Barcelona

Two days after we got back from Oktoberfest it was time to start heading over to Barcelona. Tough life I know, but 60 euros (including everything) for a return flight, come on! Anwyays, after sleeping in the airport, plane ride and bus we made it.

We were stayed at the Kabul hostel in Place Real. This is without a doubt the best hostel I've stayed at. For 19 euro a night you get a big free breakfast and a free dinner. They have a bar in the main floor which makes it really easy to meet people. And it gets pretty full later in the night. Great atmosphere and an overall fun place. Definately recommended if you go to Barcelona.

We went to the beach a bunch of times. Great place to get some extra sleep after those long 6AM nights. It was beach weather pretty much the whole time we stayed there and the 'sights' were great. Need I say more...

On the Thursday night I went on a pub crawl with this guy I met from Toronto at the hostel. That was a great time. We had an hour to drink all the beer and sangria we wanted. They brought us to 4 more bars after that with a free drink at each. Each bar was really cool but the third bar was...quite...'Girls Gone Wild' esque. That was definately unexpected. We were with these Irish we met at the pub crawl most the night. They were at the beginning of a trip around the world. It sounded really cool. Definately dwarfs my Euro travels, haha. Overall, the pub crawl was awesome. Got to check a bunch of the bars in Barcelona and meet a whole bunch of people on it.

On Friday we checked out the Sagrada Familia and the Goudi Park. Both of those were amazing with incredible views of Barcelona. You can check out the incredible sights on my pic site. One thing you definately won't get from the pictures were the light feelings in your feet and the butterflies in your stomach from being 170m up in a structure made out of stone. I don't care how unafraid you say you are of heights. You'll feel it at the top, we all did. Some pretty amazing architecture none the less.

That night we went out to the most popular club in Barcelona, Rasmitus. This place was giant! There had to be something like 7,000 people in that place. And the line was something like 150m long. Just crazy in there! Miss Kitty, a very popular DJ in Barcelona was playing that night. It wasn't my style of electronica but it was still fun. There were three floors and five individual clubs on the top floor. Surprise surprise, we managed to lose eachother because it was so crazy crowded in there. It was really cool to see a place like that, but it was a little too intense at times. People were strung on E all over the place and you couldn't stay with someone you knew longer than five minutes. But you can't go to a place like Barcelona and not go to the biggest party in town.

On Saturday we managed to check out the rest of the town, other than Las Ramblas. We even dropped by the famous cathedral. Barcelona is a great place to wander around in. There are so many little cool things to see. I could go on forever about them, but I'd rather not... :)

Saturday night was our last night in Barcelona. I was determined to take advantage. I had dinner at this nice restaurant in Place Real with my cousin and his family who live in Barcelona. Man I love Spanish food! After I met up with some people from the hostel and we headed to the bars. This Castillan guy led us to a discotech in Place Olympica. It was like a Japanese style discotech. A pretty cool place with a multitude 'talent'. Needless to say, I had a great time.

By 4AM I had to head back grab my stuff and head for the bus which leaves for the airport. When I got back there was a huge kafuffle with some people that I travelled with and the Kabul staff. Four of us and I managed to catch a taxi and catch the bus on time so we could make our flight. Couldn't say the same for my inebriated friends. Oh well, they made it back safe and sound which is important.

That was the cap to another great trip to one of the most liveliest city's in Europe. If you go to Europe, Barcelona has to be at the top of your list, no questions asked...

Kean

Oktoberfest

I'm a little overdue on this post seeing as my school has finally caught up to me and kicked me in the balls. I'm through a lot of the homework storm and I'm not looking too bad right now.

My roomate, three American girls and I all rented a car from Maastricht to drive over to Munich. It was the last weekend of the infamous Oktoberfest. This is the biggest weekend of Oktoberfest and let me tell ya, it was easy to tell.

It took us 8hrs to drive there and we finally got to the Oktoberfest grounds in the early afternoon of Friday. It wasn't super busy on Friday but it was super hard to get a table. We managed to get one at the Augustine tent on the second floor. I really wonder why they call them tents. They are more like stadiums. They are giant! There had to be around 5,000 people in this one tent. I have a picture of it in my picture site...

The atmosphere was great people are singing, dancing, chanting and cheering on the tables. There was a traditional German band in the middle of the tent who would play a German song every half an hour. People would cheersing with everyone around them. Everyone was having a great time and it was really easy to meet random people at Oktoberfest.

Beer wasn't the only thing served in the tents. They would also serve chicken, hotdogs (bratwurst), beef and pies. They were giant too! Germans are not shy about their portions. Big beer and big food seems to be the slogan over there.

Further into the night Alex (my roomate) and I managed to leave the group and wander around Oktoberfest. We checked out all the different tents before all the tents closed. Each one has their own specific style and atmosphere. By the time all the tents close all the hills around Oktoberfest are a war field of sick and passed out drunk people. In fact, there was this one guy literally eating grass to....relieve himself of his alcohol... You know your at Oktoberfest when...

We met up with the rest of the UVic crew that night at the hotel. We tried to get to Okotberfest early so we could get a table. And man, it was way more crowded on Saturday. Pure pandemonium! We went super early and we could only manage a table outside. That was totally fine though, the weather was great all day. The whole day involved plenty of beer, bratwurst and babes. What else does a guy need?

There were a lot of Italians there pissing off the Germans about there latest football victory. I don't know if you heard about it. Huge groups of them singing 'We are the Champions' in Italian. It was hilarious to see.

As the night came, it got more and more busy. We kept on losing eachother in the crowds and had to get lucky to find eachother again. We actually lost Alex for the rest of the night. Once we finally gathered most of teh group we started heading back. But before we left, we saw this tussle ensue. Couple guys bumped eachother in the super busy walkway. Another guy tried to break it up but the one bigger guy just walked up to the other guy and cranked him on the chin. The other guy got knocked out right away a smacked his head on the pavement. He was completely unconscious with blood coming out of his mouth. He could have easily got brain damage. The bigger guy split right away. Pretty scary, but a reality at a festival like this...

By the time Sunday came around we decided to do a little sight seeing in the historical district of Munich. It was very nice and we got some decent pics as well. We would've stayed longer but we had to hit the road for a long trip. Overall, a great trip and definately worth the money. I will go back there at one point of my life. Mark my words!

Kean