Out All Night...

Barcelona, Spain

October 31, 2007
N41°23.190
E002°10.480

Yes, it’s Halloween night, but Spain doesn’t really celebrate Halloween like we do in the States. However, the streets were still full of people, not because of Halloween, but because November 1st is a holiday—The Day of the Dead.

There were a few people running around in costumes, mostly in ex-pat bars like Wall Street, where the price of drinks fluctuates based upon what’s being purchased. For example, if you buy six pints of Amstel you’ll instantly see the price of Amstel rise and the price of other beers drop on the electronic ticker-boards hanging above the bar. It’s all about supply and demand! Of course, every so often, someone will order a large round of drinks and cause a crash in the market; yellow lights begin to flash, bells ring, sirens sound and the price of all drinks fall nearly 50%. This causes chaos and there’s an immediate rush to the bar, everyone trying to get in on the crash and buy a cheap round before the prices stabilize. Buy low and drink cheap!

Our evening started at a tapas bar and quickly slipped away. We met my friend Ana and her boyfriend Kyler (an ex-pat from Texas living in BCN). It was great to see Ana again after so many years. The last time we talked was at least five years ago, when we randomly saw each other on a street in San Francisco. We promised to get together, but it just never happened. We made up for lost time and talked all night, literally. Before we knew it, it was 5:30 AM and we said good-night (or good-morning) and strolled back to our apartment.

The streets were far from deserted at 5:30 in the morning. It seemed like everyone was just headed home from parties or just hanging out in the streets. Marc and I finally walked in the door of our apartment at 6:15 AM, looked at each other and just laughed. Neither of us could even remember the last time we stayed out until 6:00 AM; maybe in college, but definitely not in the past 15 years! Barcelona does crazy things to people.

The energy and mellow people make the city easy to fall in love with. We realized we could easily call Barcelona home, at least for part of the year. Especially if we had wonderful people like Ana and Kyler to hang out with.