Thursday, July 4, 2013

A colourful weekend!

On Friday (12th April!) I arrived home just after 3 (and very hungry due to the no lunch break on Fridays situation!), and to my delight Raul, Jasmin and Ernesto (another Mexican friend, surprise surprise!) had cooked lunch and had waited for me to get home before tucking in. As the sun was out we sat out on our balcony and shared some pizza and pasta, which I completely wolfed down. They'd cooked a 'Mexican' version of the pasta, ie. spicy spicy, and made mine in a separate pan as they knew I wouldn't be able to deal with that!!


I had to forego my usual post-work nap on a Friday, as the plan was to drive up to the 'Bunker'. It's an old air raid civil war bunker, which was built in 1937, and you get an absolutely incredibly 360 view over all of Barcelona. It's also quite hard to reach and more well known amongst the locals, so for a Friday evening really wasn't as busy as your average tourit spot in Barcelona. After wandering round, reading some of the signs which tell you about the history of the place, and taking lots of photos, we stopped to chat with some people from Brazil that Raul knew. The conversation was quite bizarre as they were talking Portugese, and Raul Spanish, yet the two languages were similar enough for there to be a mutual understanding and neither of the parties needed to switch. 





After sitting and enjoying the sun for a little while longer, I will admit that I started to crash. For starters, I was tired after a long week of work, learning lots of new things and meeting lots of new people. I was still re-settling into Barcelona, after quite a disrupted first month living in 3 different places in 4 weeks, and of course it had been a tough week at home, so it all seemed to hit me at once and I was pretty overwhelmed. We had been planning on going out that evening, but I really just wanted an early night to adjust to everything and so didn't fancy it. It turned out the tickets were all sold out in the end, which meant that I didn't have to miss out, and felt much less guilty for breaking the Golden Rule of the Year Abroad, which is to say 'Yes' to everything.

A decent nights sleep and lots of skyping with friends and family meant that I was feeling a lot less sorry for myself on Saturday, and ready to go again. We spent the day as tourists, showing Jasmin all the sights, and this time Cecilia was the tour guide instead of Raul, meaning that I got a few different stories to go along with everything as well. 





That evening was one of Raul's friends birthdays, and they had reserved a big area in Bar 32, a really nice (and cheap!) cocktail bar in the Gothic. We spent most of the night there, but did nip out to the shots bar quickly. Once it was shut the general consensus seemed to be to go home rather than continue the evening, so we made our way back via the kebab shop.





On Sunday morning, Cecilia came bounding into my room at 10am, as we had planned to check out the Holi festival of Colours which was on that day. Despite feeling a little groggy, I got ready and went into the living room once I was done. When I walked in they all burst into fits of laughter, as I'd brought a white t-shirt ready for the day, but as I didn't have any shorts that I was prepared to ruin, I had just put on some tights and pulled the t-shirt down, so looked a little more like I'd be hanging round on a street corner waiting for the kerb crawlers, than heading out into the light of day for some innocent fun at a festival! Cecilia saved the day by lending me an old pair of her shorts and we left. 

Before...
There must have been thousands of people there, and it was just absolutely mad. There was powdery paint flying everywhere, Bollywood music playing really loudly, and the ground was physically shaking from everyone jumping up and down at the same time. We actually had to all move to a nearby Placa as we were making such an impact on this square, and so we ran there to get right in the middle of it all, which of course meant lots more paint and lots more colours! It ended at about 2pm, and we got the metro home with lots of other very colourful people. One group had saved some paint for the metro journey and it went absolutely everywhere while we were all singing, hilarious!

After!

Bollywood dancers

Some very colourful people


In the crowd!
After 3 (!) showers, I almost resembled a normal human being, and went with the others to one of their friends houses nearby, as they had made a paella. It was almost 6pm before we sat down to eat 'lunch', but absolutely worth the wait as it was DELICIOUS! Carlos, who made it, is from Valencia, and so instead of making a seafood paella, had made it with chicken and peas etc. This is apparently the 'typical' paella from Valencia, some refer to it as a 'poor mans paella', as the ingredients are accessible to everyone, as well as being cheap. They kept offering me more, and I wasn't about to say no, so I ended up having about 3 portions and had the biggest food baby by the time we were done. They then whipped out the ice cream but I genuinely felt fit to burst, so could barely manage any. Needless to say, I didn't have any dinner either that night, but still went to bed with a seriously full stomach and slept like a baby after such a busy few days.



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