happy

Went to The Quiet Man pub last night where everyone was tattooed and pierced, dressed like witches or skeletons, dancing to rockabilly. Decided that I needed to be a little intoxicated to flail around, went to the bar with Rachel where the bartender tried to sell me a beer for six euro, was deciding on which shitty import to buy (no Moritz Epidor or Voll Damms- only Heinekens, bleh) when all the girls frantically rushed us out of the door, yelling that people were fighting; Grace was horrified, had stood atop her chair convinced that they were seeing a man get beaten to death. But they forgot my purse, so Rachel and I went back in to get it and everyone was tranquilo, bopping around, no blood splatters or roughed up men. Weird. Couldn't keep up on Las Ramblas with the fast and sober walking group so we decided to just lag behind, use the bathroom at Maximum Gelato (where every single ice cream scooper is attractive; one told me my eyes are "very beautiful" once and all his coworkers laughed; they recognized me, prancing in all tipsy and Spanish-speaking, asking to use their bathroom even though they were closed- what a strange thing, to be a regular at a gelato shop on Las Ramblas; every time I walk down Las Ramblas I decide I hate Barcelona- it's the most awful street in the world, I think, so touristy and crowded and filled with freaks, like the man who dresses as a flower and stands in a giant pot and who makes kissing noises at you when you pass). I convinced Rachel to go back to the bar with me and we danced for two hours, a portion of that with a cute Peruvian girl who had two friends named David, which I was unreasonably confused by at the time and so I kept pointing from one to the other when we were introduced, asking, "And his name? And his name?" Rachel and I sobered up by walking down the Rambla de Catalunya speaking in "So I Says" voices- I haven't lost mine after all! It was just hiding itself, embarrassed by that first night we went to a bar here and I started using it and everyone felt really uncomfortable. That's another thing that's kind of a bummer here- the things I take pleasure in make nearly everyone else uncomfortable, like dancing to rockabilly with Spanish hipsters or saying ridiculous things in Bostonian accents. Ate cookies on a bench, saying, "What the fuck? I'm eating cookies on a bench in Barcelona, drunk at three-thirty in the morning, after spending two hours dancing to rockabilly in an Irish pub with a Peruvian girl, and can't stop speaking in this voice." And then we listed various "What the fuck?" moments so far- "I spent forty-two euro buying drinks for Molly's birthday- what the fuck?", "I ate two entire jars of Nutella because I hate this city so much- what the fuck?" Maybe none of this sounds like a good time at all, but it was one of the first nights that I just went around and did things that I wanted to do, and I felt so normal, having fun, having a friend. The other night I was supposed to see Agora at a theater where all the movies are played in their original version and subtitled, but the tickets were sold out and Clare just wanted to go to bed, and so I walked to the theater by my house and watched the movie alone and in Spanish- it was really nice. I'm doing things- this is really nice.

Went to sleep at 4:30 and woke up at 8:30 with a greasy face and no voice. Oh my.