4/10/09 mountains, castles, pubs, and prostitutes

We headed up to Montjuic by cable car and the castle up at the top was quite impressive. On one side was the massive city of Barcelona spreading out as far as the eye could see, and on the other side was the beautiful pristine blue ocean trailing off into the horizon.

From Barcelona Trip

Next, we walked down through the mountain park towards the Olympic Stadium and saw some interesting buildings along the way. For dinner we went to Spain's equivalent of Applebee's (Happy) and I ordered a lamb curry meal and a water. Of course they brought out carbonated water that tasted like crap in a glass bottle that I had to pay for. Dicks.

From Barcelona Trip

After a nap and shower it was time to head out to TravelBar for their infamous 1 Euro meal, which for the day was a moderately tasty pasta + chili. While waiting for the pub crawl to start an entire rugby team, obviously hammered and very loud, came into the bar, but after causing a commotion they were told to leave before the pub crawl even started.

The pub crawl was very cool and they had this game where you had to find your "partner" who had the same piece of paper catchphrase as you, and mine was "Not Tonight Princess". I met a lot of interesting people from all over the world including some guy from London who reminded me of my friend Leslie, some guys from France, a guy from Toronto, some girls from Cali + Jersey, and a couple of cute Welsh Girls.

Nate and Hannah left before going to the final club because Nate was feeling sick, so Jackie and I soldiered on. I danced with some random girls for a while but it wasn't working out so we left and tried to navigate our way back through Barcelona's sketchy nighttime streets to Jackie's hostel. We finally got there past 3:30am and I made the long walk back to my hostel alone.

I had the brilliant idea that my return trip would go much smoother if I avoided all the guys trying to sell beer in the middle of the La Rambla street by walking on the far sides of the street. Genius. Little did I remember is that the edges was where all the prostitutes hung out. Less than 5 minutes into my walk back a short dark skinned lady of the night had her arms on me and was complimenting me on everything from how I was dressed to my manly physique.

Now as much as I love ego-stroking it was starting to get a little ridiculous when she would not leave me alone after I made it very clear I wanted nothing to do with her. She must have seen my dismissiveness as me trying to negotiate her cost of services to a lower price... so she proclaimed that since she liked me I could get a blowjob for "only 10 Euro". Damn, the girl really knew how to drive home a sale (I guess in her line of work you have to get good at it). However, my resolute principles were not swayed by her hard bargain.

Instead I proposed a counter offer, of "if I give you the 3 Euro in change in my pocket will you leave me alone?" Big mistake. That was the equivalent of throwing bread crumbs in front of a pack of seagulls... once they know you have food they are never going to leave. Of course she continued pressing for more and telling me about how bad it was for people who had to work the streets. That sucks, but I won't be swayed by your jedi mind tricks.

Eventually I made it back to my hostel where a group of other people my age were going inside... Freedom! Of course she protested and said that I should go with her, but I was steadfast. I firmly pushed her off of my arm, looked her in the eye and said "good luck", then walked inside without looking back. On the bright side, at least I had 10 more Euro to buy me breakfast at McDonald's in the morning.