Andorra

Went to Andorra last weekend. Pretty legit. Want to hear about it? Of course you do. Wait, no? Then why the hell are you reading this?? Whatever.

SO. Andorra.

I was supposed to go on this little weekend excursion through Peter and Aaron’s dorms – the Melon District. It was going to be 110€ for transportation via bus/forfeit (what they call lift passes here)/one night in a hotel/two meals/and photos, whatever that entailed. HOWEVER, they didn’t get enough people to sign up (they needed forty – Jesus, only FORTY – and not enough people were down) and they had to postpone it until a later date. Just so happens this later date is going to be the same weekend that we go to Valencia for an ISA excursion, and I’m not about to miss that (see: Girona). Woe is me, what to do? Ski trip cancellation imminent?

No goddamn way.

The Wednesday before we went/were supposed to go, I met up with a few amigos at L’Ovella Negra – quickly becoming our resident fútbol bar – and was regretfully informed that the trip wasn’t going to happen. BUT ALAS, there was a silver lining! Peter and another guy from Melon, Juan (more on this new amigo shortly), were planning out our own quality weekend on the slopes. We only had a short list of problems: no ski/snowboard gear, no cold weather apparel, no transportation, no hostel/hotel booked, no nothing. Nada. Time to make some serious moves. And really – I love this shit – last minute plans are the best. Lots of hassle, but no waiting and no chance to cancel as there’s only time to go. Just go.

We went.

Aaron, Peter and I had tapas and some vino on Wednesday night at this place in the Born district called Princesa 23. Definitely going to be going there again. But anyway, we made it an early night because Aaron was going to Paris in the morning, and Peter and I had plans to wake up around 9AM in order to get everything organized for Andorra and leave by early afternoon.

You think that actually happened? Who do you think I am? Waking up the next day went something like this:

Phone rings, 11:56am.

Markus: “Ohhh shit. Shitshitshit. I overslept, man. I overslept. What time is it?!”

Peter: “DUDE. Dude. It’s cool, we’re going to rent the car. It’s noon. We’ll pick you up in an hour to go to Decathlon.”

Markus: “Yeah? Okay. Sounds good.”

Click.

Markus makes breakfast.

Markus, instead of packing, makes an Andorra playlist.

Markus goes and waits outside.

Scene.

So there I was, outside mi casa, and this little four-door Peugot (so European) pulls up with Juan driving and Peter sitting shotgun, both with these awesome shit-eating grins on their faces. This is where I started to get excited. Also, this is where I get in the car. This is when the trip begins.

Pleasantries were had (“Que pasa? What’s up? I’m Markus. Cómo te llamas? Mucho gusto, dude.”), and we were on the way to first pick up Juan’s girlfriend Daniella and then go meet another amigo – Chase – at a Decathlon, one of many sporting goods stores in Barcelona.

On Juan: this guy is awesome. Both he and Daniella are from Ecuador and studying in Barcelona. I knew we were going to get along famously from our first few words in regards to the trip and the rental car, which culminated in this gem: “I like to drive more than to fuck.” Apparently the guy test-drove a Ferrari the Monday we came back to Barcelona. Seriously, if that’s not a sign of buena gente, then I don’t know what is. Anyway, the dude has one gear – go. And that’s a good dude to have along on a ski trip. Especially when no one else has ever driven around Barcelona. It’s a zoo here on the streets.

We spent the next couple of hours on a grueling trek braving the commercial jungle that is Decathlon. If the Barcelona streets are a zoo, this place was the monkey house. It being February, and prime time to ski, it was packed on the second floor – the floor with all the cold weather gear. También, they were out of almost all regular sizes, unless you fit into a youth small or weigh 300 pounds. What is that, like 150 kilograms? I still don’t get the metric system. Neither does America. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH.

Whoa. Sudden patriotic musing. Got lost for a minute.

Let’s get back on track. I spent around 40€ on waterproof pants/gloves/liner gloves/a scarf (bufón – it’s way more fun to say in Spanish)/and XL long underwear. A little loose in the crotch, but who doesn’t like a nice breeze on the coin purse? Haha…coin purse.

So, I was kicking myself for not bringing along an Under Armor shirt and the thermal clothes I have at home – but ultimately it didn’t get too expensive. I was going to borrow a shell to wear over my North Face from Chase too, which ended up being enough to save me from the bitter Andorran winds.

From Decathlon – a thirty-minute trip that took TWO. GODDAMN. HOURS. – we went back by my place so I could throw some clothes in a bag, and we were almost ready to go. Just one more thing…where the hell were we going to stay that night? Chase and I were put on hostel duty while Juan and Peter (Daniella was at home packing) had a couple more errands to run.

Shit got stressful here.

As I said before, I’m all for these last-minute trips. I do everything last-minute, or late, if you want to be a dick about it. However, it seemed a little necessary to at least have an idea of where we could stay for the night. Also, the day was making that terrible transition from so-much-time-to-do-things-afternoon-time to oh-shit-it’s-nightfall-and-we-are-definitely-running-late-time. Looks like I’m back on my hyphenate-a-sentence-as-a-cop-out-for-a-more-concise-adjective game.

We spent the next forty-five minutes getting pissed off at the amount of hotels and hostels that were booked full. Even thought about scrapping the whole thing for a moment – but seriously, we’d already rented a car and bought some gear. No turning back at this point. And, at the very point of uttermost desperation, we found a hostel in Ordino (a short drive from the closest lift) for 20€ per head. YEAH DUDE. IT’S ON.

Another half hour later, we were on the road. And then, we hit the freeway, which was incidentally packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic leaving the city for the weekend. Jesus Christ, would we ever get out of here??

Yeah. Yeah, we eventually did. And two hours later (Juan drives fast as shit – which scared the shit out of Chase), we were in Andorra -- the tax-free land of offshore bank accounts and top shelf ski resorts. It took us a minute to find the hostel, as it didn’t have a sign. Seriously poor business technique right there. But we found it, and for the first time in a couple months I touched snow. Pretty sure Daniella said she’d never/nunca/not once been in contact with snow. It was a quality moment for all of us.

Anyway, we dropped our stuff off and headed toward a stretch of bars and restaurants in Andorra. We straight up decimated some bocadillos, calamars, y croquetes, and proceeded to find the closest bar as much celebration was in order. I mean, we were in goddamn Andorra. Not only was this my first weekend outside of Barcelona, but we were on the cusp of a flat out awesome trip. Enter: Bar Xaloc. Really had all we needed – music, cheap drinks, cheap shots, pool, and pinball. It was dead, and we made nice with Cristina – the bartender, who even gave us the name of a hotel we could look into for tomorrow. She loved us, as we were keeping the place alive for the night. Bets for buying rounds were made on games of pool, shots were discounted, ordered, and taken, and eventually we were running the music and I was getting impromptu salsa lessons. Shit ruled. Just check out our smiles on the next couples of pics. Did I mention it was Daniella’s birthday at midnight? Cue toasts of “Salud! Prost! Happy fucking birthday!” Needless to say, the next morning was going to be rough.

“Rough,” being a euphemism for “feeling like Robert Downey Jr. after a bender in his more troubled years.” We survived, though. I even woke up early enough to catch breakfast downstairs in the hostel, and Adbiel – the guy who ran the place – not only gave us a voucher for a 10% discount on rentals at a shop down the street, but also called one of his friends at another hotel in town and booked a room for us that night. Seriously, it had to be the one open room in the entire goddamn country. I mean, Andorra is a small country (just a mountain with a name, really), but still. Todo el mundo – everybody -- was here for the weekend. And with good reason, it was beautiful. Cue: photos. They tell a better story than I can.

¡Buenos días, Andorra! View from outside the hostel.

L-R: PeterMan, Chase, Cristina, Daniella, Juan, Yo.

3000m up in the Pyrenees. Sidenote: that's France in the background.

I won, which meant I got free shots. XUPITOS.

"Hey dude, I have an idea. Let's get drunk and arm wrestle!"

La familia de la fin de semana.

Chase and Peter on the first day.

LOL I'M IN ANDORRA.

Vallnord Arcalis.

Tight fit.

LOL I'M STILL IN ANDORRA.

LOL SO IS PETER.

Chase got tired. Chase sat.

Chilling. Literally? It was 10 goddamn degrees below Celsius. 

It's not every day you can pee on top of a mountain. Pretty sure it even trickled into France.

Bellísima. 

Just looking at my shoe, ya know?

Yeeee!

Storm rolling in, and time to dip out of Andorra. Later!

It seems like every time I go on a ski trip, I forget just how much snowboarding kicks my ass. All the muscles I only use over a winter weekend every year or two wake up and slap me in the face. Chase, Peter, and I took the shuttle back from the lift down the mountain to Ordina, and found our new accomodations at Hotel Casa Vella. For 25€ per person, this place was legit. Apartment-style hotel rooms that would probably go for a few hundred a night in Breck. ¡Qué ganga!

We searched out some food at this place called Vertical Limit (holy shit, best patates braves I’ve ever head – I’d seriously go back just to eat them again), where the owner – Danny (Dani? Dannie?), this dude from Portgual – bullshitted with us and wrote out a list of bars and a club to check out in the nearby town of Arinsal. Sidenote: apparently Peter, in a drunken search for food, tried coming in here last night after it was closed. The doors were unlocked, and Danny ended up giving him a free croissant. Free shit rules.

Back to the matter at hand, we had a great time in Arinsal that night. The first bar we went to not only had pool tables and a chica guapa behind the bar, but was also in the middle of an old-school hip-hop request hour. Everything from Jurassic 5 to Biggie to Wu-Tang to Atmosphere. From there, we went to Surf – the only club in town – where Danny said he’d likely meet us after closing the restaurant around 3. It was two floors, the bottom being strictly salsa and the top being strictly DJ/typical discoteca electro tunes. And, for a discoteca, drinks were relatively cheap. I’m used to getting my bebidas in before the clubs in Barcelona so as to avoid paying 10€ for well whisky doubles. Here, beers were your typically reasonable 2 or 3 euro and drinks were around 5. Not too shabby – just look at us:

What a bunch of gomers.

So, another late night and another rough morning. But hey, I was on goddamn vacation. Juan and Daniella, having not skied the day before, had to pick up their gear for today. We hit the rental shop again and ended up fitting three snowboards, two pairs of skis and poles, and five people inside this little Euro tin can of a car. Uncomfortable, but it worked.

The second day on the mountain was even better, especially for the fact that we got free forfeit. Since we hit the half-day mark both days, some people were leaving the mountain as we were getting there. And, wouldn’t you know it, these awesome human beings wanted to sell us their lift passes at a discount. I got a 30€ lift pass the first day for 20€ from a dude who’d had enough skiing for the day, and the second day we got them all for free from a couple who just so happened to be the two nicest people on the face of the earth. Or at least the face of the mountain. Seriously, that shit goes for $100 a day in the US in somewhere like Breck, Keystone or Vail. But, we were up on a beautiful mountain in the Pyrenees for fucking free on this heavenly sunny day. Did I mention some kid just walked up to me the day before and handed me a bag of weed? Just handed it to me and walked away. Sketchy – I know – but the point is that I think I’m becoming a magnet for handouts from the Spanish. Maybe some money will come next, because that would be legit. Like, “Disculpame, pero no necesito estos mil euros. ¿Quieres?” God, that would be great. I’ll be ready and waiting when it happens. Because it will.

What was I doing?

Oh yeah, writing about Andorra. Goddamn Andorra! I will return there in my lifetime. After the slopes that day it was straight to the rental shop then straight to Barcelona. We were all dead, and I have to commend Juan on dominating the drive back. Got back to the city around 11pm local time, and I was more than ready to sleep. Strangely, it almost seemed like I was coming home to a city that is quickly becoming so. I mean, it was my own bed in a transitive sort of way. I’m living here for a few months, so I might as well call it home while I have the chance.

Bottom line is, great trip. Great weekend. I’m out.

Adiós, mis amigos.