Barcelona, day 1

today was overall a comedy day.

let's start from the very beginning (early, early in the freakin' morning). we woke up in our dublin hotel at 4:30am, it was still dark outside. we loaded our luggage, got in our rental and drove to the airport. the excitement starts here. we always knew we'd have a little problem (at the very least) because the rental car place opens at 6am, so we can't return the car any earlier than that, but our flight was scheduled for 7:20am. so the plan from th beginning was for us to park the car in a short term parking lot, both of us go in the airport and check-in, and then as i go to the gate chris would go back to the car and drive it to Thrifty (making it there by 6am) and taking their VERY FIRST airport shuttle back to the airport and meet me at the gate.

so we checked in, and i went for the gate as chris went to take the car back to Thrifty. at 5:45 we finished checking in. the line for security screening was very long and i started getting nervous. i got to the gate at approx. 6:10 and i start worrying that chris may not make it because he wasn't THAT comfortable getting from the airport to the Thrifty lot when we practiced it the day before. but low and behold, the boy made it, running into the terminal, out of breath, at around 6:45. we were happy. this was the high point of the morning.

next is the plane ride to barcelona. nothing really to talk about here. it was only a 2hr20min ride and was pretty uneventful.

we land in barcelona, it is really gorgeous. i'm trying to describe it the best i can but i feel whatever i say will not do justice to the beauty of this place. once we got our car, we headed into the city looking for our hotel. this was alot easier than in Dublin, we found it right away, it was just a straight drive out of the airport, to the bay. our hotel is beautiful, it sits on the oceean, it is where all the large cruise ships dock. we have a view of the ocean and the city. it's almost like looking out of a cruise ship's window when at dock; that's how ocean-y the view is. the hotel overall is very nice, but the bed isn't as good as the dublin hotel's bed. a hotel bed is the MOST important thing to me when staying at a hotel. call me crazy but it always will be the absolute most important thing about the hotel.

once we got into the hotel we went up to our room to quickly hit our reset buttons and then came back down into the city to get some food. by the way, our hotel is not only on the ocean but it is literally a 4-5min walk from the busiest part of barcelona (or that's what i've heard), La Rambla. it's a very large, wide street that goes on for about maybe a mile of on-street entertainment, restaurants and shops. we had shwarma sandwiches for lunch, but it was the bad kind of shwarma, where the beef is just one big chunk like ground beef on the spit. i like it when the beef is actual pieces of beef wen it is cut off the spit, not when they shave it off with that electric tool and the beef comes off like strips of paper. but whatever, it wasn't so bad. i've been seeing sharma places alot in dublin and here so i figured i'd try them out. nothing special. my bro is having the real experience with the shwarma probably as i'm writing this, which i am envious of (that stuff is god sent). ok, enough about the shwarma.

so we're walking down the street and watching shows and being entertained, and we come across a guy doing that "hide the ball under the cup" game, and people are gambling with him to see if they can find the ball. so he puts the ball under one of three little boxes he has on the ground, then he starts swirling them around like a maniac. he was actually quite skillful because he not only swirled them around and mixed them up, but at some points during the game he would actually QUICKLY slide the little ball from under one box to a DIFFERENT box, and he did this so quickly that i really appreciated the skill he had in it. also, i could tell there were a few people in the audience helping him out to find fresh meat to take money from. there were two other men and a woman that seemed to be "helping" him but pretending to be part of the audience like we were. they would play and win money from the guy, they would always guess the location of the ball but then when they had someone else form the audience put up 50Euro to try, he/she just couldn't find the ball. the street artist was very tricky...after you picked the box you thought the ball was under, he'd ask you to put your foot on the box and hold it there while you show him your money to prove that you can pay him if you're wrong. after you show him the money, he asks you to lift your foot and then moves the location of the box you originally chose and only then asks you if you're sure of your choice. it's this last switch that always got the people from what i could see.
for example, he has the ball under box 3, but you think it's in the middle (i saw that most people never really knew where the ball was, they only thought they did). so he would purposefully make sure u DON'T know where the ball is. now you think it's in the middle but it's really in the 3rd box. before he asks you if you're sure, he switches the 3rd box (where the ball really is) with the position of the middle box. now the ball is in the middle box, but you think it's now in the 3rd. so when you choose middle originally, he does this switch and takes the middle to the 3rd and then points to the middle box asking you if that was your final decision. of course people notice him switching the position of the boxes and so they must tell him that now it's the 3rd box, not the middle box. if people didn't correct him and just let him turn over the middle box after the switch they would find the ball. but since they think they know where the ball is, they always switched their final decision to the 3rd, which was their original "middle", which is not where the ball is. so he is openly "tricking" you in a way that you will notice and think you got the better of him. but he knows that you will notice the fake "trick" and switch your decision.

unfortunately, chris was a victim of this guy's. one of his helpers pretending to be part of the audience grabbed chris' arm and pulled him into the middle of the circle and asked chris where he thought the ball was. chris pointed to the one he "knew" it was and they asked him to show 50Euro to make sure he can play. the whole time i was watching this i wanted to tell chris not to give them a dime because i KNOW that they know something we don't and this is how this guy makes a living, so he will for sure take chris' money. sure enough, he did the trick on chris. the ball was in the 3rd, but looked like it was in the middle. so chris picked middle, then put his foot there to hold it while showing them 50Euro. then he lifted his foot and the guy did a quick switch and then points to the middle box as if implying to chris "are you sure this is the one you want to turn over?", but chris saw the "switch" and said "no, the 3rd, you switched them". of course if chris had turned over the middle box now he would be a winner, but he "corrected" the guy and made his decision on the 3rd box, saw that it was empty, and a 50Euro bill fled his pocket in the blink of an eye. they did it SO quickly that you don't even have time to calculate or understand what happened and if you really lost or not. they are VERY VERY aggressive here. i could tell that it's hard for people to say "NO!" when they pull you in the middle like they did with chris, but they do it so quickly and forcefully that many people just go along with it.

anyway, i told him later this is what the guy does for a living and that it's almost obvious that they would take everyone's money, but now chris hates the spaniards. he'll get over it.

the aggressive demeanor manifested by most of the people here remind me of being in Israel. the sort of "quickly, quickly, don't worry, just do it" rapidity that confuses tourists and makes them feel they have no time to think for themselves (and just give up and do what these locals want them to do) is very characteristic of Israel. its' actually quite a technique if you've ever fallen victim to its lure. When someone in a country you're not familiar with "knows" what to do and makes it look like you're only dragging things on and making people wait by trying to figure it out on your own tell you to "hurry, hurry, it's ok, just go, no problem" and even gives you a semi-forceful nudge, it is quite hard to resist and figure things out on your own. so, if they want to take advantage of a tourist in that moment, they've definitely figured out the best way to do so. i'm sure many people reading this have fallen victim to what i'm talking about and got ripped off in one way or another.

next on the street we saw some dancing/flipping/jumping street performers. this was LIKE 3rd street promenade but ALOT better. the crowd was alot larger, and the guys really were better skilled than the kind you usually find on the promenade.

so anyway, long story short (or extra long), this seems like a place to have your hands on your purse/wallet at all times, which i've been doing. the place just gives off that vibe of "watch your shit or it'll be gone next time you check". too bad those vibes are messing with a persian jew who knows the ropes, lol.

ok...this has been the longest post yet, and i'm quite tired. writing these posts has become quite exhausting but i guess a good amount of people are signing on to read so i'll keep it up. i don't know what we'll do tonight, so i guess you'll read about that tomorrow.

adios...

ps - the spanish here is NOTHING like how its spoken in Mexico. it sound alot more "Italian" here and it's spoken alot quicker. it's actually very different from spanish spoken in mexico, or by mexicans, but you slowly get used to it. also, this is one of the few places i've been to that finding someone who speaks english (even at the airport/hotel/rental car agency) is pretty rare.