Hello, 2010!

I'm back, baby! Back in the New World and back on line! Wow, what a friggin' holiday. I tell ya what....I still don't feel like everything is back to normal, which is kind of good. Everything feels kind of new, slightly different. Kind of like the first day of school.

Barcelona was awesome. A truly great trip that I'll never forget. It's all still a little overwhelming to think about so rather than give a blow-by-blow with all of the 1,400 pictures I took, I thought I would just post one little nugget for now. I think I'll have to use one of those online picture gallery sites for the photos anyway (suggestions for ease of use are welcomed). Not to mention, Conrad is the most regular reader and he was on the trip so I figured I'd post a couple things from the day after he left.

If you didn't know, Conrad and The Doug arrived in Barcelona a day earlier than me and left a day earlier. I had to book it that way because of the Denver trip and it was also vastly cheaper using those dates. Anyway, so there I am in Barcelona all alone on my last day. Early in the evening, I was making my way home after a long day of walking but I wasn't quite ready to be inside yet so I decided to go have a beer (when in doubt, have a beer, I say). I was sitting at the bar at the Cerveceria Catalunya, which came highly recommended by the good people at Fodor's, sipping on an Estrella and finishing up my last few postcards when I overhear the guy sitting one stool away from me talking to the bartender. He was clearly American (or Canadian). After a few minutes, I began to look his way, trying to catch his glance so that I could strike up a conversation. He was sitting 3 feet away and yet it really seemed to me like he was purposely avoiding eye contact with me. Of course, this gets me thinking which is never a good thing. He was a young man, my age or close to it, with a scruffy beard and a Rastafarian headband. I began moving toward the conclusion that despite us being two fellow Americans happened upon each other in a foreign land 6,000 miles from home that he was discriminating against me because I was wearing a button-down shirt and a coordinating sweater. I was in high school again where skaters and band geeks are as awkward as black panthers and skinheads due to their differing clothing labels. It was a near tragedy that I was so close to letting this idiotic, immature insecurity and madly neurotic idea rule the moment. I was resigned to sit there and say nothing. Then, I kid you not, I thought to myself, "What would Cruiser do?" At that point, I quickly got over myself and offered a friendly "Hola." What do you know, he replied. His name was Tim.

As it turns out, he was not only American, but from California. Southern. San Clemente. He went to Wilson freakin' High School in Long Beach, a few miles from my alma mater for crying out loud. Small world, huh? The guy wasn't shunning me, he was just shy. Did we become the best of friends? Of course not. Did we sit there for another three hours drinking and regaling ourselves with stories from the homeland? Unfortunately, not. We talked intermittently for ten minutes before he got his check and headed home (see I scared him off). But who knows, maybe I'll take him up on his offer and stop into his restaurant some time. I was really just taken by the small worldedness of it all and the risk of it almost never happening because of my own head. Lesson learned.

Of course, I did then wonder if he had still been avoiding me, not because of my clothes, but because he actually recognized me from the high school days. I'm trying, folks. Baby steps.

P.S.

Why is it that when you're riding in a car, the people in the front seats are overly considerate of the comfort of those seated behind them (Do you have enough room? You sure? Because I don't mind, I will put my knees right into the dashboard), but on an airplane they don't give two shits if they put their chair back in your lap? Without fail, I always get the people who recline their seat to the fullest for the entire flight, even pushing it so far as to wait for the flight attendants to ask them to raise it back for landing. Not only that but they slam themselves into it trying to get every last millimeter out of it, like it's not an economy class airline seat ramming into someone else's knees, but a 5-star hotel bed that's just not quite soft enough.