58. Laughed At and Humiliated

Day 58
Location 13 & 14: Barcelona & Madrid
Dec. 28, 2022

Spain is famous for paella, a rice dish with clams, mussels, and prawns. Eating prawns invites a mouthful of flavors and is highly recommended. Taking the shells off prawns invites a restaurant full of side-eyed snickers and isn't recommended. It's like failing to solve a Rubik's Cube on stage for a sold out audience of the world's best Rubik's Cube solvers who are (apparently) not sympathetic to your struggles.

Sometimes you just have to say "no" to an opportunity. Like if you pass a delicious-looking gelato spot right after you've eaten a huge meal. You want the gelato, of course, but you risk a stomach ache. Or if you pass the best pickup basketball game you've seen in Europe so far, but there's a train to catch in two hours and you're in jeans and a nice shirt and vans. Sometimes you just have to say "no".

I know this now. Because I did pass a basketball court and couldn't help but play. It was sadly the best games I've played in overseas. I say sadly because (1) I found the court on my last day in Barcelona and would've liked the chance to play there more and (2) I was now dripping in sweat with no time to change or shower before my train. Also, on the way home I did stop at gelato place which resulted in a train-ride length stomach ache. It was a wet, stinky, painful ride. Well worth it.

Desperate for late night food in Madrid, I had to decide between bad-looking pizza and KFC. On one hand: KFC never tastes as good as it looks, but on the other hand: the old adage "even bad pizza is still pretty good" has no jurisdiction in Spain. To mitigate my risk, I opted for a little of both. The pizza sucked and KFC had no biscuits. To be clear, KFC didn't run out of biscuits, they just didn't sell them. That's like a movie theater that only plays the audio of films, but no video–it's insane.

Let the photos below of the bad pizza and biscuitless KFC below fuel your rage. And let the other photos from the day calm you down: