Marcus’ Visit:

Marcus arrived to BCN at exactly the time he emailed Kate, 5:15 sharp. He waits and waits. Meanwhile, Kate and I are sitting at the flat discussing how Marcus’ plane should be touching down at 5:45 (the time Kate told me he’d be here) and she can leave the house late because the flights are never on time. The phone rings…its Marcus! “Kate where are you I’ve been waiting for almost 2 hours?” It’s always the same story!
I was working at the pub crawl and was standing on a really busy street when I see the two fools walking down the street holding McDonalds cups! Marcus had McD’s every single day safter he got off that plane from Albania. Oh yeah, for those of you who don’t know Marcus he is the guy from Texas I went to the Marine Ball with in Albania. Anyways, he’s almost done with his job in Albania and this week he’ll find out where they are shipping him off to next. He had 2 weeks of vacation so he decided to come to BCN and see the sights. We’re so lucky!
Since Marcus has been here Kate and I have gone out every single bloody night! My liver is about to pack up and move the Hell out! So, the first night I was “working” and decided that Kate and I should eat (while I was on the clock mind you) at this cool place and drink a few beers. I went back to work and met back up with the crew at the flat. We had beers and called it a night. Sunday we took Marcus sightseeing and ended up at Flaherty’s Irish Pub (where Martin our flatmate works) and had some beers. Monday Kate and I worked all day and Marcus got lost in BCN and then we had dinner. During dinner Antoine came home (yeah he’s living with us during the week) and we Mid-West chics schooled the boys on how to play Powerhour. Of course, I had to be different and play with white wine…so it got a lil outta control! This is where we learned that the face Marcus makes when he’s drunk is called the Popeye. He also has a slew of catch phrases that he swears King Jenkins himself came up with. Here are some examples of things that come out of this fools mouth: Good morning black people, I got girls to call me king Jenks, The Beatles who?, Sounds like that white guy Elvis, Black who?(we were talking about black licorice) , and on and on. Marcus could be one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Tuesday we went to a salsa bar and Marcus learned how to Salsa. I had to go home early because I have class super early on Wednesdays but was awoken to Marcus and Kate showing me that they knew the dance “perfectly” and then forgetting how to do it! Wednesday we met Marcus at Flaherty’s (he had been there since 2pm) and watch some futbol and played pool with some French guys. The one guy kept talking to me and asking questions about the states and then he asked how old I was and when I replied that I was 25 he said oh 25 is my favorite age! Ha. So, I asked how old he was and you know he was 18! Anyways, we had a good night until one of the girls we sort of hang out with decided to make some rude comments about the USA and I wasn’t in the mood so we bounced. I’m pretty sure I made it quite evident I was pissed because the next time I saw her she apologized for like 10 minutes. Thursday we drank at the house and introduced Marcus to a new favorite of ours called the Kalamotxo (coke and red wine). Next, I went to work and Kate and Marcus went to a going away party for one of our Canadian friends at a tapas bar. I met up with Martin and we went to Travel Bar port where Antoine was working one last time to get free food and booze. Martin was playing the piano that has no sound and Antoine was cooking us up some rice dish with seafood and cheese when Marcus and Kate arrived. We all ate and drank and started taking ridiculous photos (you can view on facebook). As I said above, Marcus has a drunk-face called the Popeye that we all tried many times to master. Kate has it down with some improvements of her own (we all know her face can do some magically strange things) but I still need to work on it! This is where the night got interesting. After TBPort we went to the nightclub on Ramblas called Felini. All the other TEFL people met us there and I got to party with Shawn one last time before he shipped out the following day. We ended up at Apolo in our hood to top off the night where there were dancing girls on stage and live rappers. All in all it was an amazing night. Friday, Hell I can’t remember because our bum who always sings and pees on our door just caused a commotion outside and Kate armed us with water ballons and we launched them at his peeing ass! I swear this guy wakes up drunk! He’s about (let me ask Kate what she thinks…she says hmmm he’s pretty old maybe late 40’s 50’s) 50’s I think and he walks up and down the streets calling everyone names and screaming cusswords and singing the only song he can remember the words to Sevilla Sevilla (those are the only words). I can’t believe people like this guy can live so long, maybe I do have a fighting chance! Back to Marcus, I believe we went to Park Guell on Friday where King Marcus got to sit on his stone throne and we saw a man dressed in a proper Flamenco get-up (dress, make-up and all). Later that night, we went to dinner at a REAL Catalan restaurant in Gracia and ate a really great meal. It was funny because Marcus said all he cared about was eating meat so he ordered pork as usual, I ordered a Catalan specialty with black beans and sausage, and Kate got steak. After dinner, we went to a welcome home party for Kevin (the teacher who hated us and now loves us) and ended up clubbing at Otto Zutz. Saturday we went to Sitges and laid out all day and then went out for Martin’s 28th birthday party. I was at work when this Canadian chic came up to me and asked if the pubcrawl was going to be cool or not and I had just found out that we were letting people in for less money (so it was gonna suck) so I told her the truth. She explained that she was here in BCN by herself and wanted to go out but didn’t know what to do so I invited her to come out with me. As Christine and I were walking to Malpaso so I could get paid another Canadian walked up and asked about the crawl and we invited Mike to come along also. I met up with the crew (Martin & his boys from Prague, Marcus, the Brits, Kate, and the new Canadian friends) and we all went on a pub crawl of our own. After a couple of bars Roger called me and asked me where we were. We were standing in plaza Reial so I told him where we were and he was like “look up.” Roger was also in Plaza Reial at a luxury flat at the top of the plaza waving down at us! We ended going to the apartment that was a friend of a friend of someone’s mother that Nani and Roger knew. Anyways, the flat was amazing with a huge terrace and the best view in BCN and the people having the party urged us to eat all the remaining food and drink the booze so they didn’t go to waste. Needless to say everything was gone when we left. My life is made up of random events that somehow come together. This story is a perfect example! Mike and Christine probably had some amazing stories to tell their friends back in Canada because after you meet me life’s never quite the same. Okay, back to Marcus. Sunday I was like no more so we chilled out and Marcus went out with his new friend Mike to a club where they met some chics and Marcus didn’t come home until 4pm on Monday! He has now broken John’s record and I’m going to bet no one will be able to top that! (Top that Top that…Teen Witch) The next week is a blur and I can’t seem to remember what we did except the important days like on Thursday when we went to IceBar BCN. IceBar is a new bar that is on the beach and everything is made of ice. Marcus is from Texas so his ass almost froze to death, but we had a great time and got some really cool pictures. (check em out on facebook or webshots) Friday Marcus left and we went to a goodbye party for yet another fallen TEFL teacher/student, Terri. We’ll miss you Terri!