The Original Garytales - The Beggining of the Trip Around the World (6.26.03)

Que tal?

It is 7:30 am and I am kicking it, writing from Barcelona, Spain. It is warm and grand. Three days ago, Brian, Ben, Leif, and I all started this crazy journey from Oakland, California. As Leif and I arrived to my cousins borough of Queens Park in London (Westside), I was happily reunited with family. I had not seen either of my cousins: Kiki or Jonathan in over 12 years since the first time I traveled over the rock that is North America to Europe. Kiki and Johnny entertained us magnificently, after washing off the dust from our first flight; Leif and I were treated to some fine English cuisine. Next Johnny brought out my most hated of all friends: Jose Cuervo, and subsequently told Leif and myself to "get involved." We all took our salt, tequila and lime, and preceded forth to me better friend Mr. Gin and Tonic. From this point, we took a cab with a Cabbie from the Southside (southwest-London) to the media borough of Soho where Jonathan works as a music video director. The clubs were the definitionof Posh, with retro chairs, outlandish designs on the walls, and uniqueness lost among my favorite equivalent establishments in the US. This started a wild night of 100 pound (170 dollar) festivities and cocktail after cocktail, and round after round was consumed. At the second bar, a drunken Aussie, and her hairdressing friend convinced that I needed a fade, so I agreed. Just as were about to commence with the festivities the bar manager coming roaring out talking about human hair and alcohol is not one of his featured cocktails in this establishment. We then proceeded the to "the Player", a tight ass bar with a very interesting decor, kind of like Ali G was able to mimic the American rap culture and morph it into a bar. We then continued to another club, where the not so delightful voice of an English rock band overwhelmed my
ears. Thus, we continued on to the next club where all we knew was the club owner’s name, and it was a BIO (By invitation only). We rolled up in there at 1:00 and were welcomed with the stiffest drink. This is quite a statement considering my current threshold of “wastedness”. Leif’s flight and mine left at 6:00 am and we had a cab to the airport an hour away to the north at Stansted with ghetto ass Ryan Air. At 2:00, we felt it was necessary to eat some Chinese food then get back to the house and the rising sun at 3:30, just perfect to catch the cab. Leif and I pass out for the first time in about twelve hours and made our way to Barcelona.

Peter