Sharing Eyeliner and Conversation with Andreo over a Cerveza

Last week I spent a week in Spain- 4 days in Madrid and 3 in Barcelona. Madrid was Amanda, Lena, Hamed, and me. Barcelona was just Amanda and me. Had an amazing week I won't lie- full of museums, tapas, hostels, architecture, practicing spanish, seeing old sc friends and vampires. wait.. what?

Here's my interview with a vampire.
In Madrid, we stayed in a 14 bed- room. The person that was on the bunk below me was named Andreo. We made small talk.. found out he was from Rome. we had a huge language barrier but it opened me up to being able to say things in 19 different ways. He asks me for "a pencil for the eye" so I gave him my eyeliner. He puts it on and proceeds to paint his nails black. When he's done, he asks me, "Cerveza?" so we go down to the hostel bar for a beer.

So I ask him what the deal is with the eyeliner and nail polish and he says "its part of my style. im dark." im like okay.. thats cool not really knowing what that means... i then ask him where he's going after Madrid and whether he's going back to Rome and he says that he'll never go back to Rome. I ask why and he touches his heart and says "it's dead." i dont ask too much about it and we continued small talk. I asked him why he keeps saying he's "dark" cuz I thought he was pretty normal. He looks a little surprised and says, "you think im normal? i dont think so.. im dark.. im a vampire." I asked what that meant and he says "blood is like heaven to me."

I was intrigued but at the same time didn't really know what to say so I just asked him more on why he won't go back to Rome. He explains how he had a girlfriend of 5 years from 16-21 and she passed away a year ago. i asked how but from the language barrier, all i could get out of it was "in her sleep." She was the first to drink his blood. After a year, he explained his amount of pain to me and my heart dropped. He was torn up about it and you could tell. He says that he has tried dating but no one will ever compare to Sylvia. His heart "is dead" and I felt it.

He asked me if I was scared of him. Honestly I wasn't. He was a nice guy and i considered him harmless. I told him that and he looked surprised. I told him that you gotta trust that people are good and he reassured me "yes, I'm a good person."

so that was my experience with Andreo. Maybe one of the most intriguing people I've ever met.

Okay moving on to the other parts of our trip. Madrid was fun. I got to see Blanca!!! It was so refreshing to see her. Another familiar face that I've missed SO much. She took us to a really old school bar that does this little performance when they play "singin in the rain." We went to a bunch of sites of course:
Prado Museum- Velasquez, Botticelli, etc.
Retiro Park
Sol
Plaza Mayor- for chocolat con churros *st. gines chocolateria
Gran Via- shopping!
Museo Reina Sofia- Picasso's Guernica, Dali, Gris, etc. *awesome museum

We also got to go to Kapital Theater- the 7 floor night club. Super fun! good dance fix.

Barcelona was great. Amanda and I took the city at a good pace each day. I enjoyed Barcelona more than Madrid just cuz its more visually appealing. We visited many of Gaudi's creations:
Sagrada Familia
Casa Mila
Park Guell- our favorite place
Barceloneta Beach
Montjuic
Palacio Nacional
La Rambla
Plaza Catalunya
Plaza Espanya
Port Olympico

more to come later... im sleepy.