Its now Sunday September 13. I've not had too much going on which is why there has been a gap in my writing. I reread my last post and it just seemed like rambling to me. So at least now I've got a tiny bit to talk about. In review of course. I am the only one up so far this morning. Its about 11am. A few of us stayed up and watched a Harry Potter movie. Get this, Saul (the newest addition to this "hostel") is from Mexico and he's read all teh books in Spanish. Noemi's read all of them too but I think in English. Eva hasn't read any of the books or seen the movies. Wow. Did you know a person like that existed? Who doesn't know anything about Harry Potter? Ha!
Lets go back;
Friday afternoon I sat and watched a show called By Any Means, its one I inherited from Tony. This guy travels from Ireland to Australia using all sorts of transportation etc. I am really liking it. They are really flying through teh countries but what he is seeing is making my list of places to visit longer.
After feeling inspired by that I got up and got dressed up in my favorite purple dress and headed for the Metro to meet Noemi in the city center for a Friday night out!
The subway doesn't run very late and now I can see why. No one is on it. Its pretty weird. They only recently added the subway, they went around teh city center entirely, not even a tram or anything goes through there, which I find strange because people are coming and going from there all day long. Though to be fair the city center isn't that big of an area.
Anyways, the metro was no busy at all. It was 10:30 pm. People should have been heading out the door to go places and meet people.
When I got walked up teh stairs to the city streets there was no one around. It really felt like I had teh whole city to myself. It was pretty cool. They light up the big decorative, historical buildings etc and the streets are pretty well lit and you just have the entire place to yourself it seems like. I really enjoyed it actually!
I walked to Noemi's hostel where she works and found there were quite a few people there. She said both the Red and Purple Nests were fully booked. How strange for September I think!
I had a stroll around the area while Noemi finished work and that was really cool. I found some new places to eat and drink, went and took some photos of some of teh buildings all lit up and then of course went and had gelato.
After all of that I went to the Purple Nest hostel (they have a little bar in teh common area and Szilard was working so I sat and had a drink while I waited for Noemi and the others to join me. That was a weird experience. To come into a hostel adn not be a visitor there, the groups seemed to be recognizing each other and they were making their dinners etc just like I would have been doing had I been staying there.
As Noemi, Szilard (the sz sounds like s as in silly) and I rounded up some of the "kids" from the hostel and we followed the locals to their favorite places. The reason I called this Hollywood nights was becuase a couple of the guys could have been twins of some movie stars. One guys was a really pouty frenchman he looked like James Dean and the other one I couldn't quite place his face but he seemed familiar. There was Twiggy too (she's a UK person I know but still)
That was about 2:15am or so. We went to La Claca until they closed at 3:30am. Which I thought was the end of the journey but nooo we went to an afterhours club called Picadilly. As the group had gotten seperated we were waiting around for the others and a girl all dressed in pink, very 80's heels had laid down on the pavement outside the bar. I mean, what? And also Ew!
Inside Picadilly they had posted these photocopies of Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Uncle Sam. So people started peeling them off the walls and sticking them to their shirts, their faces etc. It was pretty funny. I'll stick some photos here so you can see what I mean.
At La Claca we'd met up with these 2 guys from Argentina, they were managers of some hostel in Barcelona (I kept my opinions to myself :) called the Yellow nest and they had come to review red and purple and they were great fun, Thomas and Pedro.
The Picadilly club was 12 euros to get into...at 4am I don't think so. So I had told the others I'd just wait outside, I mean how long could they be in there?? but Pedro insisted I come in and some money was exchanged and I was pulled inside the place.
We stayed and danced at this place until about 6:30am by then I'd had about enough of the smoke etc. I'd been drinking water for a few hours too so I was loosing the mood so to speak. Good thing I didn't wait outside.
I went outside ahead of the others to catch my breath and had a seat ( a well placed one...since everyone pees on everything around here). Walking home was like one of those scenes you see in the movies. As we walked toward the hostel, people started to peel off the group, head down their different roads, alleyways etc. By the time Noemi and I reached the hostel it was just Betsy, Pedro and Noemi and myelf.
Noemi and I walked to a square nearby and caught a cab home. I had remarked on teh fact that the buses were running so late and Noemi just laughed and said, "no, they just started running again". It was Saturday monring after all! Oops!
Saturday afternoon, when we finally all started moving again was about 3pm. I got up and Eva and I went to the beach which was just awesome. So relaxing, we stayed for hours until the sun finally went behind some storm clouds and then we decided to walk home.
We stopped at the market and bought some food and came back adn had a movie night basically. Noemi had to work and Saul was at a party with a bunch of Mexicans celebrating Mexico's independence day. So we watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Ugh, so glad I've watched that I'll never had to watch it again. Good grief! How annoying!
After that movie we decided to lighten it up a bit but all we could find was Harry Potter :) and its the Order of the Phoenix so its not much lighter really. But as we gained Saul, who was a big fan of Potter and then Noemi who's also a fan it was fun by the end.
Today I'll go back to La Claca and see the Flamenco show there. They do one around 8pm ish so that should be fun.
Only a few more days before I head off to Italy. Its going to be fun. Matt and I have so much to do that I will have to make time especially for the blog. I can't wait for him to get here! My baby brother (he'll be 30 this year!).
I chose the use Black and White most of the night for my photos. I was just on color overload and the city looks so pretty with its white buildings and black balconies etc so it just seemed right. I switched to color midway through and every one (all of my critics...I was the paparazzi and they all had to review my work each time...pretty hilarious!) decided I should switch it back to black and white.
Oh what fun.
You know I had a thought too. While I've been sitting around here pondering the meaning of life. Its not that I've really even traveled this summer, its more like I've lived. I've been living in one place or another. Which is such a different experience. I lived in a hostel in Mallorca for 3 1/2 weeks, where I had a really close group of friends and we did everything together and the hostel was our domain. I lived in England with a family for weeks and got to see normal English life. I got to live on a boat for 6 days. Which was the most amazing thing ever!! And not like normal life in any way. I've now lived in Valencia for a couple of weeks too. Its been totally different than I thought and yes I wish I'd seen alot more countries etc but I wouldn't trade any of this for anything. Its like I was trying on shoes and each time the shoe didn't really fit (or it cost too much!) and so I'd slip it off and go try on another. Each city and country I can now check off my list. Places I'd like to settle down, places I'd like to revisit, places I'm sick of. I think I'm still looking for that "perfect" place. I know perfect doesn't exist but there are elements that I'm looking for. Anyways. Just some thoughts.
Love
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