Day 57: Tuesday December 6th, 2011
I was up at 8, and found my backpack wet on the roof due to rain, an awesome way to start the day.
I made my goodbyes to Raquel. While my time there was semi-awkward because we are hardly good friends anymore (which became that much clearer with John visiting Jordan as they were very close), I had a lot of fun and she showed me the city’s greatest hits and introduced me to a few locals and a lot of great people, even if I must not have given a good impression, since I didn’t end up getting any of their information on the book of faces. But no matter: Raquel was a great host and I’m very thankful for my time there, and she’s lucky. Seville is a very cute, beautiful, safe and relaxed city. It sure sounds like she knows where she wants to be, something I’m still looking for.
On the train, going through beautifully epic landscapes, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack was playing on the train’s speakers. This moment was ruined when The Tourist started playing on the TV, even if it was maybe a little fitting.
I arrive in Barcelona once again, working my way back up the country. I wait for a half hour and was able to purchase tickets onto Nice for 9 am tomorrow morning. There’s three transfers and I had to pay cash to pay for the seat reservation, necesitating an ATM trip and a fee to pay for my hostel. Oh joy.
While my bed bugs had died down, I made the potentially idiotic decision of going back to Kabul hostel for another night, going back to where it all began. But if I was going to stay anywhere in Barcelona, it was going to be at Kabul hostel. And ironically enough, I was assigned to Room 202 myself this time, the party room from my last day. I’m screwed for sleep tonight. I get in, and find that half the room are girls still sleeping, and it’s about two in the afternoon. Yes, this is Barcelona. Welcome back. I decide to join the nap scene while I still can.
For the free dinner, it’s chick pea soup and bread. I get 5 beers at Carrefour for 1 euro 10 with Caleb, a guy from Melbourne. We have a party-ish in room 202, where I meet Julia from Canada, Elizabeth and Nosy Natalie from Hawaii and three girls from Australia (including one super hot girl named…Nina?) who left us very early and broke my heart. I have no idea who any of those people are now.
After that, we go down to the bar, where I’m reunited with Daniel from Norway. He had found an apartment to live in, but he couldn’t stay away from the hostel to party. It was a weird feeling to return to a hostel I had been at before, especially when Daniel told me that many of my friends had just left the day before.
We play flip cup (where my side dominates) and talk, and I meet a pretty Alaskan girl with the coolest name ever: Kirin Power. She was seriously named after the beer. We talk about Into the Wild and Chris McCandless and my Mom working at an Alaskan bush camp, and I thought we connected a bit. But of course, everyone was going out to the clubs, and I wanted no part of that shit. One, I wouldn’t be able to get in with my tennis shoes in all likelihood, and I had to get up really early again. While I had so much fun in Barcelona anyways, it’s fair to wonder how much more fun I would’ve had with the right outfit and no early mornings, or no inhibitions. Kirin and I agreed to meet up in San Fran where she goes to school, or maybe in Alaska, somewhere I really want to see. Who knows if that’ll happen.
NEXT: The French Riviera. No biggie.