Saturday Nights in BCN

"Tell him you have the swine flu, he wont want you to come out then", the girl Ive been talking to at the hostel says.

I crack up laughing. "That should definitely work!" I exclaim as I walk towards my room for my calling card and the phone number I need to dial. I had met some new people at the football match and had been invited out for Saturday night partying at Olympic Village; I was promised it was "The best of the Barcelona" in broken English that is better than my broken Spanish, and I had promised I would be there.

Except that, it was now 21:23 and we were supposed to be meeting at 22:30 in the city, and here I was in my Godforsaken hostel up in the mountains. There was no way I could make it in time, and I hated the thought of flaking so close to the time I was supposed to physically be at the agreed-upon meeting place. But I went to get my calling card anyway bc 1) I was sick as a dog and had spent the past couple days blowing my nose into any type of tissuue, napkin or Kleenex I could find, and 2) Mo wasnt in the mood to party and Id gladly have the most routine, drama-free Saturday night of my life at the hostel before I would willingly leave, knowing I would have to come up the big, bad mountain by myself at 5am again. Then I remembered all the smoke I was sure to encounter at whatever bar we ended up at, and my mind was made up. I was already hacking my lungs out from la gripe; the last thing I needed was the second-hand smoke of 300 of my closest European friends.

Mo comes in as Im leaving to make the call.

"You sure you dont feel like going out tonight?"

"Nah, not really..."

I can sense some hesitation. Its just a hint, barely perceptible, but its there. I feel bad about flaking on these people who dont even know me well enough to know that I routinely flake. Plus:

"We've been lazy as anything, if we go out at least we'll feel like we did something... you sure you dont wanna go??"

"Youre pushing me for an answer I cant give you right now, I dont know," she says with a laugh.

Touche. I tell her Im making the call after I go to the bathroom n can she give me a final answer then?

* * *

A couple hours later we are at Olympic Village, which we come to find out is on the marina, and its a pretty darn cool place. Its dark as hell on the beach as we are walking over to the restaurants and I think "This would be a great place in the summer, or in the day time, or with a significant other". But tonight is none of these situations. We settle in at a South American bar playing loud music, aptly named "Salsa". Its mid-November and after a week of intense cold, it is nice enough to sit outside with a jacket on and have a drink.

Our new friends barely speak English (one is better than the other so he does most of the translating) and our Spanish is difficult to rely on for actual conversation, so I say "Eh?" and "Huh?" a lot, as if I was raised in a barn. There are several Catalan side conversations going on. I find myself volleying my eyeballs from one person to the other, straining my brain, trying to figure out what the hell they are saying, requesting time and again for them to at least speak Spanish so I can kinda follow. But my requests fall on deaf ears (not bc they dont understand me here, but I think bc they are enjoying the fact that they can talk and we cant understand). Regardless of the fact that we can barely communicate, and most things have to be repeated 30 times in order to be understood by any of the parties present, there is lots of laughter and general having of fun.

We start walking down the strip and pop into places as we please. We hang out for a while in one that is playing music I wouldnt expect to hear on a night out, music I dont even know how to dance to. I stand on the edge of the dance floor, straddling the invisible fence; do I do this and feel like a complete fool, or do I just stand here looking like Im arrogant? I realize Im having one of those moments where Im observing life, not living it, and that Ill regret it later. I praise my ability to finally be able to recognize this and start moving my body... my dance partner seems more relaxed now too, since I actually look like Im having fun. Pretty soon the music gets better, the beer is doing its job, and Im having a grand ol' time.

After a while, this place gets old, like the crowd gathering in it. We leave and keep walking. A chorizo/cheese/tomato bocadillo later, we are near Catwalk, a hip-hop club we've heard about and want to check out. Our Spanish friends aren't feeling it; "Its too expensive. I cant get in with these shoes. But if you want go, you are tourists, you go, no problem. We will go to different bar".

So we part ways agreeing to meet up later in the week, and Mo and I head to Catwalk. We round the corner.

"Theres a line?? Im not standing in line," I say. I never knew a party that was so damn good that I had to stand in line for it, period.

"No, I talked to the bouncer, we can pay 10 euros instead of 20 and just go in."

Now, I also have rarely known a party that was so damn good that I had to pay a cover to get into it. But some nights I make exceptions, and this was one of those nights.

* * *

Its 3am and Catwalk sucks, and I find myself thinking we have to kill 2 more hours before we can go home. Im not feeling well and Im bored to death. The club is full of little kids, and not even the weird way people are dancing is entertaining anymore (it seems to me lots of Spanish kids get to the club and bust out all the routines they practiced in front of the mirror while watching MTV. Every dance floor looks like an audition tape for a music video. And not in a good way). We make our way over to a large, sloped seating area that is attached to the wall, where I swear the teenage couple next to me is proceeding to make a baby in front of everyone. Im sitting there people-watching around me and within minutes I realize what a horrible idea it was to sit down, bc now every single annoying guy in the vicinity is zeroing in on me and Monet. I hold a couple of boring conversations bc I dont want to be rude, all the while wondering why I dont just be rude and get it over with? Finally I am left alone and I pull out my BlackBerry from my clutch and start playing BrickBreaker. While Im doing this I wonder if this is an even worse idea, since now all the annoying guys will see a phone in my hand and want a phone number. Ay ay ay. I keep playing. I mutter the occasional "Shit!" when I lose a life. I pause the game every so often to check the time. Roughly one more hour to kill...

There are some tall Black Americans at the bar, one man and 2 women, talking, laughing and drinking with a petite Spanish lady. Im sick and anti-social right now, I cant be bothered to go mingle. I glance at them from time to time, still sitting on this 'couch'. I think the baby the couple next to me has conceived is in the fetus stage now, but they're still going at it, just to make sure, I guess. Theres another teenage couple next to Mo, and they are occasionally going at it, albeit less frequently than my couple. The American guy comes over and takes some pictures with the girls sitting near Mo.

"Who is this guy, do you recognize him?" Mo asks me. "He looks familiar"

"Nope. But I think he just told those girls his name is Anthony."

Mo swears she knows him from somewhere. I try to recognize him, but I got nothin'. I check my phone for the time. 4:15.

"I think we should go down to the coat check in about half an hour and beat the crowds, so we can get going," I tell her.

"OK thats fine. Im gonna ask him his name."

Monet proceeds to talk to the American, who turns out to be very friendly. He introduces us to his friends and Im making conversation with him while hes standing in front of me, but Im not exactly trying very hard with the group. His friends are a few feet away and I dont feel like getting up. Im sure Im seeming pretty snobby at this point, but all I want to do is go to bed. I learn he is an actor and did 2 years on Broadway, and currently lives in LA. Eventually the group makes its way over to us for a couple minutes and he tells us he's visiting the girls, who live an hour outside Barcelona, and that his flight back home is tomorrow morning. We all exchange email addresses and agree to keep in touch.

By the time we leave Catwalk, my voice is getting raspy and Im starting to sound like Lindsay Lohan. Monet and I get on the Metro after spending a ridiculous amount of money on hot dogs and bottled water (the only choice in the area at that hour) and make our way home. I have my Swiss Army Knife ready, blade pulled out and everything, just in case some idiot decides to follow us tonight. I joke with Mo that Im prepared n that Ill cut a motherf*er, but in my head I wonder if Ill really be able to use that little knife on somebody if I have to. I mean, its less than 2" long, its not exactly a machete, but I dont like the idea anyway. Luckily theres no drama coming up the mountain. By 6am we are each in bed, blissfully drifting off to sleep after a good night out on the town.

I wake up late on Sunday afternoon. I go down to the hostel restaurant, take my usual seat at our usual table. Mo is next to me with her laptop as well; we are each in our own online world. After a few hours I see the paper where the Americans wrote their email addresses on the table, and add them on facebook. Something makes me google them (did I mention Im the Google Queen?) and turns out that our very down-to-Earth, totally laid-back Americans are a for-real actor and WNBA players. They were so unassuming I never would have guessed it, which is awesome and makes me like them even more. I reflect that life is interesting; who would have thought in a million years that we would have met these random people in some random hip-hop club in Spain, on some random Saturday night... Traveling has many benefits, and meeting new people (whether ludicrously successful ones or not) is definitely one of the greatest ones.