Harley and Hard Rock

Today was the day for all things American in Spain. There were three of us scheduled in the migration lab and it wasn't very busy so I decided to cut out early and go search for Harley Davidson of Barcelona. The quest took me through some busier parts of the city. The streets and sidewalks were so crowded in some spots that I had to get off the bike and walk.

Navigating in Barcelona is challenging due to the fact that the names of the cross streets are almost impossible to discern at a glance. Usually the street is marked by a small sign that is placed on a building on the street corner. Of course the sign is designed to aesthetically blend with the building that it is placed on, instead of being designed to stand out and be visible. On some streets the sign wasn't right on the street corner either. You might have to look quite a ways up the street to find the sign. And I swear some streets were not marked at all.

When I finally stumbled onto Harley Davidson of Barcelona I was surprised to find it marked by little more than a 12 inch square sign. I expected the dealership to be a separate building with a towering bar and shield marking the spot. Instead it was a shop tucked inside a much larger complex of shops. Considering how tiny the place was on the outside I couldn't believe how big it was on the inside. Not that it was huge, but it was about the same size as the dealership back in Orem.



The only problem was that I couldn't find any t-shirts for sale in the dealership. This was, of course, the whole purpose of the expedition. When I asked, I discovered that I was actually in the repair shop and that the showroom was half a block down the street.

The lady working in the showroom was really quite friendly and spoke reasonably fluent english. After picking out a shirt I spent a couple of minutes talking to her about the state of Harley in Spain. She said that the reason that I didn't see many Harley's on the street in Barcelona was because the city was so crowded. Most people take their Harley's out on the weekend and ride into the country instead of through the city. She said that even the owner of the Harley dealership rode a scooter to work during the week. Wow!



I also discovered that the reason that they don't have rentals anywhere in Spain was because they could not get a company to provide insurance for the rentals. She mentioned that an English company was currently considering providing the financial backing for the insurance rentals. By this time next year I may be able to come back to Spain and rent a Harley in Barcelona. She said that keep an eye out for me when I came back :)

Later that night I headed out with the whole team to explore the city. We headed first to an old Gaudi (sp?) designed cathedral that was still under construction called the La Sagrada Familia. It was incredibly ornate and meticulously detailed. One of the adornments on the cathedral was a sculpture of Jesus hanging naked (and anatomically correct) from a horizontal cross sticking out from the side of the building. Being a smart ass, I commented that if I was the son of God I would expect to be better hung than that (referring to the anatomically correct portion of the sculpture). Rand later pointed out the pun that was unintended but still pretty funny (hung on a cross).



We wandered aimlessly through the streets of Barcelona for an hour or so before deciding to find a place for dinner. Apparently Tony had really wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, so we headed in that direction. We had to wait for just over an hour to get a table but there was a bar and the music was good so it wasn't too painful. By the time that we sat down for dinner I had already put down 3 beers. Over the course of dinner, a traditional Spanish dish of Barbecued Ribs and French Fries, Rand made it his personal mission to ensure that I never ran out of beer.

Just when I was convinced that I was finished drinking Rand orders "Dos Mas Cerveza". One more me and one for him. I still had half of my previous bottled still finished. Just for fun I decided to try drinking double fisted from both bottles. This was not a very good strategy. I ended up getting beer all over the table and myself. The worst part was that when I asked the waitress for some napkins to clean up the mess she brought me another beer to make up for what I had spilled (which was nowhere near a full bottle's worth of beer). So, I went from having half a bottle left to drink to having 2 and a half bottles left to drink.

I was pretty sauced by the time that we left the Hard Rock. As we walked through the streets of "Old Town" we stumbled across some freaky tree people. From a distance it looked like moving statues of trees. As I got closer and closer I was amazed at the detail of the statues. The faces looked like they were made of real skin and real eyes. Just then as I was inspecting the statues from about 6 inches away I heard Dean drop some coins into a jar on the ground. Holy shit! Those are real people. It scared the crap out of me.

When we got back to the Princess Hotel where I had parked my bike I discovered that my bike had been molested while I was gone. They had taken the rubber grips off of my handlebars and taken the adjusting clamp off of my seat. Luckily they did not steal the seat itself which was worth 55 Euro. I was pretty pissed. The funny thing was that the bike was parked 20 feet from the entrance to the hotel (which was patrolled by security guards) in a well lit and heavily travelled area. Bastards!