Futbol Fever!

The mighty clash that sends football fans insane. Barcelona Football team versus Real Madrid..... You will never see bars and restaurants as full than during this match. But rather than the one deciding game they play five games, what the?

Last night was match 4 and ow it certainly sent the city high when Messi scored that last goal it was super impressive!!

But more impressive was after the match holy moly horns were out, guys were hugging, some even crying, and everyone was singing.. but the real action was on Las Ramblas! After the game finished at around 10:30pm everyone went onto ramblas to celebrate, drinking, chanting, letting off crackers... and at 2am thousands of people were still celebrating the win with absolutely no signs of going home

This was an experience i can not even describe.. we don't have it in Australia! but to show you i took some videos to show how insane these football fans are... and some are just plane stupid!!!

Paris

Ahhh the famous Paris




 Different to the architecture in Barcelona which is unique to gaudi and Muntaner, Paris offers a style typically baroque and romanesc. It is so easy to stare at the buildings for ages and i did .

Going to paris is not a holiday it is a non-stop hussle to see as many of the attractions as you can while trying to enjoy the gastronomy. And may i say it is quite a challenge!     

In the time i was there i explored The Louvre, climbed the Eiffel Tower, wandered through Muesum d'orsay, Sacre Coeur, Arc de triumph and Notre Dame. All Magnificent!


Venus de Milo - Simpsons episode where this statue is
a gummy lolly that Homer steals from the confectionary expo



It was pretty amazing to be standing in front of famous monuments and art pieces such as the mona lisa, Picasso, Di Vinci, Rembrant, and lots of other artists who i dont know ... but produced pretty pictures or statues..

It was a slap in the face realising that my ability to recognise certain pieces of art was mostly from tv and movies (of course The Divinci Code).



It was a real treat to visit Moulin Rouge not only for the amount of boobs we saw but being in such a beautiful theatre with yummy champagne. We saw some crazy stunts where a guy juggled 8 stick things, and lifted a girl with his head.... no photos were allowed to be taken  so your just going to have to believe me




There was a big mix up with the hostel and so the group of us stayed in the red light district of paris.. and wow it was like bing in the broncs..  Seeing this before the rest of Paris made my first impressions of Paris pretty ordinary.



My first meal was in a small cafe just up the road from the hostel now the food and the cafe certainly did justice to the famous French cuisine  ehhh but the surroundings they were well not what i expected.. i counted 6 japonese restaurants from my seat, and there was a commercial grocery store next door.  But still good!  



The Canal



When the other Aussies went to disneyland i had the day to myself to wander the city and visit the tourist spots... it was great and i made some friends from the hostel up the road and later that night we went down to the canal where all the local people sit on the sides of the canal with friends eating nibblies and champagne. It was absolutely amazing to see for about a kilometre both sides of the Canal were full with people. But also it was a shock to see how many Parisians smoke EVERYONE!!

We decided to join in with the locals however we were less prepared we didn't have cups... so showing class we drank out of the bottles. woops. Didn't seem to bother anyone because they were just happy one of us could provide a light for their cigarettes.

For a light dinner we stopped off at a little french restaurant and ordered all 6 of the entrees on the menu and a bottle of wine.. all i can say is wow. the food was amazing. One dish - red grapes covered in some kind of cream cheese and coated with crushed pistacio nuts, chargrilled veg and pesto .... and eeewww duck liver pate
Afterwards we went to a disco a really trendy place with great music, house, electronic, dubstep.. GREAT NIGHT!!

On the last day i shopped... i could have bought soooo much.

 I explored the streets for 6 hours which only to confirm the fact that i am a poor ass student who can not afford the shop in Paris, but although my feet and my back killed it was worth it... the streets and The Galleries shopping centre is absolutely stunning! This is a photo taken inside the shopping centre.. fit for a queen it is!!

And that my friends was my trip to Paris...

NEW adventures

Well this weekend i started moving my stuff into MY NEW APARTMENT. i think im going to be really happy there. its right in the center of the city in the gothic areas - so think narrow cobble stone streets and big gothic doors. i love it.. im living with a mexican guy who has been living in Barcelona for 4 years and an italian girl my age. They are super nice and already i can have a laugh with them... its great

My room is sooooo lovely it has a balcony where lots of sunlight comes in and a little chair that i can sit on outside...



Oh and this is Marija



i was really excited about the fact that i don't have to take the night bus home anymore back to campus - around an hour trip.
And lastnight i got to just take a quick little cab ride home and i was in bed within 10 mins of leaving the bar wooo hooo
Last night's adventures started in vila... at 10pm i met up with the polish for a bit of pre-drinking before going into the city.... predrinking turned into 4 cartons of sangria and a bottle of vodka.. they were quite uncomfortable about leaving any vodka behind so they made one of the latin boys go get more orange juice so that we could take it for the road... his name thereon became oranges.. and thanks to Gato 'orange jews' was our topic of amusement until we could drink more vodka - racist pol

The new bar - perhaps a favourite

I did a little research and found Le Cyrano (a local told me about it when i was drunk and i forgot until a friend reminded me)

This is a great concept of a bar - you pour your own drink they give you the bottle of vodka and you pay by the amount you pour - i poured the whole glass of vodka and then had a bottle of fanta to mix and it only cost me 3 euros however it was super hard to drink and i am definitly paying for it today!!
the next best thing about the bar is that they give out free popcorn.. we had about 9 bowls unfortunatly eating popcorn is salty which im sure would help anyones hangover and eating it makes you thirsty...

RETARD

All in all it was a great night!
Today im not in great shape and it didn't help waking up with my head about to explode and realising i could hear my next door neighbours having sex.. lovely

Catalan towers

despite being massively hungover yesterday i managed to spot a group of catalan nationalists doing some traditional people building.. It was great to watch out one eye - i could only use one eye because i was dizzy.

This was towards the start of the tower



Ha ha look at the little monkey girl....



Mess

This week has been pretty average.. though i have been busy looking for apartments to rent in the city. Woo its a challenge trying to communicate on the phone i seriously sound retarded!! I plan out what i am going to say ... that part goes fine then when they reply.... ah lost!

But then last night made up for a quiet week of no parties! it surely was a messy night!

I knew it would be because it was it was at summum bar.. always is! It was a swiss party i was not at all sure what on earth a swiss party was but i was keen

Plenty of people turned up for it... no one can turn down summum. Then the shots began ... 7 down!! eek i was a barracha 'drunk' we didn't really understand why it was a swiss party and we weren't really embracing it considering we ordered 'slovenian shots' .... demanded by the slov boys they were pretty good. but by that stage i am pretty sure my taste buds were dead.

The polish arrived in style.. sneaking a bottle of polish vodka into the bar... i wish it was confiscated because that stuff tasted like CRAP!!

i needed something to wash it down straight away or i was going to throw up... so i had a shot ha ha

As everyone started to head to the disco i knew it was time for me to depart... HOME!!
I got away finding that the austrian was as drunk as me and needed to go home. We started the trek and just when i thought my night couldn't' get better.. on the side of the street i saw this big tower thing made out of toilet paper.. Air was blowing up from under a drain in the street and some bum tied pieces of toilet paper to the drain so that it created a big tower ... AND i thought it would be the best idea to run through it... so i did.... then from out of nowhere the bum runs up to me pushed me saying in spanish that i just ruined his tower that took him 3 hours to make... ha what else does a bum have to do?
he wasn't going to let me go... i was the worst person ever for breaking his piece of art... ha  The Austrian stepped in getting ready to take a swing.. but we ran away ... and of course this 60 year old guy wasn't going to be able to catch us....

The last thing i remember is coming home wearing a pink sequin head band with a giant feather out the top, a pearl necklace and a lei.. what the hell!!! i have no idea where these came from!!

and that was my adventure!!

St patricks day

Having irish friend surely does help make a great st pats day!

The day started off at 4pm drinking sangria on the train into the city... all class we students are!!

So many pubs to choose from.. had to be irish, but there are 20 irish bars in Barcelona

We didnt get past mcdonalds - however it did start the laughs when one of the boys threw a cheese burger to his friend and it just went straight to the floor

We started off with a bar in El Born because we saw they were giving away big novelty irish hats... but you had to buy 2 pints of irish beer in order to do so.. my attampt was lame... i blame it on the drink being GREEN turned me off!  - luckly some random in the bar gave me his hat! wooo

Next bar, next bar, then we got to Ryan's bar!! great under ground bar soooo cheap

we played a drinking game in there with a dice and oh dear it definitely did the trick ....

we then left to find a new bar... on the way to the metro station we thought it was really funny to pretend to fall over and then everone fall on top - it was funny until i came away with a grazed chin, a missively bruised hip and grazed knee, but the falling over still continued....

and the night ended with very tired irish!!

Carnival

Wow fun fun fun!!
In most areas of Spain, Carnaval is celebrated during the week before miercoles de Ceniza (lent).
With the end of Carnaval, el miercoles de Ceniza, there is another ceremony called El Entierro de la Sardina (Burial ofthe Sardine). The "fun times" are buried because it is now la Cuaresma - a time of fasting and praying.
 However..... i am not participating in lent! i just wanted to see a parade, dress up and of course another excuse to drink

It was amazing! Not only do the people in the parade dress up and with a huge amount of detail may i add, but the crowd also go to a huge effort of dressing up. I mean they don't just go buy an outfit they make them, and they do all colourful make up ...

i got to experience carnival twice, first in the city but we all got pretty bored of this one because we couldn't see too much.. ha so we bailed and went on search or a bar. Which by the way was highly unsuccessful being only 9pm, bars dont open until 11. sadly we resorted to the corner store and bought alcohol to drink at my polish friends house. That night ended pretty messy because we were offered free shots to go drink in some bar while we were walking past it.. The rest of the night we amused ourselves by throwing confetti around the bar

My second experience of Carnival was the best. I was in Barcelona's gay town 'Sitges' 40 mins from the city. We had a bus take us from uni campus and drop us home at 4am.. bahhh 8hrs of carnival

Altohough i couldn't make the most of it because i was sick, it was a surreal experience.

The costumes in the parade and in the crowd were amazing..the effort i mean these people spend 15months planning them. i took 5 mins just buying a costume, a kids costume mind you from a shop.

Dont mind the photo... this is after 4am in the morning

I must say the best costume were definitly the ones of the dragqueens. woo la la. Platforms up to 20cm high, huge capes, make up... and i tell you there were all sorts of dragqueens kinda gross to see old men dressing up, or fat men with their gut and ass exposed.

But beside that there was a hell of a lot of beautiful girls showing a loooooot of skin and boob. the boys were in awe snapping photos left right and center.
There were sooo many themes in the parade; moulin rouge, jungle, egyptian, cavemen with arms as if they ripped them off people, rockstars, farm animals with giant genitals

My favourite one...

The funniest one, was a float that looked like a crashed aeroplane, and the people were dressed up as old people with life vests on and holding pet cages FUNNY!!



After the parade there was just a massive party in the streets and on the beach, with a dj, laser lights and a lot of drunk people!!