Barcelona, London, Me and NYC

At this very moment, I am watching my clothes tumble around at our local laundromat, praying that all the colours don't leak together and destroy my newly purchased 'Greendale Community College' shirt.
THIS one to be precise;

I do hate the fact that I have to waste time doing this but I've learnt by now that as a traveller and not a tourist, I cannot afford the luxury of doing something all the time. New York's very pricey.

So here are the highlights of all the great and terrible things that have happened (because lets face it, I've been super slack with this blog lately).

Barcelona;

As much as I loved Barcelona... I'm not at all sure how much it loved me in return.

While the food there is exceptional (I was curled up in pain some nights from over eating) and there's nothing comparable to having a man open up his wooden shutters and scream something in Spanish at you because you and four others are stumbling and slurring the lyrics to 'Hey Jude' at 4am,

                                                 

I was feeling the opposite of healthy.

Some might say, I was feeling unhealthy.

If you've travelled, you'll already know that nothing makes you home sick like being sick.

While my friends were soaking up the sun and drinking copious amounts of Sangria, I was in bed feeling sorry for myself and missing my dog.

I did flop around from place to place but I generally couldn't get into it.

                                                

As I've mentioned before, visiting doctors is my ultimate hate.
Not a fear.
Just a dislike.

Eventually, I got myself into a state where I couldn't ignore it anymore.
On our last day I broke out in a fever and my skin was angry, red, raised and agitated. I felt like I was going to die.

Like proper die. 

Dead.

Google said I had either contracted leprosy or was having a violent allergic reaction. 

While I mentally divided up all my Earthy possessions, we went to see a local doctor. She gasped when I lifted my shirt (an affect I have on many) to show her the rash was all over. She gave us directions to the hospital and just kept repeating vamonos.

I'm going to take some initiative here and assume vamonos is Spanish for awesome rack.

The doctor spoke fluent English and explained to me that there was no way of knowing exactly what I was allergic to and asked me if I'd eaten anything strange.

At this point, my mind played a montage of Isaac and I running around the Barcelona markets eating everything and anything we could get our hands on.
An hour long sampling of strange fruits and unidentifiable meats.

He continued to say that I needed a shot now, gave me a script for medication to stop the reaction if it happened again (which is how I got these pills;)

                                       

and recommended I keep a food diary (a great excuse to get my Asian on and photograph every plate that gets put down in front of me).

Now this next part is a little disturbing.

He took me into another room and was prepping a needle with his back turned to me. I sat on the bed, swinging my legs and exchanged some pleasant small talk.

"Now turn around," he said.
"Oh it's ok," I replied. "I'm not afraid of needles."
"Well that's good but you're still going to have to stand up and turn around." I hoped to god he wouldn't say what followed, "what cheek do you want it in?"

"Is... that needle... going in my face?"

AND that is the story of how the fifth European doctor saw my ass.

London;

London taught me that if you wind up at a 4 story trance club... sober... you're going to have a bad time.

Dan & I got 'move along' eyes at Madam Tussauds for violating Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie,

Jessica Alba,

and Beyonce,

amongst many more.

I had high tea, purchased this high quality magic kit to wow the pants off people,

laughed too long at THIS pun,

and made time for the one thing I ALWAYS have time for, dinosaur exhibits at Natural History Museums.

London was pretty cool but trying to do it in four days didn't let me see half the things I wanted to and the weather there makes me sad.

We left Dan in London, boarded a plane for the Big Apple and Rachel left us for Texas. 

While Isaac and I debated about going to Boston for a while, New York has just been too hard to leave. This place has been so good to me and I feel like it's exactly where I want to be.
No mobile phone, no place to be and all the time in the world to do whatever I want to.

I'll spend the next 17 days here in NYC. Living life like Kerouac, chasing from one falling star to another and having nothing to offer anyone but my own confusion. 

So that's a very long and vague version of what brings me here, staring at my washing, fighting a hangover and donating half my steak & cheese sandwich to Isaac because I'm the nicest guy alive.

I know that my time here has only just begun and I'm so excited and happy for all the things that are about to happen.