Paquito goes Down Under

Everything started about 7 years ago in October. With many pleasure I was working in a logistics company in an office which was way too expensive. Speaking french and trying to change my dutch to flemish when talking with the belgians. That same month I had moved to the western part of the city Barcelona, to this little flat with a small bathroom and an even smaller kitchen, but with a very nice terrace.

A gorgeous greek girl asked if I would come to her birthday party. "Of course, it´ll be great fun".
What is a greek party? Tons of tzatziki (delicious) an enormous pie, and plenty of booze.
While I made my whisky coke, suddenly I met the guy. "Soy Francisco, llamame Siscu".
Vale, I said, yo soy Robin, encantado de conocerte.

My friend Victor brought him to the party. The typical thing about parties is that there are always people who get in although most people do not know them.
It was in fact the first evening that I really got to know the Barcelona city centre, we went to the Karma at the plaza real and I got home quite drunk.

At that time, in winter 2004 and spring 2005, Siscu had the habit of calling me and ask me to go to the liquor store and bring 300 bottles of beer and fetch also 10 kilos of Doritos. Then, either we drank beer or martini and listened to music.
Meanwhile he had also found himself a nice job where he must have learned a lot during those 7 years. He is one of my brothers, just like the guy from Russia and the other from Navarra.

Funny in the begin was mainly that he and his other friends used to speak in a typical catalan spanish with strange words which you will not understand only with 3 year of studying spanish from a book. Catalan is a nice language, but complicated with accents and stuff...
In those times, when people could still spend more than they earn (3 years later the whole "casa de naipes" fell down crumbling), we had the idea to get a couple of days away from Spain.

So we got to the south of France, in the pittoresque little city of Narbonne. This first visit to France will stay in our memories for the visit to Carcassonne, the huge steak and the Merlot wine that hit us like the man with the hammer hits the participants of the Tour de France.
This was only the first of many trips, we have travelled on and saw more things, like Perpignan, although it is French Catalunya, the people do not use it there that much. Perpignan we´ll remember for the visit to an industrial area discotheque with extremely expensive alcohol.

Toulouse was also waiting for us. But as usual, the french SNCF threw carbon in our breakfast cause they had another "grève". So we went by bus, it rained a lot and we spent too much money on pralines.
The last french visit was Montpellier. We had experience in France. But when we arrived in Narbonne and the rails were blocked ahead, the personnel of the SNCF told; it´ll probably be one hour before we can proceed.
I do not know if they are bad predictors or they just lie very good. We got out of the train to have a beer in a bar and 30 minutes later we got back to the station and the train was gone.
So I went to information and I said: "Bon, nos valises sont dans le train a Montpellier, veuillez informer vos colleagues là qu´ils nous gardons les valises, nous achetons des nouveaux billets, etc. etc."
I also said them that they did not tell us the truth about the delay, but they were not really having fear from my threatenings.

More places we went: Berlin, Germany (in a freezing february cold) screaming together on the Brandenburger Tor, various cities in the Netherlands and Belgium, a couple of times to Murcia, eating splendid "prawn horses from el Torrao" and Basque Country and Rome, Italy. Apart from the tons of parties we have celebrated here in Barcelona and other parts of the catalan territory.

Cesc, this is for you. Happy Birthday and I wish you all the best in Australia. Your english pronounciation will improve day by day. Don´t forget to listen music from Australia. You won´t be here, but we will know what you will do around there. Remember the time you had and look forward to the time you will have there! Wear your hat and sunglasses or your skin will get burnt.
Anyway before you leave we´ll surely have that last Murphy, Guinness or Foster pint.
Cheers!