Easter

Easter in Barcelona:For Easter a few of the girls and I decided to have an Easter Brunch, somewhat similar to those we usually attend or hold in the U.S. Emily and I decided to host it at our apartment! Before the guests arrived, Emily and I took a nice hike up Montjuic and walked around for about an hour or so. It was a beautiful day, somewhat chilly, but after a while we were both warmed up. When we returned home we showered and cooked, and anxiously awaited the arrival of our guests! Lauren’s friends from home were visiting her, so she brought them over. Other attendees included our friends Usman, Jaklyn, Emily S., Sarah, and Lisa and her mom when they returned from Paris. I made some mean deviled eggs that everyone thankfully enjoyed, thanks to my Mom’s recipe! Unable to find a can of pickles, I resorted to buying a can of “Sweet Pickled Vegetables” which ended up consisting of little kabobs floating in pickle-ish juice. Each kabob stick was adorned with a “pickle”, olive, onion, and carrot-type thing. Basically I took the “pickle” off of it and chopped it up to use in the deviled eggs, and they turned out great! I originally wanted to prepare some twice baked potatoes but was unable to find sour cream at the grocery stores. I’m almost positive they don’t sell it in Barcelona; however I have heard that they sell it at the Russian food store downtown. Because I have no idea where this store is, nor what sour cream is called in Russian (note I can read Russian because I took a quarter of it), I passed on the what-would-have-been-heavenly twice baked potatoes (also Mom’s recipe). Emily made a delicious chicken pot-pie via a recipe she found online at some “healthy” website; Lauren and her friends brought a delightful fruit salad, bread and cheese, and a tasty corn mush casserole thing; Jaklyn brought a savory vegetarian rice dish; Emily S. brought some chocolate cookies; and Usman brought some sweet Catalan desserts. It was a great feast topped with some sparkly mimosas. I’ve discovered after holding this event that I really enjoy hosting potlucks like this. Cleaning the apartment, setting up the tables and seating arrangements, and getting ready for our guests was so exciting! Later that evening Lauren’s friends and I went to a club called Otto Zutz. It was a freeeezing night, and we had to take taxis there and back. Waiting for the taxis, flagging them down, and enduring the ride in them was a drag because it was SO COLD and WINDY outside. The club didn’t start getting busy until we left, at 4am. I didn’t have a WHOLE lot of fun, but it was fun being with Lauren’s friends because they are hilarious! If anything, Barcelona has made me realize that I am definitely not a party person. I always enjoy myself more when I am at home or a friend’s house hanging out with friends and relaxing. I’m not really into the whole “going out” thing, which is sad because that’s what everyone my age enjoys doing. I just don’t really like the whole scene. I call myself a grandma for this reason, and it comforts me knowing that Lauren and Emily are also grandmas! If I am going to drink, I’d rather do so in good company, and in an environment in which I know I am going to have fun in. I’m a pretty homey person, I guess, not that outgoing. I don’t know, but this is definitely something I have realized about myself since I have been here. Later that week Lauren and her friends invited us to celebrate their St. Patrick’s Day together. It is one of her friend’s favorite holidays, and she wanted to celebrate it in Barcelona with Lauren because she had finals at UCI on the actual St. Patty’s Day this year. Emily and I forced ourselves to go out with them, fighting our tiredness and hatred towards the fact that we would have to ride the nigh bus in the early hours of the morning, which usually takes about 45-60 minutes to get home (we have to walk to Plaza Catalunya, wait for it to arrive in the cold because they only run every 20-30 minutes, and then endure the ride home with random people). We met the girls near their hostel because they had just grabbed some sandwiches for dinner. We walked back to the hostel so they could eat, and when we were getting up to leave Lauren’s friend (whose favorite holiday is St. Patty’s Day) notices her wallet is nowhere to be found. After scrounging the room for it we all panicked and started retracing her steps to the hostel from the sandwich place. After much frustration, Lauren’s friend had to call her mom from a payphone to cancel her credit cards, etc. Because the payphones in Spain are really difficult, this whole process took about an hour, which the rest of us girls did not mind at all, but it put us back for the time we had to celebrate the holiday because it was rapidly approaching the 2am closing time for the bars. Once the credit cards were cancelled we headed to a street where there are 3-4 Irish Pubs lined up and began the celebration. When it all came down to it, only a couple of the girls ended up actually “celebrating” St. Patty’s Day. Nonetheless, we had a great time. Once the girls finished their drinks at the first pub it was nearing 2am and we were stuck in a predicament about where to head next because not everyone was drinking and the bars are small, so we didn’t want to take up too much room. Emily had the idea of going to this amazing Doner Kebab place to grab some pitas. We headed over there, and after talking and laughing with the hilarious and extremely weird, scrawny, wannabe gangster server ended up at their “cocktail lounge” downstairs UNDER the shanty Doner Kebab place. The guy told us we should go check out the lounge downstairs, and we all laughed at first because it literally is just a little hole in the wall Doner place off La Rambla. Then he actually took us down there, and we ended up staying there until 4am. It was this extremely small, posh, fancy cocktail lounge with a DJ that doubled as a bartender, tables with benches and chairs, candles, music, and a flat screen TV mounted on the wall showing Spanish Music Videos. It was the MOST RANDOM thing that could have happened! And we had a blast. Literally, we were the only ones there with the DJ for about an hour, and then only 1 guy and a group of 3 Spanish people came in. It was so funny, and the Doner guy was dancing around and would come check on us every once in a while from upstairs. Two of the girls ended up bartending and had free drinks all night, which was great for them. It was such a bizarre night. To top off the club under the Doner Kebab place, Emily SLAPPED a Spanish guy across the face on the night bus because he was pestering her so bad. You have to understand that the Spanish guys, for the most part, are SO ANNOYING and harass us all the time. They are constantly yelling things at us and whistling and sometimes they even follow us around. This guy on the bus was probably our age, and was sitting behind us with two of his little accomplices. He began annoying us by grabbing Emily’s arm through the seat. Emily turned around and shot him an extremely harsh look that said “Do not do that ever again.” Then, the guy decided to start pulling on her ponytail. After the second or third time that he did it, Emily fired up, turned around, and SLAPPED him across the face! It was awesome. I had to contain my laughter until they got off, but after they got off at a stop before ours I couldn’t stop laughing about it for at least a good hour or two. It was so great. After it happened we obviously told each other we probably shouldn’t ever do anything like that again because they could have followed us home. We were extremely lucky, and we don’t plan on trying that ever again, but it made the night that much better.