Technology. grr.

Today I accidently texted Garrulo when I meant to send the text to Loco. They have the same (non-blog) name.

Don't you hate it when that happens!


I have really got myself into some situations by doing that in the past. I remember one time when my ex did something to really piss me off, so I sent my friend a text raging about it. But I didn't send my friend the text did I. No, I sent it to my ex, who I then had to immediately phone and beg not to open the text, which bless his heart, he didn't and he let me delete it straight from his phone.
Well anyway, Garrulo hasn't replied.

waaaaa!

Last night we went to see Sergio Contreras - what a legend - he had dancers with silk scraves, break dancers spinning on their heads, gyrating hips and audience participation. Excellent.

Loco and Intercambio came along with Gracey, Lily and me although we lost them in the crowds.

Head Chicken also went. This is because he heard me listening to the CD and asked me about the artist whereby I happened to mention he would be playing in concert that very evening, so he went, and then told me it was the worst concert he had ever been to because it was very hot (true) and there were lots of garrulos (gypsies) (also true but amusing).

After the concert I had a dilemma. Worm was arriving and I had arranged to meet him and go with some other friends to Danzatoria but I didn't want Loco to see me with him (I have a crush) and so Lily (clever girl) dragged them off for food while I went to meet up with Worm.

I already knew before Worm came back that I didn't like him anymore. I don't know if it was because I had met Loco or some sixth sense type thing but I wasn't really relishing the idea of seeing him.

Worrying about how I was going to keep Loco and Worm separate for the night stopped me from enjoying the concert as much as I should have, and rightly so, as the night turned out to be a high stress disaster.

However, as much Lily tried, Loco and his mate still decided to come to Danzatoria, bad. Me, awkward, Loco, quiet as a mouse, Worm, bemused. It was all very stressful and at one point I was convinced that Chantelle had got it on with Loco especially as after I had said my goodbyes and gone to another club with Worm, Chantelle appeared with Loco. This really made me mad and so I decided if she and he would do that, then I would take Worm home. Which I did.

How I regret it.. I know all guys sometimes have issues etc.. but why do I choose the ones who always do. Yes, erectile disfunction - plus the fact I didn't really want to. What a mess. In the end we just ended up sleeping.

Then as a typical German, Worm decided to get up and go to the bathroom. Naked. And who should see him but intercambio, Loco's mate.

Looks like I can say goodbye to anything happening with Loco.

I spent the rest of the weekend reluctantly hanging out with Worm. I couldn't very well leave him on his own for the weekend. On Monday he had a job interview, he was then offered the job. He expects me to be delighted, which obviously I am not.

Woe is me.

Randomly my housemate Lily bumped into Loco in the street!

She took the initiative of acquring his phone number! Good girl!

I have now texted him and invited him to the concert...

Only problem is fucking Worm is coming this weekend.

Watch this space..

Why?

It’s that time again when I have to go out with my cousin in Sabadell. I am still not drinking so even though the cheese emporiums amuse me when drunk I am not sure whether they will hold the same enchantment when sober.

I am right. They are not nearly as much fun sober and when there is no alcohol to numb your high heeled feet they really hurt. And you get very tired.

I did, however, discover another disco named Malatsefestas, which has a great big BAYWATCH sign across the bar. It also has the obligatory semi-naked dancing barmaids and bar men and today a special treat – a fake tan demonstration that cuts short the music and has a woman spraying people with fake tan on the stage. Bizarre.

I became very tired far earlier than the first train is due to leave and so spend some time chatting with my cousin who has bought an apartment with Rat Steinberger. FOOL FOOL. I am aghast at this news. She is so young to be making such a commitment with such an idiot.

My favourite comments from the conversation.

(They only ever see each other at weekends) When we live together then we’ll really know whether we make a good couple or not besides we’ve already spent 2 weeks together on holiday.

AGGH! You should know that before you move in with someone.

Rat wants us to have children within 2 years

AGGH! Children? At 24? Are you mad woman?

I can take no more of this crazy speak and decide to go and wait on the cold platform for the train. As I am waiting a fight breaks out on the other side of the wall and young blokes run in and out of the station.. fascinating. The train pulls in and I decide to ask the chap sitting next to me what happened. He doesn’t appear to know but uses it as an opportunity to chat to me all the way home. He is a catalan musician who plays the sax (I think). He isn’t handsome and he reeks of beer. As soon as we reach my stop I run away as fast as I can.

On Saturday my housemate has been invited to a party by her intercambio and I decided to invite myself and Chuck decided to invite himself to wherever I was going. So the 3 of us went to meet Intercambio to go to this party. But first stop by a chupito bar (me still not drinking) I watch as the others down flaming idunnowhats and we then headed to the party. It was a skate party and so, not really my thing. I stood at started to chat with Intercambio’s mate who I shall call Loco. He seemed like a quiet little thing but the more I spoke to him, the more I thought, Hey – this is my kind of guy. We ended up ditching the party and going to another party in a swanky bar across town which was also dull. So we decided upon Arena – a big gay club in the center of Barcelona but where you normally tend to find more straight, leery pervs than actual gay men but it’s fun. By this point I was really quite fancying Loco and we had already started having little in jokes.. Besides intercambio and housemate were getting it on.

But besides that, I really liked him. I thought he was cute, funny and a little bit crazy J But I wasn’t particularly enamoured with his typical Catalan hairstyle i.e. the mullet.

I asked him if he wanted to come to a concert next week and he said he did.. :)

We all went for breakfast later and I ended up getting home at around 0830, I was so tired by this point and had fallen asleep at breakfast! So tired in fact that I forgot to give Loco my number or get his ... I now must find some way of acquiring it ..

I spend my Sunday drinking fruit juice on the beach front and going to the movies.

I watch Inside Man. It entertained me. I give it 7/10

18 May 2006

Today I had my first belly dancing lesson. I never realised that to perform this art you had to make high pitched dolphin noises.. My new teacher shakes her hips and then eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeee come on ladies eeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeee.. Erm. No. I am not one for making noises while dancing. I really never realised that belly dancing was so complicated, you have to move each set of muscles and it really is quite difficult.

I have discovered that she has a hot Andalucian housemate with beautiful eyes. Mmmm. I should like to victimise him.

Barca Barca Baaaaaaaaarrrrrca

When your boss is a football fan, and by fan I mean obsessive, and you live in Barcelona, there is no escaping it. And so it was over 2 weeks ago that I knew where I would be watching the Champions League Barcelona vs. Arsenal Final. My boss has been reserving a table at the bar next door to work for most of the matches of the season with 2 places always saved for myself and the pumpkn (my Swedish work colleague )

Having seen the mayhem that ensued after the semi final win, it was clear that if Barcelona won this game then there would be one hell of a party to be had in the city, perhaps the biggest ever seen.

At 8pm my boss left to take his place at the bar and psychologically prepare himself for the match leaving me to lock up the school. The bar was full when I arrived although the members of our table were still to arrive and every new entrance was greeted with chants of Barca Barca BBBaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrca. With 2 of the usual suspects having obtained tickets for the actual match it left and unlikely troop of expat Barcelona “supporters” including 2 australians, 2 south Africans, 2 danes, 1 german, 1 french, 1 english, my boss (dutch), me and one solitary catalan.

The papers had already been announcing the victory with headlines such as “The Day of Glory has arrived” and such like and the atmosphere in Barcelona was buzzing if a little tense.

Sitting at the middle of the table I had the southern hemisphere crowd on one side of me and my boss and real followers on the other. Note: that the southern hemisphere crowd tend to come to every game but seem to have no real interest in football, the current match or who wins, they just like to enjoy the ride and tend to spend the vast majority of the match chatting about anything, everything and where they should go for dinner after the game.

At half time with only 1 (allowed) goal for arsenal in the first half, there was a nervy yet confident air in the place. I admittedly was torn, on one hand a win for arsenal would mean a good 9 hours sleep on the other hand a win for Barcelona and there would be no better place in the world to be than the city I was in.. no contest really!

45 minutes, 2 goals and a victory for Barcelona later we emerged out of the bar onto the streets of Barcelona already to find the mayhem beginning. Thousands of people had begun to pour into the streets, on foot, mopeds and in cars to join in the celebrations.

I saw something similar last year when Barça won something or other but this was even crazier, I walked down to Plaza Catalunya with Chuck and it was chaos. Thousands and thousands of people, drinking, smashing stuff (weeey). Walking down my street the roads were gridlocked with cars, mopeds, people, bikes all singing Barça Barça .. It was mad and extremely noisy. I could see that my bedtime would be postponed and it was .. until 4am..so unsurprisingly today I am sehr tired.

gggrrowl

So it's been a couple of weeks since the Garrulo incident and communication has virtually ceased. So much for an alleged boyfriend. he is now my alleged ex-bf.

The one occasion that I did speak to him he told me he's been ill and unable to use his mobile.

Bullshit? You decide. Whatever it is - I've had about enough.

A BBQ

We had the most perfect day just eating in the garden overlooking Montserrat. Most of us had caught the train, but one of the guys thought he would cycle all the way from Barcelona.. which I guess would’ve been fine if he had a map, and the people on the way hadn’t given him the wrong directions, which in the end meant he arrived at 6pm for a lunch time barbecue.

In the late afternoon we decided to go for a walk to a water hole about 40 minutes away, we scrabbled down the hillside and climbed boulders until we found it and then splashed like children in a gorgeous waterfall we found there, lots of the group decided to get naked but this was not for me, so the pleasures of the waterfall remain unknown.

I decided to ride one of the bikes that we had taken back to the house and as I sped along going faster and faster, I wondered to myself why I had ever stopped bike riding because it was really quite fun, and I was quite enjoying myself, until I reached a sharp curve and found myself unable to slow down in time …

I took the curve at a ridiculously fast speed, the bike wobbled but luckily didn’t fall, and I didn’t go over the edge but I scared myself shitless and remembered why I no longer rode a bike.

As well as being a beautiful spot for chillaxing, tree hugger’s garden also doubled up as a small marijuana plantation and when we got back from our walk we indulged in bread and green butter sprinkled with brown sugar, which was surprisingly tasty. I didn’t really notice any effect until I was on the train back to Barcelona and I started hysterically laughing to myself…

I spent the rest of the evening going to two unbelievably dull and boring parties and then I went for a drink with Tex and some of his friends although I spent most of the time in my own green butter little world..

Crossing a line

I returned home from my holiday with a kidney infection so decided to take the month off drinking to recuperate.

I had been prescribed antibiotics in Andalucia but was still in pain on my return so I decided to see the Doc here. The Doc here turned out to be a complete bitch who told me I had nothing more than muscular pain, prescribed very strong ibuprofens for 7 days and had to be convinced into letting me take a urine test, not even a blood test! Which was to be taken a week later, what a waste of time – por favor!

The Red Bull Air Race (6 May 2006)

Having seen the ads and the website, I thought that it might be an interesting way to pass a Sunday afternoon so off I went to meet Jack and co down at the beach.

Normally I like to walk down to the beach, takes about an hour but it’s good exercise but I decided to get the metro for timing purposes. What a mistake, I couldn’t even get to the platform there were so many people and so I had no choice but to walk.

I called Jack to find out his coordinates and he informed me that he was in an excellent spot with a great view. I was immediately suspicious, having seen the vast numbers of people on their way to the beach I suspected Jack had done something crazy like, climbing on top of a building for example. When I reached my destination I found the reality was worse, Jack was on top of a wooden trellis type construction used to provide shade to the restaurant tables

The only way up was to climb on a chair, then a table, then climb up a stack of wobbly plastic chairs which kept wobbling. I didn’t like my chances but decided to join the newly formed queue – lots of people had decided to follow Jack’s lead

Once I reached the top my nerve left me and I had to have my hand held as I tiptoed across the rickety wooden slats to sit on the edge. Urghh.. Fear.

I was surprised that no-one had come to throw us off yet as some of slats had already cracked and broken through due to imbeciles who sat in the middle instead of the concrete edge. My surprise didn’t last long however, as the Mossos soon appeared to get us all down. Jack, the little rebel that he is decided to rebel for as long as possible, while I tried to get down as soon as possible. I scrambled down the chairs and Jack swung down like a monkey, and swung, and swung while the Mossos looked on, slightly miffed. When he finally did let go they were on hand to hand out a bollocking.

We watched the planes for a while but I soon got bored and decided to make my way home. We had been invited to Chuck’s for supper and I had to get changed.

On my way home I had a bit of eye contact with a guy who then stopped, turned around and asked me for a light. I obliged, a mistake, the guy decided to try it on all the way up the Ramblas, this is nothing new, the Ramblas, Randoms and me are three things that seem intertwined. And to be fair he was fairly hot, but anyone who tries to pick women up on the Ramblas is not really for me.

I ran home, changed, met Gracey and ran out again. We hailed a taxi and my mobile rang. Garrulo – I haven’t heard from him in a week, I have no idea what’s going on. He tells me he is ill with an ear infection and has been in bed for a week. I am not sure whether to believe this or not but for the time being he is being given the benefit of the doubt.

Chuck prepared for us a delicious meal which was immensely tasty and he then brought out the Jaegermeister. Unfortunately I was unable to partake due to the old kidneys but when Grace and Jack left I decided to stay and watch a movie.

We watched Life Aquatic and he stroked my hair while I laid in his lap and stroked his leg. The stroking continued throughout the film and by the end I was seriously turned on.

Just recently I have been having dreams about kissing Chuck and was thinking about the possibility of fancying him. Which I never have, and in fact on the first day I met him I thought he was creepy.

At that moment I decided that I did fancy him and when he asked me if I was staying, my answer was yes.

I changed into a T-shirt of his and got into bed laying on his chest.. the stroking started up again but this time much friskier than before. At one point he stopped, sighed and exclaimed what are we doing?? I didn’t know or particularly care, I was horny as hell. It was when I tried to kiss him he stopped me and said

I’m sorry, I can’t kiss you.

Why not?

Because we’re friends and this would fuck things up.

I shrugged, sighed and rolled over and tried to sleep

The next day he got up while I was still sleeping and things were a little bit strained.

I decided walking home that I couldn’t tell anyone about this as there are already lots of people who think that he fancies me, not so many who think that I fancy him however. Well I now definitely know that he does not.

The next day I didn’t call him and I went for a huge dose of cinematic excitement in the form of Mission Impossible III with Andy. I then went home alone.

I spent the next week at home watching TV every night, trying to feel better about my kidneys but did agree to attend a BBQ at Grace’s tree hugging bf’s house in the countryside.

My alleged Boyfriend?

So for my birthday I had a party.

I invited all my friends and Garrulo (kind of) but not Beardman, definitely not.

It was going well, everyone was having a good time and Garrulo arrives with his Italian friend (I think she fancies him but that's another story). They are already both fairly drunk and within a short while I.F. has passed out so I put her to bed in my room.

I start off fairly cold towards Garrulo as I didn't exactly invite him, I invited his friend and assumed that he would come too. But as the evening wore on and he entertained my friends with his singing and semi-naked dancing we spoke more and he told me that he wanted something serious with me instead of this semi-on/off-fling we've been having.

He says this quite often, and I always say no, let's not rush blah blah. My normal commitment-phobe discourse but on this occasion after saying no a few times, he gave me an ultimatum - I want something serious with you, otherwise nothing.

Hmm. I like garrulo, he is crazy but I don't want to not see him. So maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the birthday euphoria, whatever it was I agreed.

I also disappeared into my housemate's bedroom to consummate the decision.

The party wound down and we (Garrulo and I) got into my bed with I.F., don't worry, I'm not that shameless, we didn't do anything more.

The next morning Garrulo was a little funny with me but I guessed his hangover was on a par with mine so thought nothing of it.

Over the next few days I received daily phone calls and messages and so I guess that allegedly he is now my boyfriend although I haven't seen him since and I'm now away for a few days.

Worm Doubts

Looking back it was perhaps foolish to think I could "love" someone after knowing them for a few hours..

All I can think of is the stubby toes..

And he's coming over to Barcelona for a job interview.

Aggggggggh

Why do I always get bored so soon?

Bad news

Went to a friend's house party at the weekend. I asked Garrulo if he wanted to come but fortunately he didn't make it in time.. We met later at a club where I discovered he was totally plastered and insisted on taking clothes off, on the dancefloor.. hmm

I ended up going home with him in a taxi, now I don't have a great recollection of the journey back but at one point I seem to recall him slapping me. Not cool. I think I said something to offend him but slapping me is not the answer. Nor is slapping anyone. This guy has issues.

Stood up

Well I've been in Valencia for a couple of days on work and on my return arranged to see Garrulo. He said he was working late but would come and collect me from my house and we'd go for dinner.

He called me a couple of times to say he'd be later than expected but in the end he stood me up.

Bastard.

Twats

Men are peculiar aren't they.

I was with Beardman last night, I know I know, but there I was. Anyway, when we're together alone I really feel that he likes me and wants to do other stuff, stuff that involves clothes and places that aren't bedrooms or sofas.. but then after not hearing from him for days, weeks, months I start to figure that maybe it was just man chat to get into my knickers again.

I had a nasty experience with a guy a couple of weeks ago. I'm in a club and a guy starts up a conversation with me, I don't have any particular desire to speak to this person but humour his nationalistic Catalan rant taking particular interest in his theory that Catalan men only use foreign girls for a quick shag and a bit of fun (hmm, could this be Beardman's logic) but if they are looking for a stable partner then they will always go for a Catalan girl. I don't know why he decided to impart this information to me, especially after finding out that I was a Guiri (Spanish word for foreigner) but he did and I listened before becoming bored and a little bit annoyed with his discourse and excused myself to go and dance.

I'm dancing away and said guy approaches me. I continue to dance, he tries to kiss me, I push him away and ask what the fuck he thinks he's doing. He replies that he thought I wanted to kiss him, I give a look of disgust move to another part of the dancefloor and continue dancing. He comes over again, grabs my head with both hands and tries to kiss me. I protest and push him away shouting some kind of insult before hurriedly leaving the club in shock.. feeling a little violated by his behaviour.

I was in the VIP area of a top club in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. But how many other men have the same opinion as him... Is this a view widely held by Catalan men? and does this explain why they are such fuckers when it comes to us unsuspecting guiri's?

My other thought regarding Beardman was that maybe he had a girlfriend. So when he left me sleeping when he went off to work, I did a little investigatory work to find evidence.

Bathroom - Mostly male/unisex products although did find some intimate cleansing gel. I thought only women used this?

Living room - Earrings and a Necklace!! Dun Dun DUH.. Could be his sister's or a friends.. but why would they have taken them off.

Unfortunately this is where my role as Inspector Gadget came to an end as I was late for work..

So the question still is: Why is Beardman such a twat?

Ho hum

Met a guy at the Kaiser Chiefs concert the other day. Another ex-pat new to Barcelona, swapped numbers so we could hang out one time.. Nothing more.

Hooked up on Friday night for a bit of partying, ended up back at his for some food and blah blah blah.

I don't think it will happen again.. Now we can quite happily be friends without any sexual tension cos we already have all that out of the way. And there wasn't any spark between the sheets anyway.

I do think he'll make a good drinking buddy though.

Grr

This weekend I had some friends visiting. As usual, I took them out and about, my favourite bars, nightclubs etc.. and who should I bump into but Beardman, who was very very drunk and didn't really seem all that excited to see me! How rude!

I had already told my friend that if I were to see him, I would be cool, composed and distant, yeh well that didn't go to plan.. and now Beardman probably thinks I'm chasing him

Grr.

Shameless Hussy? Yes I am

Well since my little depressive stage in January I have been on a roll on the man front.

Other than simultaneously dating (if it can be called that) Beardman and Garrulo, I also pulled on a ski weekend, met Worm, experienced my first Scandinavian lover and had a cheeky snog with a hot guy. Good work if I do say so myself.

I'm now off to England for a few days to take some time off.. or will I..

Someone else gets all the fun

My friend was over for a few days with the express intention of experiencing a Ninja Wenzday!

Well, I couldn't let him down so I grabbed some recruits and hit the town for a few bevvies.

Unfortunately my friend is allergic to alcohol and this has always seemed to make up such a large part of Ninja Wenzday.. although in the end he didn't seem to mind and we all ended up going home to my 38 yr old colleague's apartment for drinks. (By we I am referring to my colleague, My friend, my colleague's Swedish friend that I slept with a few weeks ago..

My friend ended up in said colleague's bed and swedish guy and I ended up trying to sleep on the sofa. No hanky panky.

I think judging from the smile on his face and the fact that he spent the rest of his time in Bcn shacked up with my colleague - my friend had a good time :)

Cupid strikes

Wow!

I actually think I've met a nice guy, like a really nice guy! I'll call him Worm. (Long story)

We met through mutual friends at a karaoke bar of all places. I thought he was quite hot. He saw me do my debut of "Linger" by the Cranberries very badly. But he still spoke to me after. Good sign.

I had already arranged to meet another friend to see the awesome Eric Morillo at Pacha so unfortunately could not stay long enough to see him sing, although we swapped numbers and he agreed to meet me there.

Unfortunately he couldn't get in for whatever reason so we arranged by text to meet the next day for a date! A real date! Check me out.

The date was sooo nice, we went and sat on the beach and chatted, and looked into each other's eyes, and let the tension build up before we kissed. We then walked along the beach and made promises to see each other again soon (he had to go back to Germany that afternoon) and I think it might be love.

The only thing is - he has stubby fingers and toes. I am quite parcial to long slender fingers (shallow, yes, deal with it), maybe I won't notice.

Ahhhh.

Carnaval 2006

Once again it was Carnaval in Barcelona..

Walking through the streets as a a cowboy I found myself passing fairys, ninjas, other cowboys, gangsters.. it was very surreal..

Like last year I wanted to go to the Sitges Carnaval parade but unfortunately as I had pulled the calf muscles in my right leg and was unable to walk I had to sack this off in favour of staying in and making pancakes.. there's always next year..