Spring in Barcelona- My latest update for those back in Blighty


Ok well here we are again.. I just about finish one newsletter and I'm on to the next.. will it ever stop!!!

1. Las Carpas - A crazy fun mad house
As is required every few weeks I have to make a visit to see my cousin - this appeases my Spanish grandmother as I’m away from the dangerous streets of Barcelona city and not hanging around with boys, and also means I get to go out on the piss outside of Barcelona.

This time my cousin had a night at an outdoor nightclub lined up - she did not sound entirely convinced by this idea.. so I wasn't particularly looking forward to it either, especially as on the train out of Barcelona the temperature dropped with every 2 kms. Luckily my cousin was very much mistaken and Las Carpas turned out to be one of the funnest places ever... 4 or 5 different 'zones' playing everything from Salsa to Cheese to House! and all outside! I think the best bit had to be walking into one zone and coming across half of an entire jumbo jet..!!! madness. I also liked the little island of palm trees that had been lit up with fairy lights, what made the place really special was the semi naked men dancing on the bars unbelievably badly. Pure comedy!

2. Barcelona Nightlife
As well as my normal guest lists to most clubs in town, (with my crew in tow I am a PR guy's dream), I now have a sweet little deal going on with a events company that run a club night here on a Tuesday night. I gather a few people together to come along and they lay on a table for me and my chosen companions with free champagne. Yes! Sitting on the outdoor terrace overlooking the beach sipping free champagne is the way forward.. This little contact means if there are any cool parties going on I always get an invite, and it often involves a free bar! It pleases me!

These last few weeks have been pretty heavy going for me what with one bday after another, various visitors to SH Hotel, plus my normal life I’m starting to feel the pain. This is not helped by relatives arriving at 8am in Barcelona and me having to go and meet them especially when I spend an hour searching for them and it appears they have disappeared off the face of the earth... only to find out 2 days later that there had been delays and they never arrived in the first place.... I wouldn't mind so much if I’d have had more than 3 hours sleep...

Last week I went out for Ludwig's b'day.

Free champagne, yes!

Free drinks all night, yes!

Bar closes at 3am, carry on partying at another club? Hell yes!

Me and Ludwig doing some crazy moves on the dance floor and finally deciding to go home at 5ish, then the realisation that he had to be at class at 9 and I had to be at work at 11... nooo!!

' ve are stuuupit ' in the words of Lud.

Taxi home has classic fm on - the Viennese waltz comes on, I wouldn't really have noticed had it not been for Lud.. “Please turn it up.. I'M AUSTRIAN!!”

Anyway that night my friend said to me “There's gonna be a cool party on Thursday night. You should definitely come. Free bar!!” and handed me some invitations.

We now have a new tradition here in Bcn (it apparently originates in Germany) that if it's someone's bday we celebrate the night before as well as on the day. At midnight we clink our glasses and this also means that we're out far too many nights!

And so it happened to be Frauline's bday on the Friday and where better to go the Thursday night than to the free bar party. The only problem being that we were a little confused as to where it was. The invitations were in the style of airline tickets and the address was Parc Ciutadella - a very large park in the center of the city. Off we trundled to the Park but could see no sign of any parties, very strange. One of the girls piped up, “Why don't we just go to any bar?” “Please,” I said, “any bar does not have free bar”, and so we continued our search and on our way we found some more people with the airline tickets.

We got to one of the main gates of the park and walked a little way in to find some airline hostesses ready to take our invitations, "Please wait here to be collected" they told us, in front of us the paths were laid out with lights so they appeared like run-ways.

I wondered if we were about to be taken on a little plane ride, but no such luck. Instead a little train came and picked us up to take us deep into the center of the park and into the middle of the zoo!!! A party in the zoo! Yes! The party had been organised by Bombay Gin, so the theme was Bombay nights. It was very cool. They had a taxi that you got in and views of Bombay were projected on to the windows, lots of cushions on the floor, and a free bar… with the drink of choice of course being gin and tonic.. yes!!

3. Andorra.

As most of you know.. I work at a *beep*.. and so most of the people who come here are not familiar with Barcelona or the surrounding area and so the *beep* works in partnership with an excursion and activity company who surprisingly enough offer.. excursions and activities.. the benefits of this to me are that I can go on any excursion free... and so having not yet taking advantage of this I decided it was time to visit the neighbouring tax free haven of Andorra to stock up on booze, fags, clothes, DVDs and beauty products as well as having the novelty of spending the day in a different country.. the downside to this was that the coach left at 7 am.. me being me, went out for dinner the night before.. but as many of you know.. with me dinner is never just dinner.. it progressed into drinks.. and a local nightclub. Anyway at some point I had some realisation of my early morning start and trundled off home at 430..
After what seemed like 10 seconds of sleep Frauline my work colleague phoned me at 6..

"Are you up? Are you awake?"

Of course I wasn't and proceeded to sleep for another 40 minutes thereby being the last on the coach.. as if that was a surprise. Anyway we set off, Frauline and I were asleep within minutes leaving our traveling companions to take some embarrassing photos.. not one to shun embarrassment I have put the sleeping photos on the space.. and yes that is a sleeping mask.. I can't be dealing with light while I'm sleeping..
After 2 hours we stopped for a loo break and a quick coffee... I'm not really sure where we were other than somewhere in the heart of Catalunya - in between Barcelona and the Pyrenees. but the people in the roadside café were truly inbred weasels of the highest degree. i was scared...i scuttled off back to the coach only to wake up when we reached our destination..
Off we got with the trip organiser handing out maps.. 'You really won't need these - the town is so small it's impossible to get lost' .. 'there are two main shopping streets and at the end you'll find the old parliament building' easy peasy..

Leander, one of the guys we were with, had no interest in shopping (crazy fool) and wanted to go trekking! HA! Trekking.. when there are so many shops in close proximity.. oh no my friend..
Anyway, off we went down the main shopping street.. to be honest i was a bit disappointed.. we found Zara.. cheap cheap clothes.. and a couple of other shops but nothing really too great.. although saying this I did manage to blow a couple of hundred euro .. anyway we wanted to see the old parliament building before we had to go back so as we came to the river .. we'd walked a pretty long way up the road.. we thought we must be getting close.. it looked about 8 minutes away on the town plan.. out came the maps...
Hmmm.. there was no river on the map... strange...
nor did the street we were on appear...
curiouser and curiouser..
we decided to ask a passer by..
Lo and behold we had walked off the map in a completely different direction, had bipassed both shopping streets (no wonder the shops were crap) and were now at the opposite end of the town to the parliament building...

Why why does it always happen to me?

After a bit of bantering about trying to find out how to get back we made it up the shopping street (niiiiicee shops no time) and eventually up to the old parliament, who should we come across but Leander. He'd been trekking up through the Pyrenees and seen a stunning waterfall and had a nice picnic and an altogether jolly old time... Suddenly our jeering of his trekking idea was not so amusing..

Anyway it had been a long day and once again back on the coach Frauline and I went straight to sleep only to be victimised by the boys cameras.. but i needed the rest.. it was Saturday night.. which meant.. more mojitos and DANZATORIA!!!!!! I really think they should start paying me some kind of promoters fee I mention it so much and badger so many people into going!

Elegant club-bar in a beautiful house on a suburban hillside frequented by the Barca florinata - that’s posh people to you and me. Upmarket and sometimes a little posey the house is actually an old family palazzo, three floors of which have been turned into a club-bar by the offspring of the owners who also run the sexy more minimalist Club Danzatoria down by the port. Quite what the neighbours think we have no idea but the beauties in here will make your head spin almost as much as the strong sangria cocktails that the welcoming bar staff prepare. Stays open until after 3am and there’s no charge. Sexy Spanish decadence doesn’t get much better than this.

As usual this was followed by cheese-mania at Atlantic and yet another late night.. at this rate I may well turn into a bat.

Sunday afternoons in Barcelona are great.. I say afternoon as opposed to sunDAY as it is highly unlikely I see anything before around 2pm.. but it's nice to stroll along by the port, have a delish ice-cream and maybe catch an evening movie.. I happened to see a film called Samaritan Girl the other day.. a Korean offering about teenage prostitutes.. very very strange .. I wouldn't recommend it!

4. Salsa classes
After three months of salsa classes with classmates who are truly the worst, most uncoordinated, completely lacking in rhythm dancers I have ever seen.. it was time for the salsa exam..
I don't think our teachers held out much hope for the class having not been able to cover all the material necessary to pass to the second course but we went ahead anyway.. a friend of mine, always comes and helps out at class.. he likes to dance salsa at every opportunity even though he's in advanced class now.. and so at the end of the exam the teacher said to him.. you can definitely go through to the second course.. you're really good!! he's already done second course I told her.. oh right. she said... then she just looked at me.. and carried on.. I guess that's a fail then..
Went to dance salsa with my housemate Aria and either I'm really really crap or HC just makes up his own moves.. I have come to the conclusion that he definitely makes up his own moves as my friend danced with him too and had no idea what he was up to!

5. Torremolinos
Things never ever seem to go to plan for me.. I was really looking forward to an entire weekend of proper english banter with Brodie and J away from Catalans and Germans.. and had booked my flight down to Málaga.. the week could just not go fast enough for my liking.. even tho it was filled with free bar parties.. and so as soon as I finished work I raced down to the airport.. almost missed the plane.. eek.. but got on.. only for it to be delayed for over an hour due to some Japanese plane trashing the runway.. not a good start

Anyway I finally got to Malaga.. J was waiting for me at the airport..(without a drink) but there was plenty of time for that.. and off to Torremolinos we went.. a quick shower and change of clothes and I would be ready to let the festivities commence..unfortunately my contact lens dissappeared somewhere in my eye.. this happens now and again and after a bit of poking it normally just drops out.. not this time.. after about 45 minutes of poking and rubbing my eye it still had not appeared.. err J I think I may have to go to the emergency room.. luckily after tipping half a bottle of liquid into my eye it finally fell out and we were back on track even tho my eye was rather red and swollen!

We headed off to a local bar for our first drink of the evening.. funnily enough the bar happened to be a kareoke bar and what better way for me to get over the contact lens incident than for J to get up and belt out 'You've lost that Loving feeling' to an entire bar full of pikeys.. half of which joined in and gave him a huge round of applause and some whistles at the end of his performance.. unfortunately the table of ladies next to us that J had his eye on made a sharp exit when J got up to sing.. I think it may have been when J gave them the old`'You're beautiful' line with a cheeky wink during the musical interlude that they got their bags and headed for the door.

Anyway the bar wasn't exactly pumping it up so we headed on down to a place known as 24 hour square.. surprisingly enough a square.. full of bars and clubs with promotors trying to harrass you into their bars with various different drinks offers.. we settled on a place that offered 2 drinks for 7 euros.. nice.. we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves until we realised we were in fact in a gay bar.. not so clever now.. we saw our drinks away and decided to head on down to the beach front where there were many more bars to choose from.. we danced away the night doing lots of clapping (popular in Spain) and when we got kicked out and it was time to go home J and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to walk back along the sand.. after all the taxi took less than 10 minutes so it couldnt have been more than 2 or 3 km..

At 6am the water looked too tempting and so I suggested a quick dip.. J wasted no time in getting naked and running on down to the water. I at least kept my underwear on. The water was so warm!!!! It was the best swim in the sea ever, the looks from bemused passers-by were also quite funny... unfortunately brodie wasn't around that night to steal j's clothes and run away with them..

We finally made it back to the hotel an hour later and in daylight only to find ourselves locked out... I guess it served us right for being dirty stop outs!

The next day we managed to drag our lazy arses out of bed and make it down to the beach with J's new purchase - an enormous rubber ring. A good idea in theory but causes much arm muscle injury if you're not strong enough to pull yourself up into it - yes that would be me.

Anyway Brodie arrived that afternoon and off we headed again to 24 hours square. The night was pretty comical but as this is a family newsletter I have decided to edit the contents and keep J's antics that night on the quiet.. some of you have already heard about the adventures of that evening but as I don't wish to offend anyone I'll keep it out of this newsletter.. it WAS funny though! oh J..

I have rambled on for far too long again and i think i've bored you stupid now with my banter.. the next few days were spent recovering especially after getting whiplash at the waterpark.. I long for the day when I can do something without incident.