ok fine...

enough is enough. i just got back from soccer and dan and i walked a mile across the river in the pouring rain so im soaking wet and not caving into peer pressure to go out tonight. so im spending the night with you...

im going to tarentino this a little bit and jump around in time so bear with me. we got back from paris the other day. i was a little tired so i decided not to head out and have some me time and watch a movie or something. a quiet little saturday night. about 5 minutes into the movie amy storms into the room, closes my dvd player, rips the covers off my bed, and shoves a beer in my face "GET OUT OF BED THE RATHAUS HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A CLUB TONIGHT" soooo next thing i know im downstairs with that same beer in my hand heading out. it was really cool though, they turned town hall into a club and pulled out all the stops including loud sound system, giant bar, professional dancers, and my favorite, ten euro cover for guys. now, im taking a class called gender, diversity, and the workplace, and i believe this classifies as gender discrimination. tell me im wrong.

so the next day was rapid vienna's last home game and like i said before if they won the game they won the league. ten minutes into the game rapid was winning 2-0. the place was bonkers. nobody was sitting and the stadium was blaring the white stripes "seven nation army". my ever-growing knowledge of the german language enabled me to do the chants after rapid scored. since i know my P's and Q's, and can count to 100, i was set:
(in english)
announcer guy: Rapid!
crowd: 2
announcer guy: Altach
crowd: 0
announcer guy: Thank You!
crowd: You're Welcome!!

i couldnt have been happier. perfect weather, a half liter cup of ottakringer in my hand, some suprisingly good soccer, and a giant celebration after the victory (final score 3-0). it honestly rivaled an afternoon at Wrigley Field. We got to storm the field afterwards and celebrate with the team as they were awarded medals for winning the cup. utter bliss.

back in time (Wayne's World doo-doo-do doo-doo-do doo-doo-do) to about a month ago: Spring Break Part 2!!!

so we wake up in Avignon, France, and to be honest cannot wait to get out of there. Arriving at the train station we find out theres a train strike in France and we cant get to Barcelona. shoot me. fortunately something worked out and we transferred about two times and got there. out of woods right? of course not. we get into barca at about midnight and call the hostel for more specific directions. turns out this hostel has a nice little program going on. they let people stay there for free if they man the desk and answer telephones. thats all fine and dandy until one of them doesnt know how in the world to get us there!!

idiot at the desk: Where are you?
us smart people: We're next to Port Olympico.
moron: What's that?

THE HOSTEL IS 2 BLOCKS FROM PORT OLYMPICO! 1.5 hours later we are in bed, very angry but happy to not be in france.

so we hit up the hot spots: Sagrada Familia (did you know the flippin thing isn't even finished yet?) Montjuic Castle, Las Ramblas, Gaudi Park, etc. Las Ramblas is the main street with performers and vendors and really creepy statues.
look at that monster peering over that guys shoulder at me. oh yeah i almost forgot. in an attempt to subdue me with happiness so that they could shop later, the girls took me to the Barcelona soccer stadium Camp Nou. although i am not a Barcelona fan, it was really cool to see.
the stadium was massive. but anyways the plan worked and i was in high spirits. moving on, the nightlife was pretty sweet.
its a spanish tradition to basically go all night and then sleep in afternoon. i believe they call it "siesta". the institutionalization of the nap is fine by me. unfortunately we had things to do so that was out. one of the places we tried to get to was called "chipitos" which in Catalan i think means "shots" or "spirits". So we were lost naturally and i attempted to use my spanish powers on some police officers but im sure all they heard was "where are shots". you can imagine their confusion and general concern for my well-being after hearing that. needless to say we got really really lost that night and couldnt find anywhere to go, until, lo and behold, another irish pub!! they never fail me. another night we went to a sweet fountain show, but before we went we had to kick off the night right with some champagne.
farther down will be a pick of the fountain show but im having editing difficulties. i think it was raining at the end of the night so we had to take a cab and the driver couldnt speak english. yay. so once again my spanglish of "rights" "lefts" and "stops" eventually got us home. next stop was Amsterdam. Once again a cool city but we ended up seeing the things i had already seen when i was here in my youth like Anne Frank House and Van Gogh Museum. by the way, why arent any of the famous van gogh's in the van gogh museum? they had the bedroom one and the sunflower one. but, we did walk through something i was not allowed to see last time: the Red Light District. im gonna be honest with you, i thought it was going to be a little more...subtle.
so only one day later we were headed to berlin, but i will have to take a break because berlin was my favorite city and if i started now i would sound like a 10 year old explaining pokemon to his parents. if i forgot anything ill throw it in another time. i will leave berlin and frankfurt for the final segment of my quick spring break wrap up hopefully tomorrow but i gotta be honest this is tiring.