Our evening began with a homecooked meal by Monica and her mom which consisted of mostly seafood: things with shells, things with legs, and and things deep fried with claws sticking out, topped with French wine and homemade patte.
When the clock struck midnight we gulped down 12 grapes ¨for luck¨ in the new year, gave a ¨salute¨ with our wine, followed by kisses and hugs. Then Carlos drove us to the metro where our New Year began.
At 1:30am the streets were filled with tipsy people having a lot of loud fun. We mosied down La Rambla, where it seemed we came across the rest of the people in the city as well. We were enjoying our time until we began to get groped, grabbed, and kissed by mainly Pakistani men. We got some pictures and video footage until we were too frutsrated that we weren´t being left alone so I put the camera away for free hands to push them away. I appreciate the experience; for some girls, this is all they know of life. No one has told them they are worth more than this. And no one has told the men that it is not okay to treat women like that.
We sat at the end of the road at 2:30 hoping to waste time until the first running train at 6:30 to go home. Sitting next to us was a woman who was clearly an addict of some life altering drug. We gave her water but she didn´t want to (or was unable to) have a conversation with us. He feet were bare in her sandals and completely raw and disgusting, so I gave her my socks. At first she denied them, but I saw her walk away an hour later with socks on her feet.
We were confronted by a few boys from Gambi who apparently didn´t care that I was ¨married¨ or that we were not interested in drinking or clubbing. Even amidst our conversation with them we were approched by some drunk Italians offering us Sangria (or whatever was in the bottle). We pretended that we only spoke German, they were too drunk to notice my bad grammar, but it was hilarious to hear their drunken, broken German to get us to the club.
When we didn´t know how to get out of the conversation with the Gambians, my angel of a fiancee called giving us an excuse to walk away. While on the phone with James, we experienced hearing two gunshots, an apparently drunk man fall over while waiting at a stoplight on his moped, and a funny arab man dancing to the beat of his own drum.
Later we walked down a not-so-busy but still lighted street to get away. We were approached by a cute 20 year old half-Indian half-Banglidesh-ian boy who didn´t seem to have much else to do than to talk with me in my broken Spanish.
At 5am we went down into the underground train station for warmth. At 6 the cafe opened so we could get crossiants, and at 6:30 the train came. We were accompanied by another group of Gambians on the train. We learned a lot about their culture, how they celebrate the New Year, and that if a person has the last name ¨Mindy¨ in their village it means that person is a Christian. They couldn´t remember or pronounce ¨Courtney¨, so they named me ¨Honey¨. We exited the train...alone...and arrived home by 7:30.
After warm showers, yummy crossiants, and hot chocolate with peppermint schnapp´s, we enjoyed a relaxing, breathtaking sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea, a perfect way to end such an interesting evening of new cultural experiences. We were in bed before 9am.
VIDEOS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ3-OmIsg1E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5qviW7p1Ls
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