Travel Journal Excerpts 3

June 23, 2009
39,000 ft above somewhere between Seville and Barcelona

RyanAir has proved to be the craziest airline I've ever experienced, not only are they charging 3 euro for a bottle of water, but they run up and down the aisle and sell perfumes and lottery tickets. At one point after some turbulence, a stewardess came on the intercom and said some things very quickly - those some things both Ashley and I heard as "this is an emergency" and then the lights went out. After we landed, a large portion of the passengers broke out into applause and shouted "Olé!" thus proving to me that other people heard "this is an emergency." Laura of course doesn't believe us, but why else would people shout and clap en masse?

June 24, 2009
Barcelona

Last night when we got into town we discovered that it is Sant Joan/San Juan, and we found out that the party was at the beach. We were instructed to go there by metro by the old man at the hostel who was on his smoke break with this young kid who basically told us to be super paranoid about getting mugged or worse on the metro. I wasn't too worried, but the metro is a whole lot of crazy. First, everywhere we've gone there are people selling beer from a six pack in their hand or bag. Most likely they picked it up at the store and are charging more than they paid, but still, that's a little sketch. Then, we are on the train and we see people pouring alcohol from bottles into cups held by everyone in a huge group. There were people smoking - which I knew was against the rules because of the "30 Euro fine for Smoking" signs everywhere in the train - but what was truly awesome, was this totally stoned guy smoking a joint on the train! I kind of couldn't believe it. When we surfaced, we discovered that every single person in Barcelona was at the beach. We passed a guy literally passed out on the side walk. There were several guys who tried to talk to us, but one was so funny. He started talking to me, then quickly transferred to Ashley, saying phrases in English and French trying to figure us out. He followed us for a while, until Ashley let out the most amazing "NO!" I have ever heard. It was sustained and unlike anything I've ever heard. A little whiny and desperate and more nasally than anything Ashley ever says, but it was SO FUNNY. There were several different stages and bands playing. We got to see this great drum line, probably from a university jamming for a long time with masses encircling them dancing and drinking--standard merriment. There was one kid dancing like he was seizing and clogging at the same time. I laughed so hard I fell off of the tree I was standing on to see the drum line. We walked around a little bit, and walked past another passed out guy on the side walk, and a huge line of honey buckets with a bunch of guys peeing on the ground near them creating this massive stream of piss, it was so gross, and one guy walked through it in bare feet. ... Then we saw this band that was not awesome, but the girl joining them had a super cute romper on, and one of the coolest afros I've ever seen. There were a lot of people who tried to chat me up while I was dancing to the mediocre band with a fun beat, and that was awkward and a completely new experience. I'm 100% convinced it is because of my blonde hair. ... We got back to the hostel at about 5 am, and were followed shortly after by one of our roommates. He looked and sounded familiar, but I couldn't really place it, until Ashley said, "He looks and sounds exactly like Brad from Home Improvement?" All three of us quickly agreed, and were still talking about it when he came back into the room. Knowing he heard something, Ashley said, "Have you ever seen Home Improvement?" He said, "You're going to tell me that I look like Zachery Ty Bryan." "No, we were thinking how much you resembled Jonathan Taylor Thomas," I said this trying to be funny, but he didn't pick up on my sarcasm, and said, "Really?" "No." He never denied being ZTB, and mentioned playing soccer with those guys growing up in California. He also regaled us with delightful anecdotes about his friend being molested by a transvestite hooker on the street, and how his sister was on Laguna Beach. We IMDBed ZTB this morning. I am 85% sure it is him, and will state with confidence forever more that I stayed in a hostel with Zachery Ty Bryan.