This morning was absolutely rough. Though I felt like I worked off my hangover by dancing wildly for five hours, the things I felt when I woke up told me otherwise. I awoke gasping for fresh air in our hot, carbon-dioxide filled room. I was sticking to my sister and trapped under the covers. I literally dragged myself across the cold tile floor and onto the couch in the living room. Realizing that the after-effects of Absynth were much scarier than the hallucinations ever could have been, I sprinted to the kitchen and devoured five slices of white bread.
Last night, we had planned to wake up at 9am in order to catch a gothic-architecture city tour that was part of Aria’s friends’ study-abroad program. I somehow woke up before the alarm went off with only 3-hours worth of sleep under my belt. I hosed myself off with cold water while praying to Dionysus to rid me of his demons.
Quickly, we clothed ourselves in order to meet up with the tour and ran out the door. The hangover-hot-flashes were incessant and the smells of the big city were extra crude. Not a block away from our house, I felt something wet and gummy hit my foot. I immediately halted to inspect the unidentified substance. I kid you not, someone literally snot-rocketed off a balcony above and the yellow mucus was now clinging to my heel. I was frozen in place and couldn’t move if I tried. As Aria quickly tried to rinse it off with our water bottle, I held back the urge to vomit with all the power vested in me.
We tried finding the park square that the boys told us to meet them at. I asked a man on the street, “donde esta la…. university?” His eyes glosses over and he shook his head. I realized my mistake and repeated, “universidad.” All of a sudden he comprehended what I was saying and explained the directions. We thought it was rather ridiculous considering the two words are about as similar as they possibly could be. Cici’s room-mate, Sophia, said that the locals here are really uneasy about all the tourism. She said they hate when anything but their own language is spoken.
The boys were nowhere to be found at the university plaza. We were pretty bummed that we missed the free tour that was guided in English, but it was nice to sit down in the shade and get something into our bellies besides white bread. Aria said she wanted Doner Kebab, so we went to the first place we could find. It would have been nice to actually enjoy the meal, but my hangover was irked by the meat because it had the consistency of a callus. All I could stomach for now was their blended strawberry icy.
Wandering around Las Ramblas, we were able to find the famous food market of Barcelona. This open-air market was littered with hundreds of tourists and vendor booths. The saturated colors within the fruit stands drew my attention the most. There was a fish market section where the aproned workers quickly toiled to open oysters and wet their fresh goods with hoses every few minutes. Egg stands selling every species of egg you could imagine delicately stacked their product. Within the glass cases of the meat market, we thought we saw some skinned kittens, but they turned out to be rabbits.
We walked down to the marina and were amazed by the immense amount of infrastructure provided in order for people to rendezvous. There were slanted wooden benches built into the boardwalk, many stepped seats, and plenty of covered areas to get out of the sun. The restaurants really encouraged outdoor seating and wanted people to stay a while rather than rushing them through their meals like they often do in America. There was even a McDonald’s with outdoor areas, shaded by huge billowing umbrellas and interesting plantings.
After passing hundreds of insanely beautiful yachts, the smallest of which was twice the size of my home, we made it to a pebbled beach. Though most people took to the sand, we were lacking towels and this decided the pebbles would be less messy. After lying down, we realized that the smooth stones had to have been more comfortable than the sand. As the ground conformed to match the curves of our bodies, we fell into a deep sleep.
