Why Me God, WHY ME!?!?

So I know that I just posted a blog yesterday but there’s something that I forgot to put in it. We went to this marketplace yesterday called the Bouqeria, or something like that. Anyways they had literally everything. Meat, cheese, fish, chocolate, fruit, everything. We stopped by this one place that looked like it had some really good smoothies. Pritkin, Cohen and Miller bought some and tried them. I asked how they were and they said I should definitely get one. So I did. I picked out the one that looked the best, picked it up and paid the women. Right as I was about to sip it the cap slipped off. No big deal right? I just took the cap, which didn’t fall off or anything just got unclipped, and put it back on. Well while putting it back on, because of the fact that I am an insanely strong American and these plastic Spanish cups seem to be made out of paper, I crushed the cup completely and strawberry/banana smoothie exploded from my hands. I was covered!!! All over my shirt, sweatshirt, pants, shoes, as well as millers pants and shoes. Also I was wearing Pitkin’s shirt so needless to say he was pissed; however still couldn’t stop laughing. The venders around me bust into laughing. Pointing and laughing at the stupid American that just showered himself in smoothie. The woman at the stand was laughing so hard she didn’t even want to give me a napkin, only trying to add to my misery. I had to walk around the rest of the day with smoothie on my clothes and sticky hands. Easily one of the most embarrassing moment of my life.

Go fuck yourself Bouqeria… and the women at the smoothie stand

Gypsy's, Hookers and a Grand Ole Time

So I’ll first start off with something that I am pretty proud of because it was not personally my fault. Before coming to Barcelona everyone predicted that I would be the first one to start fights and most likely get arrested. Well ladies and gentleman after Wednesday night Pritkin successfully proved everyone wrong. We were in a place called BroadBar the other night just having a great time on the dance floor. Some random guy elbows Ryan rather hard in the back. Ryan, being the fearless and heroic American that he is, then turned around and blatantly elbows the guy back square in his arm. The guy turns to face Ryan like a gorilla in the jungle and puffs out his chest, trying to become as big as possible. Ryan does the same and they get into a bit of a yelling match; Ryan speaking English and the guy speaking Spanish. Ryan then takes his hand, puts it on the guys shoulder and with is other hand makes a fist and puts it right up to the guys jaw and gives him a push. The man quickly retreats; Ryan had successfully driven him away and regained his territory and position as Alfa male. We thought that we wouldn’t have any more problems from that guy until about 5 minutes later when two bouncers come up to Ryan and tell him that he’s got to go; we assume the guy took advantage of his being Spanish and ratted us out, bitch. Ryan with one security guard holding his arm and the other behind pushing him out begins to chug his drank on our way out the door. As we leave our floor mate Brennin begins to scream at them using every slur he could possibly pull out of his drunken ass. We made our way through into the night to another club, singing and clowning the whole way; great night.

Gypsy’s are apparently a major problem in Barcelona and I have now learned this first hand. We went to this cool looking building yesterday that we had heard was an art museum. In order to get to this castle looking structure however, we had to climb many, many flights of stairs. Along the way we were greeted by six seemingly upper teenage girls with clipboards in their hands. They said that the museum was free but asked for a donation. Because of how persistent they were, I agreed to give them a few Euro, being that I have always been a big supporter of the arts. However, afterwards this guy began to laugh at me. I asked him what was so funny and he said “Stupid Americans, you’re the reason why Gypsy’s are able to continue doing what they’re doing, so ignorant”. “Excuse me?” I said “come again?” “They don’t work for the museum you moron, they’re Gypsy’s, they just stole your money.” I was infuriated. I immediately marched back there, Cohen, Miller and Pritkin at my side, and demanded my money back using many words and racist slurs that I don’t care to add in at this point. They assured me that I was mistaken until finally one of them said to me “yea we did take your money, and its mine now”. I, lost, my, shit. After a few seconds of continued screaming my friends told me that it would probably be better to just let it go before any alpha male Gypsy’s came out of the woodwork and tried to defend their helpless womenfolk. I guess I just fell for the oldest trick in Barcelona. Fuck!

Besides the Gypsy’s, prostitutes are also a major part of Barcelona. One of them even grabbed Miller’s arm the other night and assured him that she would take great care of him. He thought about it for a second but we convinced him that he’d get lucky sooner or later and it wasn’t worth the money. Just kidding, he walked away immediately… or did he? Anyway, that’s beside the point. The city is beautiful and the people seem to be getting better and hating us less, except for the group of about 20 men sitting next to us at dinner last night. While trying to simply enjoy pitchers of sangria and some Payeya with a few girls we’ve met here these men, who were not being quiet themselves, began to get very annoyed with our excessive volume; especially as one of the girls we were with began to get more and more drunk. They turned and stared at us, whispered things to each other under their breathe and stared Cohen down for simply speaking at his normal , yet excessively loud, volume. I blew one of them a kiss and we waved to the others a bit. Needless to say they didn’t appreciate that too much, but I don’t appreciate them being winey little bitches. It’s not like we were in a library, and they should just understand that I don’t care what they think.

Ok now for something serious…

Today was perhaps one of the most powerful days of my life and by normal standards I did nothing of any great substance, I simply stopped and looked around. I took the subway to a random stop, got out and simply walked around for 3 hours. I stopped at a few paces, grabbed some tapas and some drinks and just enjoyed the place that I now live. I didn’t look at any maps besides the ones at the subways, I simply walked around, eventually finding my way home after a solid 3 hour stroll. Today I did not get married. I did not meet anyone that I’m going to know for the rest of my life. I did not really go anywhere entirely outstanding nor did I do anything that would be particularly interesting for others to hear about; besides for the fact that I encourage everyone in the near future to do the exact same thing, wherever it is that you might be. Since being in Barca my teachers have kept telling me to explore the city and today I did just that. I’m not trying to get too preachy and frankly I’m a little surprised you decided to read this much so I’ll just say one more thing without trying to sound too gay. Go out and look around! I’m sure you’ll see things that you didn’t know were there. Maybe see places you want to go, things you want to do and perhaps even something that might change your life or outlook on life; I know today did that for me. SO DO IT, or don’t. But if you don’t I can almost assure you that there will be one day down the road when you’ll wish you had simply gotten lost somewhere and appreciated life without a care in the world .

Thanks for listening…

-Rapchik-

Go fuck yourself Barelona

Where are we going for the Pre-Fade?

Barcelona is by far one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. Here are a few stories from our travels thus far, not the best but it’s still week one.

First off the thing that has been bothering me the most about Barcelona is the metro. Although it is by far more reliable, cleaner and nicer in almost every way if fails miserably to New York’ subway system in the logic behind the purchasing process of tickets. Some tickets you can get at the credit card machines just like NY. However, others must be applied for and it takes 7-10 business days for you to get them. Do to the fact that those tickets are the ones we need, needless to say I am extremely pissed off. After buying a ten ride ticket at the machine I tried to use it at the turnstile, it didn’t work. I tried again and it didn’t work. I figured the turnstile was broken so I went to a different one, yet again it did not work. Miller than informed me that I was swiping the tickets on the right side, rather than the left side. Why the fuck would you swipe your ticket on the left side. I wasted my first three rides on the wrong turnstile, and my day was ruined… I’m just learning as I go I guess.

Also I went into the fridge today to get some water to find that our milk bottle had not been properly closed. Evidently when you don’t tighten the cap all of the way and then set the bottle into the fridge on its side the liquid is able to escape and fill the bottom of our fridge with half skimmed milk, who would have thunk it. I then realized that Pritkin was the last one to use the milk for a bowl of cereal. Upon informing him of this he yet again came to the conclusion that Milk is not meant to be in a bottle but rather in a carton, like it is in the US. Therefore, had we been in the US this catastrophe would never have happened and we wouldn’t have had to waste all of our terribly inefficient paper towels on the milk that was slowly rotting at the bottom of our fridge. It looks like another trip to the grocery store is in order.

So either there’s no policy in Barcelona for picking up your dogs shit off of the street or there are a bunch of loose dogs running around shitting uncontrollably all over the city street because there is dog shit legitimately everywhere, its like playing landmines. This only further annoys me by the fact that it has been raining for last few days and therefore has left the streets wet and filled with shit. Due to the fat that it has been raining we cannot do our laundry because our close need to be hung up outside to dry, this country needs to invest in some dryers immediately or it needs to stop raining; personally idk which one id proffer.

If you read Pritkin’s blog than I apologies for mentioning this again but it honestly freaked me out more than anything in my entire life and has to be noted. This blind women rapped up in a shall with a cane in one hand and a money cup in the other came slowly walking down the middle of the train singing a song in Catalan that was easily the creepiest melody ive ever heard. This was only intensified by the fact that she was in fact blind and slowly coming towards us as if she where the Blair Witch trying to kiss us. Out of all the ridiculous shit I’ve seen living in NYC for my entire life this was easily the most fucked up thing ive ever seen, it scared me beyond words; I don’t know why. I took a nap once I got home and already had a nightmare about it.

Also the other day we needed to take money out of the ATM late at night. The room we walked in had three homeless people sleeping on the floor and an old man already taking money out. When we walked in it smelt like death. Then one of the homeless people farted for a good 5 seconds. The old man turned around with a look of disgust on his face and stared us down for about 10 seconds; he clearly thought it was us who farted. Although more often than not a fart of that magnitude would be attributed to Cohen, in this instance it was not and we were falsely accused of a fart which did not belong to us.

Anyways just a few more stories from the daily goings on of our life in Barcelona. We’ll try to do some more ridiculous stuff to make for better stories but for now this is Rapchik, Cohen, Pritkin and definitely not Miller signing off.

Oh yea, also Miller just started reading The Game by Nile Strauss… needless to say it hasn’t helped yet.

Dating in Spain

So far in Barcelona I have seen many girls who would by modern day standard be considered attractive. These girls rang in all different sizes and shapes, hair colors and styles. However, one thing that I’ve noticed is that, like everyone that has ever walked the earth, they seek attention and want people to notice them. All people really want in life, I feel, is to be noticed and shown that others take interest in them and their every day well being. Everyone is insecure about themselves, and everyone wants others to like them and because of this we try our hardest to conform to general stereotypes that are considered "acceptable" and do our best to appeal to as many people as we can. The more attention we get and the more we are in fact accepted as a person in society the better we feel about ourselves. But what is the best way to get the gratification we want you might ask? What is the best and most fulfilling thing we can do that will not only show us that we are liked but that we are "acceptable" in society? Well to most people the answer to that would be Hooking Up.

Making out, Hooking up, Getting with, Mackin, Kissing... whatever you call it, it’s all the same. Getting recognition from the opposite sex, or whatever sex you’re interested in, is by far the most proffered way of getting the needed attention that everyone craves. There are few things in life that are more rewarding or desired than having the opportunity to become more intimate with a person that you are truly attracted to. However, at times it can be hard to really find someone that we connect with on a personal, physical and sexual level. Therefore, we settle. We settle for the attribute that is by far the easiest to spot out; the one that requires the least amount of time to determine compatibility... physical attraction.

Knowing whether you are physically attracted to someone is almost instantaneous. All that is required is about 1 or 2 seconds of them within your sight and you know. Why is it you might ask that we settle for this one trait when there are literally endless amounts of attributes that might cause two people to connect? Well I don’t pretend to be some sort of expert but if I were to guess this would be it. I think often times we don’t need a real connection with other people to satisfy our desire to be noticed. Sometimes a simple hook up or make out session is enough to do the trick and give people a little more fuel to hold out until the next time they get lucky. Often times these makeout session take place in a bar or club while the two individuals are inebriated to the point where they will neither remember each other names nor anything about the conversation they had prior to making out… if there ever was any conversation at all.

For me personally I find it extremely difficult to connect with anyone when the music is blasting and you can’t move because there are hundreds of drunken kids dancing all around you. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love going to the clubs here, raging, fist pumpin with the best of them and generally doing everything else that a good little frat boy would love appeals to me like non other. And once a connection has been made with someone, a makeout session on the dance floor while grinding to a bone shatteringly loud base can be a shit ton of fun. All I am saying is that there is a time for random hookups and likewise a time for real, genuine connection; a fact which I feel many of my peers fail to realize and the latter of which is often times overlook.
In the end, whether you enjoy random makeout sessions with numerous amounts of people which you care very little about or proffer to actually generate a real conversation with someone you might actually connect with is up to you. For me personally however, I feel the latter is far more appealing. Random hookups can be fun, but if the only thing you have in common is a physical attraction to one another, I find myself at times asking “what’s the point?” Sometimes a smaller bar or club with a sitting area where you can actually get to know someone is far more appealing, some might say that’s gay but I say go fuck ya-self. Anyways it was just on my mind so take what you will and hopefully everyone will find what they’re looking for in the crazily insane scene which we know as the Barcelona night life.

Until next time, in the words of Vinny the fist pumping master “it’s like the music is hitting us, and we’re fighting back”

Stop looking at my Nikes bitch

First off Barcelona is awsome. We've been having a great time and it seems the good times are gonna keep on rolling. We def miss IU and these bars are tight but non will ever compare to Sports. Jk. Anyways the first topic I guess i'll cover is Ryan's lack of appreciation for nearly everything that is not american.
For those of you that do not no Ryan Pritkin it is becoming even more clear that he is the epitomy of an obnoxious, elitist american who cares nothing for other cultures and misses america more than i could possibly explain. I will now inform you of the food that he ate today

Breakfast-Nothing
Lunch-Water. Two Rolls of bread and one bight of steak which he then spat out in his plate
Dinner- A plate of french fries. The eqivalent of a roll of bread, and a few bites of some patatoe dish wish he obviously didn't like. ( oh and a half liter of beer)
Late Night- a three day old sandwich that my mom made him pack before we left for the airport (thanks mom)

Pritkin (who has been quoted saying "i entirely dissagree with everything that is not american") is only rivaled by Cohen who will do whatever it takes to misspronounce Spanish words, be very loud and obnoxious (as usual) and give a southern accent when speaking any spanish at all.

Miller is probably the most docile of us all. He is very complacent with doing whatever we tell him and practically takes shit from all three of us 24 hours a day 7 days a week, on topics ranging from his hot sister, his tollerance (of lack there of) of alchohol, his read hair (which we know he cannot help but its fun anyway) and anything else that we can think of at the time; usually having something to do with the fact that his luggage got lost haha.

As for me... im the man, but you knew that.

Things that are on my mind/ questions that have been bugging me since we got here.
-Why do all spanish people stare at my shoes, then at my face, then back at my shoes?
-why do spanish people do everything so much later?
-Why is the euro worth 1 and a half times the amount of a the dollar but is made in all different sizes, colors and looks and feels like monopoly money?
-Why do spanish people hate americans so much?
-Why are there so many club promoters named Kike?
-Why is the metro system absolutely retarded and requires you to wait a week before gettting the tickets you need?
-Why don't Spanish people understand the concept of a pregame
-Why do Spanish people yell at us when we're raging in the hotel at 5 in the morning? Dont they understand we're american and dont care about their needs?
-Why does eveyone have a lisp
-Why are the clubs open til 6 but no one understands that opening up a late night restaurant outside of a club full of hungry, drunkin americans could make a lot of money?
And Finally
-Why in gods name do they not allow us to bring alchohol into the hotel but the mini fridge has nothing but alchohol inside?

Until Next time This is Pritkin, Cohen, and mostly Rapchik signing out
Go Fuck Yourself Barcelona