I traveled to Europe with my friends in the Fall of 2019. I wasn’t looking for the usual tourism and sight-seeing. My interest was just plain drinking, people-meeting and making the most of every single moment. After several binge-drinking evenings, intermittent blackouts, and excruciating hangovers I went to some other cities on my own. It was hands down, one of the best experiences of my life. And I’ve had quite a few.
After three amazing nights in Berlin (I’ll tell you about that part of the trip if you buy me a beer), I flew early in the morning to Barcelona with the help of my friend Daniel – I don’t know how I could even walk – and stayed at a friend’s house between Av. Gaudi and the ultra-famous unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral. We walked for a while and sat in a large, busy plaza, then went to the Rambla and entered the Mercado de la Boquería, where you can find all kinds of delicious food for a reasonable price. It was quite crowded and there were some things I wasn’t sure I would eat, but overall it’s a very interesting place to visit, especially if you enjoy Spanish gastronomy. My mission was to ingest as much serrano ham as I could while in Spain.
Later on, we met Laura, my roomie/hostess for two nights, and she took us to have some tapas nearby. Again, delicious food found in the form of little chorizos, tortillas, papas bravas, serrano ham and much more. Always paired with a refreshing “caña”(glass of beer), of course.
We were supposed to meet the other two guys of our entourage in the evening at their hostel, the St. Christopher’s Inn, which I highly recommend by the way. It’s very well located and modern, has colorful facilities, and a great bar to have some drinks/food, watch sports, and hang out. As in any hostel, the most appealing thing is the possibility of meeting people from different countries.
After having some beers & cocktails it was time to go out. We walked for a while before getting to a somewhat small place in the Carrer de Blai street, where they sell tasty mini-tapas (or pinchos) with different ingredients. This was another awesome recommendation from Laura, and it would not be the last. We wanted to go somewhere to party but the city was undergoing a massive protest so everything was closed that day (it was a Tuesday also).
The next day we started our journey by doing a free walking tour. I was having some lower back pain and I couldn’t bear standing still for long, so I decided to go to the beach with good old Jose Gabriel (the guy in the picture who is about to sneeze) and Andrea, another friend who had been living there for a while. We relaxed at the Playa de la Barceloneta while having some beers and fooled around with a tiny bottle of “absynthe”, which can be found in several stores. That’s some nasty shit. Not pleasant to drink at all, let alone snort it. However, it helped us get in the mood I guess.
The rest of the group joined us and as we enjoyed the sunset, we walked to still another great restaurant where we had amazing tapas and beer, called Bar Jai-Ca. Laura invited us to her place, which was great for me, as I needed a resurrective shower before continuing with my enterprise.
At night, we went to a large, spacious bar near Razzmatazz to have some drinks. It was almost empty but we needed to kill some time, so we just sat and got wasted, which would make it quite difficult for us to be allowed inside the famous disco/concert venue. Luckily enough for me, it was just a “get your shit together and you can go inside” from the security guy. We had a great time and enjoyed the last party we would have together in Europe.
There were a lot of dancers, lights, and screens on the stage and some rock classics that were played were highly appreciated by us. I walked around the place, already drunk, but don’t remember much, except trying to dance with some strangers and then going back to my friends.
We stayed at Razz until they kicked everybody out, then had a confusing moment outside, as my associates had passed out on the sidewalk, while waiting for a cab to take us. I was about to start an argument with some guys who “stole our taxi”. Thankfully, Andrea stepped up and made sure we got our ride. I managed to sleep in the hostel that night, while Juanes stayed at Laura’s, and in the early morning we had to prepare our trip to Stockholm.
We will never forget that night, singing and jumping, while our anthem “Bohemian Rhapsody” was playing. Well, except the memories forever lost on those awful, unavoidable drunkard blackouts some of us are so used to live with…