guys and girls(not the case in all hostels). My hostel had a couple of computers with internet, so I was actually able to check my email and facebook and such (essentials for living, of course). My first night there, I was in a room with 4 bunk beds (so 8 people). There were a couple of German girls, an Irish guy, another American girl (who just moved to Atlanta actually), and me. The other few people showed up in the middle of the night and I know nothing about them. An interesting mix, I thought. The next night I was moved to a bigger room where about 20 people could stay. Most of those people were American. It was kind of a weird experience. It almost felt like being in jail, except you were allowed to leave. So not like jail I guess. Barracks might have been a better description.
After a shower and a “siesta” of my own, our whole group (made up of the nine of us from Toulouse plus a few other people from the Spain programs that were friends with others from my group, making 12 people) went out for dinner and to hopefully go dancing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, big groups are bad at making decisions. Finally a few of us decided to take charge and go sit down in a restaurant that looked good. A lot of good that did. Most of the group thought the place was too expensive and left to go eat a few doors down. But five of us stayed. It was a little bit expensive, more than I would spend on a normal meal, but it was definitely worth it. We ordered a couple of tapas to share: mozzarella cheese with some kind of pesto sauce and salmon with something. They were both really good. But for the rest of my meal, I ordered a salad that came with pine nuts, honey dressing, and some of the best goat cheese I’ve ever had in my life. It was amazing and totally worth the few extra euros. After dinner, we met back up with our friends (who had had a much more lame meal and some blah restaurant). We started walking towards the area where someone had said there would be clubs and such. We pretty quickly realized that we had no idea where anything was and that we weren’t getting anywhere. So most of us went back to our respective places.
The next day, Saturday, I woke up in time to make sure that I still had a bed in the hostel for the next night. Once that was confirmed, I set out to spend a little time shopping and exploring by myself. Barcelona’s a pretty cool city. There’s a lot of people (most of whom are not Spanish; almost everyone in my hostel was American), and it’s busy all the time. After awhile, I headed to the beach to meet some of my friends. I didn’t find the friends I was looking for as their directions sucked (“See the plane with the yellow banner. It’s passing me…now. Okay come find me.”). But I found some other people from my group of friends, who also hadn’t been able to find the group via their crappy directions (“We’re at the beach in Barcelona. I see water and there’s people. Come find us.”) I think I got a false sense of security from the beaches in Nice that there were not as many topless Europeans as I had feared. Barcelona was very different. About half of the women were topless, of all shapes and sizes (just like you said Mom). And the half that wasn’t was probably entirely made up of Americans. And there were a lot of people at the beach. I hate to admit that I am so influenced by the environment in which I have spent my whole life (I feel as if I should be flexible enough to get past it), but it made me uncomfortable. I would probably gawk at such behavior in the states. Maybe it’s just because I can’t possibly imagine being topless in front of that many people (there were a lot of them, trust me) that it bothered me. But whatever. It’s Europe.
Anyways, after the beach we ate and again returned to our hostels and such. After a shower and a “siesta”, we went out again for dinner and hopefully something afterwards. Following dinner, we met up with the rest of our group. We went to McDonald’s because apparently in Europe you can buy beer at both McDonald’s and Burger King. I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t tell you if it was any good (though I don’t suspect that it was, not that I’d know either way with my very limited knowledge of beers). Afterwards we finally found a club to dance at. Unfortunately, the music was not very good dancing music, so we only stayed a little while before leaving in search of another club. When that attempt proved futile, I decided to head back to my hostel as it was 4 a.m. by that time and I had to check out of my hostel by noon.
The next day we had planned to go to the Picasso museum and to Gaudi’s park. But after I left my hostel, I couldn’t get hold of any of my friends (or any of you back home either; I needed a favor, but nobody answered the phone). So I sat in a park and read for a little while and read a book. After awhile, I got hold of them and found out that they were already headed for Parc Güell (Guadi’s park).
I took the metro to some stop way up on the map and started following the map to the park. I quickly found myself hiking up a ridiculous hill (with my pack on my back since I had to leave my hostel). I finally made it to the top, sweating like a pig and thanking myself for being a runner. The park was very interesting and Guadi’s house was in the middle of it. There were lots of instrumentalists there playing a variety of things. (Dad, there was a guy playing “Summertime” on the trumpet, so I called you, but, again, you didn’t answer.) 
It overlooked the entire city and had interesting stuff to look at. I never found my friends there, so I just wandered around by myself. Eventually, I had to head back down the ridiculous hill to take the metro to the train station. The trip home was, thankfully, less eventful. I got home kinda late Sunday night and went to bed pretty soon after getting home. Overall, a good weekend.
We left for Barcelona Thursday afternoon after class. We were supposed to take a train from Toulouse to Narbonne, change trains in Narbonne (about a 35 min layover), and take different train to Barcelona (the last one of that evening). We were traveling in a group of about nine, but we were kind of spread out on the train. A few of us, including myself, were all in one car, though a couple of them were not supposed to be. Well I was reading on the train and got a little sleepy, so I put my head down on the tray table, figuring that, in the off-chance that I fell asleep, my friends would let me know when we were getting close to our stop.
I’ll give you the moral of the story now: don’t rely on the group. I’m sure you can see where this is going. I fell asleep and never noticed the train stop and my friends didn’t notice that I wasn’t there until the train had already left the station. A few minutes after the Narbonne stop, my friend Roudabeh called me and asked me where I was. I then realized that she was at the station in Narbonne and I was still on the train going to Lord-knows-where, Europe. After I spent a few minutes freaking out in my head, I calmed down and realized that the worst thing that could happen would be that I would have to spend more money on another ticket and/or a hotel in some random French village and get to Barcelona late. So, about 20 min after the Narbonne station, the train stopped at Beziers. I got off the train, contemplated taking a bathroom break, but decided I couldn’t spare the time and that I should take care of more important matters first. I went to the ticket window and explained to the lady (in French; please be proud) what my problem was. She pointed to the schedule on the wall behind to indicate that there was a train for Barcelona scheduled to leave the station at 17:42. I looked at my watch, which read 17:44. The lady started running around behind the counter calling people and asking questions. A minute later she informed me that the train was there at platform B and that I just needed to show my ticket to the man at the platform. I said thanks and ran to the platform. The train pulled up as I was climbing the stairs to the platform. I showed the man at the platform my tickets and he told me to get on the train at the car right in front of us. He closed the door behind me as I climbed on, and the train pulled out of the station. This train went right back to Narbonne, where it picked up my friends so we could all go to Barcelona.
The train was crowded, so I found a seat next to a 60ish-year-old man. After hearing me talking to my friends on the phone (in English) to let them know that I was fine, the man asked me, with a British accent, what part of the states I was from. This jump-started a long conversation that took up a fair portion of the rest of his trip (he was getting off the train a few stops before mine).
This is what I found out about him: he was on his way back from Malaysia; he worked in construction all over the world and only got to go home every 8 weeks for about 2 weeks at a time; he had a wife, a daughter, and a girlfriend; his wife was Italian; his girlfriend was Peruvian; he met his girlfriend on a tour in Peru when her husband had ditched her to go be with his girlfriend (did you follow that?); his girlfriend had moved to Spain, which is where he was going currently to visit her, then it was back to the U.K. to see his wife and daughter; he had a sailboat; he had a house in the country in Spain (which was solar-powered, so I thought that was pretty chouette); and he seemed to think very highly of himself. I didn’t. He merely seemed pompous (which was increased greatly by the British accent) and shallow. He could have been making it all up to look impressive for all I know. So you can imagine what kind of company he was for two or three hours.
There is a large group of students from Georgia Tech that goes to Barcelona every year, and one of my friends told me that she was going. So when I thought about going to Barcelona, I figured that my friend would probably let me stay with her (saving me the trouble of finding a hotel or hostel and saving me money). I found out a couple of days before going that she wasn’t in Barcelona or abroad at all for that matter (which is strange because I distinctly remember talking to her about it at the study abroad informational meeting in April). So I didn’t have any reservations for a place to stay. I began researching online only to find out that Barcelona is a ridiculously popular place to travel to. Everything was booked. The cheapest thing I could find with availability was about €500 (I don’t know if that was per night or for the whole weekend, but either way, I don’t have that kind of money). So I went to Barcelona without a place to stay (but knowing that my friends wouldn’t leave me to sleep in the streets of some foreign city). We got into Barcelona pretty late Thursday night, and immediately got some maps from the train station (the usual procedure upon landing in a foreign city). After a few of my friends had checked in the apartment they had rented (and let me in to put my stuff there; they were going to let me sleep on the floor the first night, and I promised that I would go hunting for a hostel the next day), we wandered around for a little bit looking for food. At this point it was after midnight, so even though a bunch of places were open, they weren’t serving food. I found that interesting. In Spain they don’t eat dinner until about 9 or 10 at night, but apparently you have to be done by midnight, leaving you a small window of time to eat dinner. No wonder everyone is skinny; they don’t have much time to eat, so they can’t eat as much. Anyways, we finally found one of those kebab type places (I don’t think those places ever close). Afterwards we returned to the apartment so that we didn’t waste all of the next day sleeping (only to be serenaded in the middle of the night by some very drunk girl in the street outside our window).
So the next day, Firday, we got up and went to the Sagrada Família, the cathedral designed by Gaudi, a famous architect from Spain who is known for his unique style. They have spent about 120 years building this church, and it’s still not done.
It was so interesting though. It was clearly a cathedral, but everyone pictures cathedrals as being old and gothic. This one looked new (since it is, relatively) and had very unique, modern architecture. I liked it. We were allowed to take the elevator up to the top of the towers on the cathedral, which we did and took lots of pictures at the top. We were allowed to take the spiral stairs back down to the main floor. I got pretty dizzy just walking in corkscrew for several minutes. After we left the cathedral, we went to lunch and did a little bit of shopping. We wanted to visit this famous house in Barcelona that Gaudi had also designed for some family, but it was €13 to get in, so we decided not to go. 
My friends went back to fit in with the Spanish culture and take a “siesta”. I decided then to go out and look for a hostel. Most that I passed had signs indicating that they were full. Finally I found one that had two beds left (more cards in my winning hand). I went ahead and reserved the bed and returned a few minutes later with my stuff. This was my first experience in a hostel, and I don’t know if any of you have ever stayed in one, so I’ll tell you about mine. This one was a shared hostel, so there were lots of people, who probably didn’t know each other, all in one room. You get a locker and the key to your locker. The locker wasn’t very big. Certainly not big enough to fit my entire backpack in. So I took out my more important (and expensive) things and locked them in my locker, leaving only my clothes in my backpack sitting out. There was a fitted sheet and a pillow on the bed, but no blanket. Upon request, you could get a towel. The showers were communal, but thankfully my hostel had separate ones for guys and girls(not the case in all hostels). My hostel had a couple of computers with internet, so I was actually able to check my email and facebook and such (essentials for living, of course). My first night there, I was in a room with 4 bunk beds (so 8 people). There were a couple of German girls, an Irish guy, another American girl (who just moved to Atlanta actually), and me. The other few people showed up in the middle of the night and I know nothing about them. An interesting mix, I thought. The next night I was moved to a bigger room where about 20 people could stay. Most of those people were American. It was kind of a weird experience. It almost felt like being in jail, except you were allowed to leave. So not like jail I guess. Barracks might have been a better description.
After a shower and a “siesta” of my own, our whole group (made up of the nine of us from Toulouse plus a few other people from the Spain programs that were friends with others from my group, making 12 people) went out for dinner and to hopefully go dancing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, big groups are bad at making decisions. Finally a few of us decided to take charge and go sit down in a restaurant that looked good. A lot of good that did. Most of the group thought the place was too expensive and left to go eat a few doors down. But five of us stayed. It was a little bit expensive, more than I would spend on a normal meal, but it was definitely worth it. We ordered a couple of tapas to share: mozzarella cheese with some kind of pesto sauce and salmon with something. They were both really good. But for the rest of my meal, I ordered a salad that came with pine nuts, honey dressing, and some of the best goat cheese I’ve ever had in my life. It was amazing and totally worth the few extra euros. After dinner, we met back up with our friends (who had had a much more lame meal and some blah restaurant). We started walking towards the area where someone had said there would be clubs and such. We pretty quickly realized that we had no idea where anything was and that we weren’t getting anywhere. So most of us went back to our respective places.
The next day, Saturday, I woke up in time to make sure that I still had a bed in the hostel for the next night. Once that was confirmed, I set out to spend a little time shopping and exploring by myself. Barcelona’s a pretty cool city. There’s a lot of people (most of whom are not Spanish; almost everyone in my hostel was American), and it’s busy all the time. After awhile, I headed to the beach to meet some of my friends. I didn’t find the friends I was looking for as their directions sucked (“See the plane with the yellow banner. It’s passing me…now. Okay come find me.”). But I found some other people from my group of friends, who also hadn’t been able to find the group via their crappy directions (“We’re at the beach in Barcelona. I see water and there’s people. Come find us.”) I think I got a false sense of security from the beaches in Nice that there were not as many topless Europeans as I had feared. Barcelona was very different. About half of the women were topless, of all shapes and sizes (just like you said Mom). And the half that wasn’t was probably entirely made up of Americans. And there were a lot of people at the beach. I hate to admit that I am so influenced by the environment in which I have spent my whole life (I feel as if I should be flexible enough to get past it), but it made me uncomfortable. I would probably gawk at such behavior in the states. Maybe it’s just because I can’t possibly imagine being topless in front of that many people (there were a lot of them, trust me) that it bothered me. But whatever. It’s Europe.
Anyways, after the beach we ate and again returned to our hostels and such. After a shower and a “siesta”, we went out again for dinner and hopefully something afterwards. Following dinner, we met up with the rest of our group. We went to McDonald’s because apparently in Europe you can buy beer at both McDonald’s and Burger King. I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t tell you if it was any good (though I don’t suspect that it was, not that I’d know either way with my very limited knowledge of beers). Afterwards we finally found a club to dance at. Unfortunately, the music was not very good dancing music, so we only stayed a little while before leaving in search of another club. When that attempt proved futile, I decided to head back to my hostel as it was 4 a.m. by that time and I had to check out of my hostel by noon.
The next day we had planned to go to the Picasso museum and to Gaudi’s park. But after I left my hostel, I couldn’t get hold of any of my friends (or any of you back home either; I needed a favor, but nobody answered the phone). So I sat in a park and read for a little while and read a book. After awhile, I got hold of them and found out that they were already headed for Parc Güell (Guadi’s park).
I took the metro to some stop way up on the map and started following the map to the park. I quickly found myself hiking up a ridiculous hill (with my pack on my back since I had to leave my hostel). I finally made it to the top, sweating like a pig and thanking myself for being a runner. The park was very interesting and Guadi’s house was in the middle of it. There were lots of instrumentalists there playing a variety of things. (Dad, there was a guy playing “Summertime” on the trumpet, so I called you, but, again, you didn’t answer.) 
It overlooked the entire city and had interesting stuff to look at. I never found my friends there, so I just wandered around by myself. Eventually, I had to head back down the ridiculous hill to take the metro to the train station. The trip home was, thankfully, less eventful. I got home kinda late Sunday night and went to bed pretty soon after getting home. Overall, a good weekend.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Tres Drole!
This is a comedian named Eddie Izzard (most of you know him, I'm sure). He's got a great clip about learning French (which some of you may have seen as well). But watch this video, as it is tres drole (very funny).
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