Barcelona Adventures Part Uno: ¡Hola tío!

As promised, I am kicking off Tuesday with a quick whirl around Barcelona!  A ramble down the Ramblas, if you will.  (Yes, I am aware of how terrible that pun is.  I already regret it, but I know you will all still love me, even in this state.)  

First thing to know about Barcelona:
They are so obsessed with their football (soccer) team that
they even have their own brand of chips.   

I should've known that my Barcelona trip would be good (and by good I mean completely absurd) from the very beginning because my flight was quite.. interesting to say the least.  I met a fellow traveler from Mexico who was going to Barcelona for a few hours to pick up his belongings before he went back to school in Switzerland. -- Reasons I love Europe:  You can say things like, "I'm just going to Dublin for the weekend!" -- Everything was great until he started talking about how he was smuggling drugs and then proceeded to tell the person in the seat next to me that I was his girlfriend and asked to sit next to me.  So I ended up spending my entire 7.5 hour flight with him.  


And it was actually pretty great!  We watched movies, he tried to flirt with the very gay flight attendant to get free booze (and sadly failed), and exchanged stories about our respective homelands.  Once we got to Barcelona, he helped me with all my stuff all the way until city center.  (Yay for batting my eyelashes and not having to carry heavy things.  Except RAWR! girl power all the way I totally could have done it myself.  But in the great words of Phoebe Buffay, "Oh, I wish I could, but I don't want to.")   


Once I got to S & L's place, I got to eat the yummiest Spanish lunch ever -- homemade paella.  Yes, I asked for the most typical Spanish dish ever.  Sue me.  That shit is good and you know it.  Shortly after, JMS, who I hadn't seen in 2 years finally came!  I kind of jumped on him like a spider monkey and didn't let go for a while. 

I didn't take a picture of L's paella but this one is equally as good!
(courtesy of Flickr user jlastras)

It was really after lunch that the craziness started.  Read more after the jump!