Barri Festival in Vall d’Hebron

Yesterday we were at a barri festival in Vall d’Hebron, which is a type of town festival where the locals in that particular borough celebrate their area by blowing up fireworks, setting up a flea market and getting drunk. I took a few pictures, some of which you will find attached to this post, while the others ran around blowing up fireworks. We had great fun! Check out the pictures, will you?

Today I’ve been hanging out with David who’s from Guatemala. He barely knows any English so I’m forced to speak Spanish with him and that certainly helps me to learn a lot more Spanish in a short period of time. I need to refine my skills, otherwise I will fail to impress the family who runs the café right across the square where I always have my daily espresso. It’s good to have a place to go to, but I must be their most boring customer since I always order in the same things, a cup of espresso and a bottle of water sin gas. They’ve started to prepare my exquisite order every time they see me crossing the square so it’s ready by the time I enter the café and take a seat. First I wasn’t sure as to whether I should feel offended, but I guess that it’s some sort of act of endearment (hoho!) since they’ve started to smile at me instead of frowning ever since I told them in Spanish that I’m here to learn the language.

At any rate, my head feels like a frisbee after today’s conversations! I’m off to bed now. One day left and then I’m leaving for Örebro where I am to spend a couple of days before it’s time to travel south again.

 

Flashbacks: Seattle

Here’s a flashback post on our recent trip to Seattle, WA. I was very excited to go to Seattle, having heard stories of the city being a haven for vegans and anyone who has a predilection for unique music, keeping in mind all the artists that hail from Seattle such as Chris Cornell and Nirvana. Upon leaving for Vancouver, however, I felt disappointed. We had been running around trying to find at least one vegan restaurant downtown but without success and, later, I learnt that supposedly the place to be is King’s Hill (or something like that, the name of the area escapes my mind for the moment) which we had no clue about. Next time, I guess… At any rate, we hit up the Experimental Music Project which is supposed to be an awesome museum-like place but unfortunately they had closed at 5 pm (!), which we thought was a little early. Listless with nothing to do, we decided to hit up the Space Needle so we at least could say that we’d done something during our one day visit. We went up to the observation deck 160 metres above the ground and it felt almost ridiculous after having been up in the Empire State Building just a couple of weeks before that, where we were leaning on the ledge some 380 metres above the ground. Moreover, it was swaying a lot. Whatever they say to you to calm you, it does sway!

I guess I might have to go back to Seattle to find the gems, but as I feel right now I’m not too keen on going back for a while. I rather go back to Portland. At least our hotel room was awesome.

 

Not Too Cheesy 2009

I was in Portugal from the 2nd of May through the 5th to play at the Not Too Cheesy 2009 open air party in Pedrogão Grande. Previously I’ve only been to Oporto (and Lisbon airport, if that counts) so I was excited to see a little more of Portugal, a country which I really like. Had it not been for the language, for learning how to pronounce things like a Portuguese isn’t very easy, I could easily see myself living in Oporto in the future. Plus, the people there are awesome.

This time I got to see a bit of the central parts of Portugal, including a visit to Coimbra, which is the third largest city in Portugal. We travelled south from Oporto to Pedrogão Grande where we were to play at the open air party. The party itself wasn’t the best I’ve experienced in my lifetime, but I met some old friends there from Oporto and it’s always great fun hanging out with Renato and his friends. I wish, however, I had a better grasp of the Portuguese language. Not as many people as expected showed up, though, and I felt sad to see the disheartening look on the promoter’s face for he had worked hard to pull it off. We had a good time, but sadly I learnt afterwards that my friend Colin had his laptop stolen at the party. Bastards!

All in all, I had a good time in Portugal. I really like Oporto. I hope I can make it back to Oporto again before the end of the summer. The coffee, the people, the atmosphere. Oporto rocks.

 

Forza Barça

A couple of days ago we went to a bar to see the Champions League semifinal between Chelsea and Barcelona. It was absolutely crazy to watch it here in Barcelona, cheering amidst a chaos of fan and beer. Chelsea got an early goal and was in the lead up to the 93rd minute when Barcelona tied the game, thus paving the way for Barcelona to the Champions League final where they’re going to play Manchester United. After the game, we went to Las Ramblas andPlaça de Catalunya to celebrate with the other fans. The atmosphere there was incredible and the celebrations went on for hours. The police, however, were not too happy about the celebrations and decided to attack the happy fans at around 2 am.

The police here are a little different from that of Sweden. Here, the riot police take off their badges before they go into battle, hence they cannot be identified afterwards should they have violated any laws  in the case of an unsuccessful action. People got beaten up badly, young and old, fans and Joes, and the more aggressively minded part of the crowd responded by throwing glas bottles at the police. We were in the middle of the chaos, sitting peacefully on a curb on Plaça de Catalunya, hoping they wouldn’t beat us since we didn’t do anything whereas others were throwing bottles some 50 metres away from us. They spared us during their first round, but by the time they came back for the second round of beating up they decided that we had lost our innocence. Two of my friends got beaten up by the police but they were just standing on the street buying beer from a random guy. In other words, they didn’t act in any way that might have been perceived as aggressive by the police. They were just the unlucky winners of the night. Someone else wasn’t as lucky, though. It was said on the news that a young adult later died from his injuries caused by the police brutality. Mossos d’Esquadra, that special department of the police force, aren’t to be bothered. They’re crazy.

I recorded this video while standing amidst the craziness on Las Ramblas:

 

Oregon – “God’s State”

On the flight from Denver to Portland a woman seated next to me and I got into conversation as she noticed that we were Swedish. She told me that her great-great something had emigrated from Sweden to the US in the late 1800s, and had settled in Oregon. She kept on praising Oregon, saying Oregon is “God’s state”, and retrospectively I concur, however without the religious touch to it. It really is a beautiful state!

We spent about a week in Portland and made a couple of excursions, checking out Mount Tabor, Cannon Beach, Rockaway Beach, Twin Rocks and much more. I definitely want to go back to Portland in the future. Also, the people there are so laid back and the place had indeed a good effect upon me. I miss you guys!