Poo On My Stomach?
Well well. Another month, another holiday and this time I went to Barcelona. I flew with Iberia Airline this time and it wasn’t too bad. The TV monitors sucked but the food was decent. One thing that was glaringly retarded was that nowhere in my itinerary did it say I was flying through Madrid. On my return flight, they handed me a single boarding pass with no mention of Madrid, but that’s where I ended up again. Does that make sense to anybody else?? I guess it didn’t make sense that my flight had a duration of 10-12 hours each way, but I wish they would have mentioned the layover somewhere.
Anyway, I met up with Gladys at the Madrid airport. That was convenient. It made life simpler since I wasn’t sure how smoothly it would have been to track her down in Barcelona. My first impression of Barcelona? Well, while I waited in the baggage area for my luggage, I couldn’t help but notice the amazingly horrific odour wafting through the air. Apparently the restrooms in the airport were filthy and disgusting because the smell emanating in the baggage claim area was unbearable. I retreated to the far wall to prevent myself from throwing up. Other than that, Barcelona was quite clean. I love the culture and lifestyle there. Mid-day siestas and closed shops on Sunday are a nice way to live. We easily assimilated with the people and culture;
late lunches, afternoon coffee, tapas galore, and cheap wine. We took each day nice and slow, never starting the day earlier than noon. Our first meal was at the nearby Market. The market resembled Granville Island, but they also had these wonderful 
eateries mixed in with the food stands. We didn’t know what to order but Gladys managed to order us some sardines, baby octopus, and meatballs. Gladys was a great travel buddy and she moves at my pace; in other words we didn’t try to cram in too many things in one day. The streets are small and all of them look and feel the same. There were a few instances when we just walked around in circles for a 15 minutes, trying to get our bearings on where we were and where we were heading. All of the shops are hidden behind garage doors when they’re closed. A lot of shops were closed for a day or two or at odd hours, so we found it weird when we noticed new shops that we hadn’t seen earlier in the day/week. On the last day, we went back to the Market to try another eatery. It was fantastic. I’ve never tasted calamari so fresh and tasty. Their razor clams were amazing too. As far as touristy 
sites, we saw: the Picasso Museum, Casa Battlo, Casa Mila, Park Guell, and the amazing Sagrada Familia. I’m mesmerized that they have spent about 100 years building a cathedral that no one has ever been able to use. When it’s completed in another 100 years or two,
it will be an amazing ceremony to attend. Ambitious is one word to describe it. Other than the sightseeing, our other goal was to do a little shopping. Gladys managed to purchase a couple clothing items and shoes. I also bought two pairs of shoes from the Camper store. FYI, there’s also a Camper Hotel in Barcelona. It is really expensive to stay there and it doesn’t even look that nice. 
Anyway, it was a quick 4 day trip and I can sum it up as being full of good memories, great company, and wonderful food. More pictures can be found on Facebook.
Friday evening, I got home took off my coat and I then I noticed a giant poo stain on my vest and t-shirt. Somehow I had grown an anus next to my bellybutton. I’m glad I didn’t go out that night cause it would have been extremely embarassing to pull off my coat and reveal the 3 inch stain in public. Well, it turns out that my ass did not miraculously move itself to my torso. Instead, the culprit was a piece of Lindt chocolate that someone had given to me before I left for work I stuck it in my pocket and promptly forgot about it. The chocolate itself was semi-intact. It was actually the liquid filling that had escaped from the confection that was causing me grief. I tried to wash out the chocolate by hand and most of it came out, but I think it’ll take a couple of washes before it’s completely clean. This is actually the second time I had a chocolate accident on my shirt this week. I had splattered some on my shirt just a couple of days earlier. I am one clumsy mofo.
So this weekend, the Safeway here is having it’s Grand Re-Opening. It went through some renovations like all of the other stores across the nation. So to celebrate, they have been giving away 200 Ipod Shuffles at random. It shows up on your receipt if you’ve won. I heard about 4 people win in a matter of 20 min on Saturday. Instead, all I got was a numb fucked up finger for my efforts. I was holding my grocery bags awkwardly and the strain from the weight must have cut off the circulation in my index finger. It’s been well over 24 hours since this happened and it’s still feeling numb. I don’t think the cold temperature helped it either. I hope this problem resolves itself in the next little while. Anyway, I didn’t pick up everything that I wanted yesterday, so I went again this morning. I heard another 4-5 people win within 30 minutes and again, I did not win when I paid for my groceries. I hate not winning and I am miffed! I am tempted to go back and buy one item at a time until I win one. But after thinking about things, it doesn’t really matter cause the Ipod Shuffle is useless to me and I don’t wanna look like a greedy chump. I would not even use it. Although it would probably make a great addition to a Secret Santa gift later this month. I got a few more hours to go before they run out, but I don’t think I’ll do it. The best deal of the week is their Roasted chicken. It’s on sale for $4.99 and with the purchase of one, you get three 2L bottles of Pepsi products for free. This morning I had purchased a lot of heavy items. I was smart enough to bring a backpack though and it was friggin heavy. I got home and I was kicking off my shoes when the weight of the backpack knocked me off balance and I came crashing down on my cardboard end table. I wonder what it sounded like to my neighbours downstairs. It probably sounded exactly like it was, like a 200+ lb man falling on the floor with his 40 lbs of groceries; or like someone dropping dead in the apartment above. See, I am a big clutz!
Well, my sleeping pattern has been tottally whacky the past few days. I don’t really blame jet lag, but maybe I generally feel fine when I’m awake. I didn’t sleep a wink Friday night and I stayed awake all night. It wasn’t til about 4pm on Saturday when I finally passed out on the couh. I didn’t get up til 11pm. Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep again last night. I watched several films and I started out my day quite early. I hit Safeway at 8am and I was in crazy chore mode. I’ve accomplished a lot this morning. Along with the early trip to Safeway, I also did 3 loads of laundry (including the shower curtain), I vacuumed the apartment, I took out the garbage, I dismantled and recycled several boxes I had been collecting, and I even cleaned my toilet. All before noon! All I know is that I need to stay awake all day today in order to sleep later tonight. Otherwise I’ll be a walking zombie at work on Monday. Enough gabbing from me. I’ll have another update before I come home in 3 weeks. Peace!
