The Real You

Drinking is Generally a Bad Idea

Is there ever a time to do crazy stupid shit?

There must be.

In my opinion there's two conditions that have to be met before you can pull off some monumental fuck-up. One, you'd have to be hammered and two, in company of your best friend.

I was both.

Well.....maybe not quite yet.

We'd arrived in Barcelona that very morning. The flight itself was quiet and relaxed.....not. It wasn't a payed vacation, and I'd insisted on flying coach. That had been my first mistake. As it turns out I'd realized you evaluate your flying experience by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. And for that, you're grateful. But Jordan, always my hero, caused a scene when the stewardess wouldn't upgrade us to first class after a baby started crying incessantly after projectile puking on the seat behind us before the plane even took off. I wasn't usually very insistent on these things, but I was forever grateful when after she'd threatened to practically hijack the plane with nothing but a plastic fork if we weren't upgraded to first class, a flustered stewardess escorted us to the business class section, where we spent the rest of the flight giggling like schoolgirls and enjoyed the relative comfort of being able to stretch one's legs instead of being cramped into a tiny seat where maybe a smurf would have been comfortable.

The flight itself was only a couple of hours, and after we collected our suitcases and got through customs it was already time to go get lunch somewhere in Barcelona.

It was sill surprising how after all these years I still felt like coming home whenever I traveled back to Spain. No matter that my mother was about as proper an English lady as you would ever care to find, and that I'd moved to England just after I turned 18, Spain was still my homeland. The culture, the people, the city, it was all so familiar. And as we wondered the busy city streets, bustling with activity, I was reminded of just well I fit in here. Where in England I was considered 'exotic' and foreign', here no one payed me any more attention that they would any other local.

With the Mediterranean sun beating down from a cloudless sky, the treed avenue was awash with a sea of people strolling past colorful flower sellers and kiosks. People where roaming around, watching the local stores, the Modernist architecture, spacious plazas and the state-of-the-art seafront. The shaded labyrinthine streets fooled our logical sense of direction at every turn, but luckily I still remembered my way around, as if I'd never really left. Finding our way in the city we found a shaded terraza somewhere and grabbed a bite to eat, enjoying a delicious tinto de verano (which is red wine with something refreshing like sprite or fanta), accompanied by a tostada con jamón ibérico and some light snacks. Captivated by the atmosphere of the Gothic quarter with its Roman walls and medieval palaces, we sequestered ourselves in a quiet corner of La Taverna del Born, the quintessential spot for a leisurely lunch of garlic mushrooms and grilled squid.

After our lunch we checked into our hotel room. It was a freakishly expensive hotel, but Jordan knew the manager and had managed to get us a nice deal for an extremely luxurious apartment on the fourteenth floor with a view of the ocean and a jacuzzi bathtub on the terrace to go along with it. Seriously, I didn't know where she got her contacts but I sure as hell wasn't complaining. Two queen-sized beds stood on opposite sides of the room, and Jor immediately proceeded to ditch her bags on the floor next to the one on the far side of the room, letting herself fall backwards and falling onto the sheets, arms and legs spread like a starfish. I was a bit more cautious, making my way over to the built-in closet and depositing my suitcase next to it. I'd unpack later. My eyes took in the room, watching the pale blue and cream-colored walls and the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. A long couch with a small saloon table stood on the other side of the room, flanking the huge glass doors giving way to the terrace.