Beaches and Bavarians

Thursday, July 14

Barcelona Day 2

Today we decided not to spend the whole day with reception desks as our main sightseeing destination, so after leaving Rasta's, we found a grocery store, bought a bunch of fruit, cookies and beer, and headed to the beach.  We spent the whole day in the sand and the water, playing and napping and talking and decidedly NOT carrying our packs around.  Tobi is originally from Bavaria, a place where the official budget for state-aided living expenses accounts for beer.  When we pulled out the 6-pack that we had brought on the train and realized it was in plastic bottles, he looked torn between outrage and physical pain.  He explained to me the German word for "twist-off cap" and then asserted that it should NEVER be used in the same sentence as "beer" before mournfully cradling the bottle and whispering "what have they done to you??"  This perhaps explains why when we were at the beach, the first thing he did after putting the bags down was to set about digging a hole with an angled shelf on one side, where he stuck our frisbee such that its shadow completely covered the opening of the hole.  He then poured cold water into it, and put our beer cans into his makeshift mini-fridge, stating "Beer is like women.  In order to make it enjoyable, you have to treat it nicely" which earned him a fairly substantial smack in the head.

Later that day, we bought actual groceries, and headed to a travel bar / internet cafe to look for a place to sleep.  Coming up empty-handed, we decided to just walk around for a bit and see if lightning struck.  And it did, in the form of a 95 lb Swedish girl named Johanna who came running up to us about three blocks later.  We had left our whole food bag in the bar, and she came out looking for us to return it.  We chatted for a bit, and she asked where we were staying.  We said we didn't know yet, so she said she knew some places, and we could check there before she started calling her friends.  She walked us to another four-ish hostels that we hadn't tried yet, but to no avail.  So she took us to a cafe/bar where her friend Kayla (from California!) worked, who happened to be living with one other person in a five bedroom apartment.  So that's where we are now, and where we're staying tonight, and it has lightbulbs and a shower and electricity, and Kayla and Johanna are both really cool girls, so call this one a definite win!