Boiler Room

Around 4:30 Kyle and I were heading out the door for a meeting, thanks to my buddy J.Sully (not Kyle's dad) regarding a potential job, when I got a phone call. Earlier in the week I had applied to a financial sales job. I'm not exactly sure what I would be selling but I need work so it seemed like a smart play.

The number comes into my phone as restricted. I answer and the bro starts talking to me telling me he had read my resume and wanted to talk for a minute. It sounded promising at first so I asked Kyle to hold up when we hit a relatively quit part of the street.

First he asks me if I have any sales experience, so I lied and told him I had done some insurance sales and some bull shit telemarketing. After that I told him about some other experience I have and he seemed to think that would suffice.

To this point essentially all I had done was lie and reiterate stuff that he already knew. Now generally speaking in terms of finances and investments I feel much of the responsibility falls in the hands of the investor not the manager / salesman. My fiscal conservatism and pro capitalism mindset can be a flaw in the rarest of occasions, this happened to be one. The first real question the guy asked me, that could not be answered by my resume, was:

"Would you have trouble selling something to a client that benefits you financially while hurting them financially?" I told him thats an ethical question and then responded by saying: "So your asking me if I would be okay selling an asset to a client that I know will adversely effect them financially while befitting me financially at the same time?" The dude tells me that I am correct and have the gist of things. I told him I'm not sure I would be cool with that and that it's not even legal in the US. He then replied "Well this probably isn't for you then." At which point we exchanged pleasantries and ended the call.

Maybe I'm getting soft but I do not want to be barred from the financial services industry for life as a result of financially crippling some Spaniards.

Pre-Gaming Like Bastards

As you all know, drinks in any city are way over priced. Factor in the exchange rate, and the additional club surcharge on drinks, and you get the idea. With that in mind Kyle and I have been pre-gaming like bastards.


The liquor selection is pretty standard, and on a typical Friday & Saturday we go down that road. So far it has been what you would expect; either J&B, Johnny Red, Jägermeister (we live with Germans and they love it), and occasionally some sort of vodka. Kyle & I have gotten blacked out a few too many times already. These blackouts include mixing liquor, beer, & wine/champagne (sometimes) and I have yet to wake up hungover.

I cant really make sense of this. From what I have been told, the wine and beer does not have preservatives in them, but I didn't think liquor had any in it anyway. Whatever the reason, it's nice not being hungover.

Champagne is called Cava here, since, as all you world travelers know, it's technically only Champagne when its from Champagne, France. Anyway, we have not had too much of that but apparently a lot of people party with just Cava...

Beer. The beer selection is rather strange. Spain is not known for its beer which is probably why the selection is lacking and sub-par. Everywhere has Estrella, which from what I can gather is like miller lite. Other than that its anyones guess. Each supermarket has their own beer, some are ok, most are mediocre. Also, beer comes in 10.5oz cans but the alcohol is always 5+%. We have only found 12oz Amstel's and they are the cheapest in the store. Oddly enough you see people drinking all day every day, mainly beer too...


That brings me to my next point. They dont understand buying in bulk here. They package beer, water, pop, everything much like you would see in the U.S. The only difference is you can tear open packages and buy individual cans. This very act got myself and a few others banned from Giant Eagle for life cerca 8th grade. The point is, you can buy the whole package, 12 beers and they charge you as if you are buying 12 individual beers. There is zero price break. I could buy all the beer in the store and not see 1 cent of price relief. Its unreal. This picture represents the closest thing to functional capitalism and commerce in this country (and their pricing system is still totally fucked)

I could rant for hours about the inefficiencies in the Spanish economy, infrastructure, work ethic, and their lack of desire to engage in commerce. It really is no wonder they are pegged to be the next Greece. Spend one week here and you will have no doubt. But I digress, back to the point. All stores and markets are open strange hours and technically you cannot buy alcohol after 10pm - period. This rule of course means nothing if you find the right shops. The right shops are generally convenient store type places owned and operated by Pakistani guys.

Once the alcohol is secured We are generally partying at our flat till sometime between 1 & 2 then going to a club, bar or the beach. The beach is awesome and if any of you come to visit we will have a beach party.

Just a couple of bro's happy to be there...

TEFL 2010

post redacted

Food

If I had my camera on the ready at all times this post could consist of probably 100 pictures by now - Mexican Ketchup, massive pig legs, with some hair still on it etc. Unfortunately that has not been the case, here are a few of the highlights.


Frozen pepperoni pizza from the store - its not DiGiorno





Lemon Lime Gatorade - its not the right color, taste is close - just take my word for it.

Finally, a few hours ago Kyle and I were bored out of our minds, so we decided to head to the store. On our way back after buying chips, juice, and meatballs we found a store that was selling just fruits and vegetables. Realizing that out diets were lacking some essential components we popped in (not off) to pick up some apples and bananas. As I was checking out I noticed a big basket of cherries being sold next to the register. Up to that point I had never eaten a cherry so I figured it was time to cross something off my bucket list. I grabbed on cherry and placed it in front of the cashier who laughed at me and just handed it to me instead of weighing it (freebee). This is her.

Wednesday

Well the TEFL course Kyle and I have been taking has come to an end. We finished our grammar test (yes we're in 4th grade) and are now free. I can safely say I have never spent a month in "class" and learned less than I have this month. Anyway, we decided to get things going after the test - noon-ish.

First stop - Metro Bar. At the Espanya metro stop there are not one, but two bars to satisfy the needs of any alcoholic. Drinking at this bar has been a running joke since we first saw in 4 weeks ago. I dont know who would chose to drink at a bar in the Metro when there are other options, and when you dont have to wait more than 5 minutes for your train. Anyway, just before 12:30 Kyle and I started drinking. So far we had each eaten a chocolate croissant and had water. First drink of the day - Double shots of J&B. Those went down nicely. At this point we realized the benefit of the metro bar. 2 double shots of J&B cost us 5 euros. Since most of the people reading this have pretty solid math skills you can see that this is a good deal.

After taking down a few J&B shots we headed home to dump out backpacks and get some food. 40 minutes and one painfully long metro ride later and we're home. While we waited for the pizza to cook (clearly there is no preheating going on) we decided to shotgun some malt liquor. Volt Damm is 7.2% and tastes pretty bad. Unfortunately I don't have after-shots of us in pain but those did not go down well. It is now 2:00 and we are heading out to keep this party going.

Kyle - 1, Dirty thief - 0

Let me break it down for you. On Saturday night we went to a bar called L'Ovella Negra (The Black Sheep) which has mess hall style seating and an old gothic look to it. We got home at about 5am so we were pretty hungover/tired on Sunday. We decided to make the trip to downtown Barcelona to meet up with a couple friends from school and shoot the shit.

We're casually sitting in a Starbucks in a pretty touristy area, but the 'bucks isn't busy. We're perched in the back corner. I have my back facing the rest of the store. Dave and I both have our backpacks sitting right in front of our legs. We're casually talking amongst each other and have been for about a half an hour. I look down and realize my backpack is gone, a woman sitting next to me starts to say something to me in Spanish and I instantly start sprinting out of the store like a bolt of lighting, I kid you not. Dave can attest to my reaction time. It took me about half a second to figure out what happened and I started running, fully ready to spear whatever bastard took my bag (which has my camera, ipod, sunglasses, and 1 of my credit cards).

I shove the glass door open and almost hit somebody in the face and head down a very populated street. I see a woman in an alleyway flagging me down. I sprint over and I see my bag sitting on the ground in the alley, unopened. This is where my mom comes in. She bought me 3 small, bright green TSA locks for my luggage before I left. I have been using one of them for my backpack religiously as we had been warned about the how crazy theft is in Barca, so my backpack was locked. For a reference point, there was an article about a guy who had been caught stealing 240 times but never punished. There is basically no consequence to getting caught so people never stop.

My adrenaline was pumping at this point and I really wanted to hunt down whoever took it and get a few shots in. Especially because it was during the day and everybody in the street would recognize what had happened and wouldn't care what I did to this guy. But when I saw my bag I stopped instantly because I saw the green lock. I knew for sure that nothing could have been taken and it wasn't worth my time. He could have kept the bag and cut the strings that the lock was attached to later, but thankfully he didn't. All this had occurred before Dave and our friends knew what had happened. They just saw me sprint out of the store without any idea what was going on and caught up with me by the time it was all over.

There was a big window in Starbucks where we were sitting, which also faced the alley where my bag was. I think the person saw me through the window sprinting after them which caused them to drop it and run. It was a combo of that and the lock, which prevented instant access to my stuff. I am lucky to have come away losing nothing and I'm very grateful to my Mom for buying me those locks and the two good samaritans. To summarize, if you do come visit us, don't bring anything important.

Survived Another Day

Our first month is coming to a close quicker than I could have imagined. We are still looking for jobs and need to find an apartment before we get kicked out in two weeks. This brings me to today's adventure.

As a preface: We have been emailing all over town trying to find places to live. On Saturday we spent an hour on the metro getting to one place that we did not even vist. It became apparent fairly quickly that we were way too far away from anything, and that we were in a wildly underdeveloped area. The landscape was a mesh of barren fields of dirt and trash & apartment buildings under construction. There were no restaurants, no supermarkets nor any other indication that commerce was alive in this area. Combine that with the fact that the lessor was a total louse. He completely misrepresented the area and could not give directions to save his life.

I walked away from that experience thinking I had learned something about apartment hunting in BCN - I was wrong.

Today neither Kyle or I had to teach so we went to check out two other places. The neighborhood seemed nice enough, at least until you walk 6 inches off the main strip. Once we ventured off the main street we wondered down an ally that just as easily could have been plucked out of Mogadishu, Beirut or Yerevan. There we sketchy dudes holding clipboards and clearly keeping stock of their peep of hoes working up and down the dark ally. All of the buildings were no longer using Spanish or Catalan in their store-fronts, but rather Arabic. Everyone we saw was of middle easterner or African descent. Also, the allies we were walking down were about 20 feet wide. It was dark and damp and there was a potpourri of BO, feces, death, weed and crime in the air. Although it was 3:00PM somehow they managed to create the feeling of dusk. However, had it been dusk I doubt we would have walked out of there. You could feel the contempt and confusion lingering. It was fairly apparent that people like us (Americans / non-terrorists / non-criminals) do not go to their neighborhood.

I wanted to take a picture but I value my life enough to keep this memory in mind only. Plus I'm pretty sure the protocol in those burrows is to cut your arm off to get your camera. Anyway I do not have any original art for this post. If you have seen Lord of War, think about the scene when he is in Africa and does brown brown for the first time and is wandering around the streets. It was like that but with large buildings all around rather than huts.