Went out last night for San Joan. Lauren picked me up at the house, we met Jerry and Kristen, went to pick up Cheryl and Claire, and found Chris, Cay, and Sally. Getting all of us together took forever. We ended up going to get a bite at an all you can eat buffet and then decided to go down towards the beach. We had no idea where we were going...just knew that we were supposed to head south.




The trains were PACKED. PACKED. People looked like sardines in the cars. And this was around midnight! We finally make it to Barceloneta and as we're walking to the beach Kristen starts to talk to these two guys from Venezuela who ended up sticking to us for the rest of the evening.




We're at the beach and have no idea where to go. We're supposed to meet Yan and Mark at two different places so one group stays on the beach and the other goes to a building nearby. Cay spent 20 minutes trying to explain to Yan where we were. After half an hour we realize he's nowhere near so we leave to go to the other group who's still waiting for a Mark that was supposedly only ten minutes away.

We hang out there for a while and I start to talk with one of the Venezuelans, Marcel. My Spanish is awful. I can say a handful of words, I can sing every single Juan Luis Guerra song, but ask me to actually construct a sentence for you and you'll wish yourself away. Marcel didn't care and kept on talking to me. 23, living in Barcelona, desperate for a girlfriend but says he can't get one because he's ugly. He was waiting for me to say, "No, no es feo" but I wasn't about to oblige him. I hate people who fish for compliments.

So we're talking while we're waiting. He tells me about Venezuela and we start talking about music. I tell him that I'm a merenguera and he tells me how much he loves merengue. Asks me what else I like and I tell him bachata, to which he replies "Bachata! Bachata es feo". He completely lost me at that point. See, I'm very loyal to my music. VERY loyal. I have a collection of merengue and bachata music that would rival any Dominican's. I live, breathe, and eat this music. It's the only thing that calms me down, the only thing that'll ever make me happy if I'm out at a club. My brother once wrote a profile about me:

"...is the most wonderful, coolest, most caring person in the world (and she's my sister to boot!) Fun to hang out with, make fun of people, to talk to, to do anything with. Just be prepared to love bachata, or there's no hope for you."

There was no hope for Marcel after his comment. He tried to redeem himself by asking me if I were going to the Juan Luis Guerra concert next month, but it was too late...he was cut off.



Mark called us at some point and we finally got up and started walking towards his direction. I was too distracted with Marcel and everyone else was walking so fast that we ended up losing each other. Cay, Sally, Mark and I (and the bachata hater) had no idea where to go and I was ready to just head on home. Got a call from Jerry, regrouped with some people (Lauren and Kristen were gone by that time) and started walking towards Port Olympic to meet Mark. I kept trying to avoid Marcel because it was just getting really annoying talking to this kid. The only thing he kept repeating is that I had a really beautiful face and that he was really ugly. I started talking with Jerry for a bit and Marcel started talking to others. Kept trying to avoid him for the rest of the evening.

Long, long story short...we end up at Port Olympic, it's 2:30, Mark is nowhere to be found. I sit around till 3am and then just call it quits. I had high hopes for this evening actually, but it just seemed like it didn't want to start, so I decided to just end it. It took me an hour to get home because there were no cabs around and the metro was just SO SO SLOW. Made my way to bed at 4am, knocked out till morning.

Only good thing I can say is that the celebrations are finally over and there are no more firecrackers!!!!!!!