Escape to the sin city, part 3: Chillin' out!

So we got back from The club around… maybe at 5, maybe at six… and mom, I was dressing up like a bitch! But then what goes up… must come down! We had to change hostel the next day. And it happens to be that when you check out a hostel you have to do it 10 am in the morning at the latest! So after 2 hours of intensive sleep we got up and started to navigate our way to the next hostel.

This place was a bit more further from the city centre, but it was near the FC Barcelona football stadium Camp Nou! We spent the day by chilling out at a park next to the stadium sleeping and sun bathing.. Chillin’ baby, chillin’! In the evening we headed back to the centre of the city to see my travel mates’ cousin and her friends again.
  

There, as we were sitting on this outdoor terrace and drinking some STRONG sangria from a can, this French guy from the next table came to talk to us. His friend had been pick pocketed! The thief had taken the guys credit card and ID’s… The thief had been pretending to be a guy inviting people to clubs, giving away flyers and stuff and then started “dancing” with this guy and off goes your stuff..!

Seriously, I’m telling you guys the same as my friend told us the first day we got to BCN: EVERYONE who comes to talk to you on La Rambla is a probable thief. So don’t talk to them, don’t stop and take care of your stuff! Everyone besides the “beer, cerveza?” –guys. They’re usually okay an’ if you should need some refill, they can save your day! :D

                         Remember to f*ck this on Facebook!                This guy is not one of the thiefs!

Anyway, we were so tired that we went back to hostel pretty early. We had some good night sleep until the next – and last day – in the sin city of Spain… On the last day we decided to go to the beach. Now this is what Sevilla lacks: the beach. Barcelona has several kilometers of nice beach where to sun bathe and chill out. The weather wasn’t the best though, but we enjoyed it.

After the beach we went to see this park designed by Antonio Gaudi. Very nice and modernistic park. What a shame that people of the time never understood it. By the way, while visiting the park, three (3!!) different people were trying to reach my friends purse – so annoying! Anyway, some time after the park we got back to the hostel and tried to get some sleep before our very, very early flight back to Sevilla.

After about 1,5 hours of sleep at 2 o’clock in the morning we headed out back to the airport and back to Sevilla. Back to safety from the city of pick pocketers, prostitutes and drug dealers :D I was back at work at 9 in the morning… pretty tired as you can imagine!

Tired but happy! 

I won’t break down tonight.
I feel it for the first time.
I feel it for the first time.

I found a new place here.
I’m coming down fast.

Afrojack & Steve Aoki feat. Miss Palmer "No Beef"

Escape to the sin city, part 2: Hello Barcelona!

Early on Thursday morning I headed out for the airport in Sevilla with a… let’s say a good friend ;) By the way we missed the airport bus, had to take a taxi instead and pay 25 euros instead of 2,30€… Nice start, aye? :D Anyway, by noon we were already walking in the streets of Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, Spain!

I chose to go to Barcelona as a friend of mine lives there and she promised to be a guide for us! However, on Thursday she was still on a 9 hour journey back from Madrid so the first day was very typical tourist day. We just wandered around the main street “La Rambla” and wondered all the crazy stuff going on in the “sin city” of Spain (nickname that I gave, not in general use).

In the evening, around 10 or 11 pm we agreed that we’d meet this friend of mine and go for “one” beer… Well you know what happens when you’re going for “one” with a friend you haven’t seen for a while :D So we crawled back to the hostel around 3 or 4 in the night after seeing half a dozen of the coolest bars in the Barcelona city center, some prostitutes in the notorious area of El Raval and some pickpocketers around La Rambla (which the city is infested with)!

Next day, Friday, we got up pretty late (I wonder why) and started to plan our next moves for the day. The plan was to meet up with my friend and go see some of the famous buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi, who had influenced to the architecture in Barcelona a lot. Also generally, Barcelona is very nice city to visit because of its modernism in the architecture!

After that, later in the evening it was time for an international dinner! We had appetizers from Colombia (some fried sliced banana with salt and cheese), main course from Finland (kesäkeitto = summer soup, milk based soup with a lot of vegetables ;) and the dessert from Holland (some sort of chocolate jelly)! Also the dinner party was very international as we had people from Finland, Holland, Austria, Lithuania and Mexico!

Later in the evening, we went shortly to meet my travel mate’s cousin and her friends. This time I was the only European as there were people from all over South-America: Mexico, Venezuela and so on! I have to say that South-Americans, they’re laid back people! :)

Even later from that, we headed out for some SERIOUS PARTYING at the biggest club in Barcelona: Razzmatazz! Well actually it’s around 6 or 7 clubs in 3 floors in the same club made out of old factory building… It was unbelievable! You could change from one “room” to another to listen some other kind of music style and choose whatever room you’d prefer… How cool is that!?

More about the escape to Barcelona on part 3!

Tell you like it is with a kiss,
Baby when it drips from your lips.
Tell you like it is it’s like this,
Don’t be such a slave to your brother.


Baby get shaky after school,
Oooh ooh ohhh ohhh there you ooh there you, baby go crazy break the rules,
Oooh ooh ohhh ohhhh there you ooh there you go go go go go go go go ohoh ohhh there you go go go go, ohhh ohhh there you go!

The Ian Carey Project – Get Shaky

Escape to the sin city, part 1: Semana Santa

Allrighty then, now I’m gonna tell you guys about my great escape from the Semana Santa in Sevilla. I started the planning when I got to know about the stuff going on here in Sevilla during the week. There was gonna be some interesting (crazy!) stuff going on and maybe a “few” people (tens of thousands!) hanging out on the streets in the centre (where I live!).

You see, Andalucía is entitled to be the most “Spanish” area in Spain. Also, it is the most religious area in Spain. And also, Easter a.k.a. Semana Santa is maybe the biggest religious festival. Of course there’s nothing wrong with being religious and stuff, but I still had to get out of the city and next I’m gonna explain why...
 

Festival of Semana Santa basically lasts for the whole week and obviously when the end of the week is coming closer, stuff gets more and more intensive. Every day there are thousands of people on the streets watching these never-ending parades going through the streets.

The parades consist of bands playing religious march music and of these HUGE structures of Santa Maria (St. Mary) carried on by dozens of men. The scariest part, however, are the brotherhoods that are also part of the parades. Basically there are hundreds of these dudes carrying candles and wearing robes. And guess what they look like when wearing those robes? The KKK my friend, it’s pretty scary!

So I was here in Sevilla until Thursday morning and actually it was interesting to see the parades go by my house. They started probably in the afternoon and kept going on until very late in the night. This thing is huge here! The guys who carry the St. Mary structures - they train for this week only for the whole f*cking year! I could see them training with these hugely heavy structures in the streets in February for example.

Anyway, all this stuff was very interesting as we don’t have anything like that in our culture.. BUT besides the fact that I’m not that religious myself and not THAT interested, I also wasn’t very keen to watch AND listen to the parades going below my balcony all day, EVERY day of the week....So I had to get away..! :D

When did punk rock become so safe?
When did the scene become a joke?
The kids who used to live for beer and speed
Now want their fries and coke
Cursing and flipping birds are not allowed,
In fact let's keep noise levels down

Must separate the church and skate!

NOFX – The Separation of Church and Skate 


PS. Would you like to know more? Here's another blogpost about the Semana Santa written by another amazed foreigner and actually I had to borrow the picture from there as well!