Day 4: Madrid, Spain ----> Barcelona, Spain

Woke up nice and early so we could finally get off this train after 9 hours and realized we had no idea where we were at. But finally, we found our hostel, a nice 10 bed room - by far the best hostel we stayed in. And good thing we finally got some decent sleep because we had things to do!
First, in order to please Pelner and Smeagol, we did some sight seeing and walked through the Picasso Museum. And really, we just walked through. Definitely the first over rated sight of the trip. But, we did end up finding the most amazing piece of art ever created, one that fit Bulfin's taste perfectly, the "el Punto." And after 30 minutes of a rather disappointing trip, our spirits rose at the thought of our next visit, the world famous aquarium. Everyone loves aquariums!
But, as Europe would have it - we were disappointed once again. It took a whole 30 more minutes to walk through the entire place! And there wasnt even a dolphin show! We should have just went to Chicago. The one good thing about the trip to the aquarium is the cool picture Smeagol took of us. Well, its actually a picture of a picture. And since the lady working saw Smeagol, she quickly removed our picture and told us to leave. Smeagol's first moment of Eurotrip value.
But, these two short trips only meant one thing for us - more time for the topless beach! So, over the next 6 hours Smeagol developed a really special tan and John just kept surprising us with his brilliance, although we didn't need 6 hours of looking at John in his speedo. John did provide us with lots of entertainment though, sharing the bread, cheese, and 40's that he has learned to always keep in his bookbag when in Europe. Soon though, we got sick of throwing the football, looking at John in his speedo, and then when Smeagol's back started turning purple, we knew it was time to leave.
John, the sophisticated cheap european, decided to save us some money and cooked us dinner tonight at the hostel. Definitely the best food i had in all of Spain!
Tonight Barcelona played Arsenal in the European Cup finals - soccer that is. Supposedly its a pretty big deal. So, in search of some real life soccer hooligans, we came across the only bar we could fit into, one that ended up being way too full of europeans. And believe it or not, we were the biggest hooligans in the whole bar. What really set us apart from the rest of the crowd was probably the multiple "Zahm's Gay" and "We Had Your Mom" chants. Us six americans stayed tightly together in the very middle of the bar, standing the entire night making sure none of us fell asleep. But after two consecutive "cups of life," courtesy of P-Dog, and 2 late second half goals for the home town team (Barcelona), things got dangerous. Barcelona ended up winning with a late goal and the whole city went absolutely nuts. We filtered to the streets where people were climbing street signs and setting off fire works all night. The streets were packed and while John was dancing and running line drills, he got lost. P-Dog and Bulfin ended up getting lit of fire, Smeagol was really busy the whole time assisting Bulfin get on Pats shoulders, and we didn't see Rohn again until we made it back to the hostel. So, for what seemed like hours in the streets, although it was only midnight, we retired back to our hostel to find John cheering "Barca" in his bed eating his KFC twisters.
P-Dog was up to no good either, using his scandals as weapons picking fights. One that woke up half the hostel and nearly had us sleeping in the rioting streets of Barcelona. Smeagol spent the night on the balcony charming the ladies across the alley, while the rest of us spent our night sleeping.
And its continues...this morning i realized i had left my wallet on the train. Running score: Europe 2, D.R. 0.