sunbathing in november? yes please! or, Barcelona wins at life

I'm so tired and so sore, but in such a very good way! No, not like that; get your mind out of the gutter. I'm tired and sore because I spent the whole weekend dancing, and I wish it weren't over yet. This past Thursday I skipped out of class early to get on a plane to go hang out in Barcelona for the weekend, meeting a friend from school, Mark Katz, to go dancing dancing dancing, and tearing myself away on Sunday afternoon. It turned out to be the best weekend I've spent in Spain and one of the best in my whole life for several reasons. Mostly it was the three great swing parties in two excellent nights, but the beach and the weather also had a lot to do with it.

I suppose I hadn't truly realized how much I've missed dancing every week until I actually had the opportunity to go swing dancing ... on our way to the first place on Friday night, neither Mark nor I could stop ourselves from busting out random dance moves and steps as we walked faster than usual, excited to get there as soon as possible. It was in a large bar on the top floor of the mall, and one wall was mostly windows that looked out over Port Vell and the Mediterranean. We got there fairly early and danced a couple songs with each other, and by the time we decided to get a drink the floor was largely full of dancers, all of whom seemed to be very good. There was one guy that I noticed because of his sweet newsboy-style hat but continued to watch because of his attitude, skill, and obvious enjoyment of the dancing. Actually, no, I noticed him because of a particular classy and sexy move he did with a partner, a move that I always like to watch and usually wish someone would do with me. (For those who know/care, it's that one in a very close blues-ish closed position where the lead swings the follow's torso out and around. Doug and Jenny do it a lot, which with the hat led to us calling that couple "fake Doug and Jenny.") Fake Doug was obviously very good, and knew he was, but he wasn't cocky or arrogant about it-- he just did sweet moves because he wanted to, not to show off. That, in my opinion, is the best kind of dancer there is. So during the three hours we were at that bar several guys asked me to dance, all of whom were very good, and I did dance with "Doug" ... in fact, I developed quite the dance crush on him that night. He was the perfect size to dance with, strong but not too strong, gentle but firm, and he was always smiling (and what a smile!). Eventually, however, we decided to irnos to another party we knew was going on that night, and that one took some getting to. Just as we were about to give up and go back to the hostel, however, we suddenly happened across the hole-in-the-wall ballroom we were looking for. Turns out that was very fortunate for several reasons, not least of which was the fact that there were much-needed drinks included with the entry (Cokes, nothing to impair dancing ability) and an extremely good dance floor. But more, much more than that, the bartender told us that that weekend there happened to be a touring couple teaching in Barcelona and that they were in that very room and also giving a performance at a party on Saturday. Needless to say, we were excited and definitely planned to attend the party the next night. I danced with the lead of the touring couple (he was from California and of course very good, but also quite cocky in a California sort of way ... you know what I mean) and a couple other guys, and Mark danced with some Catalan girls. We were pretty beat by that time, though, so we headed out and back to the hostel. The next night the party was in a large real ballroom complete with chairs around the sides for resting and a stage for the live band and an upper level from which to spectate. The average level of dance skill seemed to have gone down a bit with regards to the previous night (a function of there being a lot more people), but the average level of class had gone quite up ... we walked in and immediately I noticed at least two guys on the floor in very classy hats, and one of them was "Doug" from the night before! Mark and I had an excellent time dancing, watching, and talking about all the great dancers there. There was one septi-genarian there who still quite had the moves and was dancing with almost all the young girls and throwing aerial steps; we wondered what he was like at 25 and figured he probably had a different girl every night. Mark decided the reason he wasn't there with a wife was that he couldn't decide which one to marry. There were also a couple of blatant show-offs, well-dressed but very cocky. I asked "Doug" to dance again, and he told me his next dance was taken but after that sure ... but for the dance that was supposed to be mine he got stolen by some other girl! So I danced with Mark that song, and he was telling me he should just fling me at them (he didn't, though). The next song came on, a slow bluesy one, and I went for it and grabbed "Doug," and it was the best blues experience of my life. Remember that classy, sexy move that first caught my attention? He did that move with me! A couple times, too; I almost melted inside. At the end of the song he dipped me (a definite +), and as he did he pretended to drop me and made a little playful face, which was just the perfect end to an excellent dance. I'm sure you can tell that that dance was the highlight of my night.

In addition to dancing, we really didn't do much ... we didn't do any of the many touristy things to to in Barcelona, but we walked around a fair portion of the city trying to find the right place to drop off my camera to get it fixed and to find a place Mark needed to run an errand. We also rode the metro a fair amount (a very good metro system!), but for the most part we hung out on the beach and walked along the boardwalks. The weather was fabulous, about 18 degrees Celsius (high seventies Fahrenheit!), and there were lots of surfers out aprovechando the nice waves along the beach. We spent a fair amount of time sitting on the beach watching them wipe out and wading in the surf. Also, on our way to go investigate a particular odd copper fish-like structure, we paused and broke out some capoeira on the beach! That is one of those things I've kind of always wanted to do (at least since I started capoeira), and it was as great as I imagined. Unfortunately there wasn't anyone there to take pictures of Mark and me sparring, so there are just pictures of each of us separately. But I'm not complaining; it was awesome. The fish thing turned out to be a sort of trellis roof thing over a portion of the boardwalk. I'm not really sure what its purpose was/is. Tied with capoeira for the best thing about the beach was the sunrise ... that's right, we got up at five in the morning (after going to bed at 3) to go down to the beach and watch the sun rise. It was definitely well worth both the early hour and the cold that went with it.

Another great thing about the weekend was hanging out with Mark so much. We were friends before, but not close at all, and this was a really good opportunity to get to know him better. Hanging out with someone 24/7 for a few days will do that. Turns out we have a lot more in common than I knew, such as similar tastes in subculture, music, humor, and cuties. Mark es muy majo; me cae bien. Hopefully we'll continue to be pretty close once we get back to school. Also he told me he likes dipping me, which is awesome as that's the best way to end a song as far as I'm concerned.

There were some drawbacks to the weekend, though, most of which could be classified under the heading of "travel adventures." When I first got to the airport and asked how to get to the train station to rendezvous with my friend, the very helpful worker guy informed me that there weren't any stations in Barcelona and sent me to Girona, the St. Paul to Barcelona's Minneapolis, the Pisa to Barcelona's Florence. So I got to the train station there and called Mark to see where he was, and lo and behold, he was in a train station in Barcelona. Once I got a train to the actual station where he was we could start trying to find the hostel, which was another adventure in and of itself which involved several "Where is it?" calls to the hostel and much wandering around with very stuffed bags. Eventually we got there, and we were much amused by the clearly unhappy desk worker who had some apparent trouble with numbers and cited a price lower than we expected. We didn't complain. The discount was more than nullified, though, by the adventure with the tram cops who seemed to be unnecessarily strict and wouldn't let us run our metro card through, better late than never, but instead fined us for not having done so when we boarded the tram. Needless to say, that was one of the low points of the weekend. I also had some adventures getting back to the airport on Sunday, and it was a good thing I had so much extra time, as I ended up using most of it on various misdirections and trains that went too slowly and buses that took forever to arrive. I blame Ryanair, really, for sending me to the airport in Girona rather than the one actually in Barcelona, both on the way there and back again.

And that is the end of that story, but if you will sit quietly and not stick your finger in your neighbor's nose, I will tell you about mis viajes to the Alhambra and to Cordoba.

Besitos!