A to the B-Town

New photos are up (and hopefully reorganized) on
www.kelseylumpkin.shutterfly.com.


Our last day in Amsterdam (after deciding against the
Dungeon Museum) we headed over to FOAM, one of 3
photography museums in the city. We saw one of the
most interesting photo exhibits that I have ever seen.
The photographs themselves weren’t-t that interesting
(basically like snap shots) but the concept was
awesome. The photographer had taken pictures of
trends in three cities (New York, Paris and Shanghi).
The amazing part was that often you couldn’t tell the
cities apart…everyone is wearing stripped polo shirts
in all three cities or camo…weird. There were also
some funny instances where the different cultures were
painfully obvious…the men sitting in parks on their
lunch breaks: Americans- eating, Parisians- reading,
Chinese- just sitting.


The other really interesting exhibit was a
photographer that traveled to Palestine and Israel.
He took close up face shots of people with similar
jobs making funny faces. He then posted these photos
in public places on both sides of the wall…to show
that people are really all the same, no matter where
they come from. Also, very cool.

Had some falafel for dinner (we ate a lot of falafel
in Amsterdam).


That night we went to the infamous Red Light District.
One guidebook had the interesting comment that “All
cities have prostitutes. In Amsterdam some of them
just stand in windows with red lights.” True, I
suppose…. but it was still deeply disturbing to see
it. After a very short visit we were ready to get out
of there…especially after Megan said “I feel like
we’re the free ones.” Ewww….


The next morning day is what I like to refer to as
The-Longest-Craziest-Day-Of-Ridiculous-Travel. We
were on the following forms on transportation:
Bikes
Walking
Tram
Train
Bus
Airplane
Shuttle Bus
2 Metros
Walking


But in the end we were checked into one of the nicest
hostels of our trip and we were in Barcelona. We
asked at reception for a good place to eat dinner and
headed out for a 10pm meal. This seems very late to
us…but in Spain it is very normal to start dinner at
10 or 11pm…nightlife doesn’t really get started until
3am…

At the restaurant we had some great Spanish
food…paella! And about half way through he meal
started chatting with the group of 4 sitting next to
us. They were all originally from Portugal but had
been living in Barcelona for some time. They were
really friendly and invited us out to a club where
they were going to hear live music. None of us were
feeling that great (the worst of the colds were coming
on)…but how can you pass up an opportunity like
that?!?! So we headed out with our new friends and
heard some AWESOME music. I was surprised that they
mostly played American music…old music like “She’s a
Maniac” and “The Eye of the Tiger” but it was awesome.
We went to bed early by Spanish standards…but 2am
seemed late enough to us after our long day.


First full day in Barcelona. Wandered down Las
Ramblas, a famous pedestrian walkway in Barcelona and
watched the huge array of street performers and human
statues. I have never before seen one of these
performers getting ready on the street or taking a
smoke break…. but it seemed to just be part of the
deal here. It is sort of odd to see a man painting
his baldhead silver…. or a woman dressed up and the
Statue of Liberty smoking a cigarette. Went down to
the port/beach area and saw the picture of Columbus…he
is pointing West…which seems odd to me, but who am I
to say??


As we were walking down the boulevard next to the sea,
in the middle of the morning I noticed a man walking
towards us. He had a lot of funny tattoos and
something seemed to be hanging out of his Speedo….
ohmygodNO! He was naked. Totally butt naked, not one
stitch of clothing on his body naked…walking down a
main area of town…in the middle of the day…NAKED! The
funniest part was we seemed to be the only ones who
thought it was out of the ordinary….

After getting over our shock…we found a company that
did a 1 1/2 hour catamaran tour of the harbor and
decided to treat ourselves since this was the first
day we had really seen the sun in about a week and a
half. It was great…we especially liked when the
deckhands put up the sails… J


Since it had been such a taxing morning we went back
to the hostel and took a nap. Then we made ourselves
some dinner and got ready to go out for a Big Night in
Barcelona. We were meeting up with a friend of a
friend of Megan’s who had been living there for a few
months. (After quite a bit of lost wandering) we
found him at Placa Real. He then got us into one of
the main discos in town…because, he was on the list.
J (Nightclubs in Barcelona are known for having HUGE
cover charges, so we were glad to not have to pay
that. And the drinks were crazy expensive enough to
make up for it…this club was huge! There were 2 large
dance/dj rooms and one smaller one upstairs. The
upstairs room was the only one you could smoke in and
unfortunately played the best music. But we wandered,
danced and had a great time. We made it to about
4am…. still early by Spanish standards…but we were
pleased with ourselves. J

Ok. More next time. Hope you are well,

Blessings,
KNL