...oh, the people you'll meet.
So I just returned from my travels in Rome, Florence and Barcelona. Or should I say, Roma, Firenze y Barcelona (why do we call Barcelona Barcelona if most other ciudades are different?). I really don't know how to go about blogging about said adventures because most of my family appears to read this and my parents just asked me why I feel the need to tell them things like, "No, I didn't sleep, I went straight from the discoteca to the airport and I was still drunk from the flight." The answer, "It just doesn't matter anymore," doesn't appear to satisfy.
But I think that, as usual, the people I meet are 100x more interesting than Roman ruins or a catedral, so let's talk about that instead. I think I've said before, there's something about traveling that lets people strike up conversation with just about anyone. (Case in point: We were in Barcelona, waiting for the fountain show to start and I saw a Sox hat. And a Yankees hat. I went down, asked where they were from, what the hell they were doing standing next to each other, and chatted for a little while. Give me a break, I haven't seen a Sox hat in LITERALLY 4 months. I ended it with, "Go Sox, Yankees Suck." Sidenote: the fountains were cool. Pictures to come.)
So here's my summary of the coolest characters we met. And also the lamest.
Enzo: We arrive at our hostel in Roma and there are 3 girls and we discover that we have a 4th roommate. This turns out to be this absolute character of a 30 year old ish Italian man who owns a hostel in Venice. There were many, many highlights of our time spent with Enzo, but I particularly enjoyed when we told him we weren't going out that night and he said that he would get us a present... and re-enters the room saying "I am Santa Clause! I bring presents!" in his Italian accent. Natch, the present was champagne. Needless to say, there's a solid chance we will be heading to Venice for a stay at his hostel.
LaToya y Conrad: Us tres chicas americanas were staring at the subway map in Roma in complete confusion (who told us Spanish and Italian were similar? Mentirosos!) trying to find out how to get to the Vatican. We end up striking up conversation with this couple from Texas, heading to lunch with them and then touring the Vatican. This was also the BEST pizza of our trip during the most miserable weather. Win some, lose some, gain a new facebook friend.
Characters of the Colosseum Pub Crawl: I mean it was a pub crawl. Met some cool asians from California and we totaaaally bonded. To the point where I was dubbed "Japanese Jacqui" for the remainder of the night. Or the Russians... Alina naturally gravitated towards them (I swear, she can smell the vodka coursing through their veins or something) and I stood there as they made noises they call a language (tía.... ¡una broma!) One hombre spoke some English so we talked, but the other one didn't speak a single word of English. That's to say that "Hello" was beyond his capabilities. Naturally, I went to my failsafe European mode of communication and smiled a lot and told his friend to tell him I was sorry I never learned to speak Russian. And that we won the Cold War. Now, I'm not sure what kind of impression this made - okay, didn't refer to the Iron Curtain, whatevs - but at some point in the night, he came over and handed me a rose. Hilarious. Or my favorite, the Portuguese guy and we would just yell each others names when we saw each other; ¡Pedro! ¡Jacqui! ... Plus I tried to learn swears in Portuguese but now I forget them all.
Randoms Waiting In Line Behind Us At the Vatican Museum: Names aren't important, plus we never exchanged them, but there were some nice Americans behind us in the massive line for the museu. So during the course of conversation (also, when did I become a real enough person that I am actually interesting enough for people above the age of 40 to speak to? I don't like it. Maybe I'll start to regress.) we found out that they are fellow ex-pats, living in Germany, from Maine, NJ, etc. and that they had lunch with a girl who was doing a similar program as us just the day before... Lindsey, was that you? hahaha, I thought it was Brittany pero estoy equivocada.
Cabrón Who Stole Alina's Purse: Yep, that's right, sorry Mom and Dad. We had a little bit of mala suerte- standing in the doorway to our hostel, waiting to be buzzed in and some guy comes up and starts harassing us. Por supuesto. But he keeps coming closer and closer and we are just yelling at him, "que te jodan! vete! go away!" and anything else that came to mind. Well, he ripped her wristlet off her arm- actually broke it and took off. Luckily, he only got 5 euro, but her camera as well. Seriously, enjoy looking at someone else's memories. And get a job.
New Friends in Barcelona: A friend had friends in Barcelona, and these guys went above and beyond to make sure we had a phenomenal time there. First off, they were hilarious, second, they were determined to show us a fabulous time. We had unbelievable tapas, were taught salsa (????? Kidding, we danced like Americans and maybe embarrassed them a little. Next time we'll lay off on the fist pumps and sprinkler moves. Wish I was kidding.) and introduced to so many new friends. I also spoke more Spanish in four days in Barcelona than I have spoken in my entire stay in Spain. Chicos necesitan practicar inglés muchooooo. Plus, I got to learn some more slang, a single word in Catalan, and lots of palabras malas! ¡Me las encanta!
These are just some stories off the top of my head. So many other people made our stay more enjoyable or just made it more interesting. Por ejemplo, the Brit on the double decker bus tour we took who warned us not to drink the water... 'cause he learned the hard way.
¡Gracias a todos para un buen viaje!
No comments:
Post a Comment