Taste the Rainbow

Friday after our exams, Juanjo and Libby arranged for us to go to a wine tasting (tough life).  The session was led by this adorable, old couple who bickered cutely throughout the whole thing.  Like most wine-os, they were incredibly passionate about the subject.  Lots of swirling, swishing, and smelling with their eyes closed.  But in a genuine way, not a pretentious way.  The woman was particularly incredible; after each sip she would superbly articulate how the flavors changed on the palate.  I think it's so cool how people can develop their sense of taste like that.  And their sense of smell, too - I guess they're interconnected.  Smelling is such a strange thing, sort of the outcast of the senses since it's the least necessary for survival.  It's ambiguous, but also sometimes shockingly powerful.  Like when certain scents brings back memories and stuff.

Afterwards everyone was slightly buzzed and in a good mood.  We grabbed some sandwiches, packed up our things, and hopped a train to Sitges (the tickets were free!).  The town was beautiful, and it's only thirty minutes away.  It's very small and mediterranean, with narrow streets that open up to a gorgeous blue coastline.  We drank some wine on the beach (no swishing this time) and went to a nearby restaurant for nachos.

I should probably explain that Sitges is one of the best places in Spain to celebrate Carnaval, which is taking place all over the world this weekend. Supposedly Salvador Dali used to hang out there a lot.  It is very famous for its colorful parties and vibrant gay and lesbian community, which would explain why, in the middle of our nacho snack, a group of men dressed in heels, ribbons and thongs sauntered by and happily volunteered to take pictures with us.

As it grew darker, the streets swarmed with people in costumes.  A group of blue-faced women dressed as smurfs.  A man in two-foot-high platform boots.  People in full-on animal costumes.  Complete madness.

We spent most of the night on the main drag, which is lined with bars playing different types of music.  Crowds were spilling out of each door and people were dancing in the streets, so even though we jumped from place to place, the whole thing sort of meshed together into one giant party.  We danced so hard in our crazy wigs, hats, masks and boas.  Really fun, though throughout the night I probably second-hand-smoked like 15 cigarettes.

Crashed in the hostel pretty late.  Jordyn and Mike were all perky in the morning and pulled the rest of us out of bed.  It was chilly as we walked back down to the beach.  There's this buoy in the water a ways off from the shore, and it has a statue of a white man on top of it.  I remembered it had looked so cool the night before, because the water and sky were both black, so it was just this shaky white figure hovering in the distance.

We ate at a mediocre restaurant, and realized a little too late that it was ridiculously overpriced (over four euro for an orange juice!).  We threw down our money and swore to never speak of it again.  Then we were gonna go back to the train station, but we heard these drumming noises, so we followed the sound to this AWESOME percussion group that was marching through the streets.  It had people of all ages, shapes and sizes, and they were just pounding out these fucking incredible beats.  There was dancing and shouting, too.  One woman was miraculously able to smoke a cigarette as she played.  Another man and kid switched off between playing their own drums and each others'.  

I love drums.  It's the kind of sound that goes all the way down to your bones.

Anyway, after a while we were getting tired, so we headed back to the train station.  Actually, we headed in the opposite direction of the train station and got kind of lost, but we asked some really nice dude for directions and he offered to walk us there.  ("No pasa nada!  Es sabado, y no trabajo!")

The (free!) ride back was much more picturesque in the light of day.  Catalonia is the shit.  And I'm not sure if it's because I've been traveling, but as we stepped into the familiar lime-green lobby of the Residencia, I realized that Barcelona is starting to feel more and more like home.