I'm telling you they had Coors, and you could buy a can for $.75 without being carded. It was insane. I would've photographed it, but after I'd wedged my Olympus camera into this Swedish girl's anus in the hostel's kitchen, it just stopped working.
I met a gorgeous Australian woman in a hostel in Vancouver, BC... my buddy was ironing my shirts (hah!) which left me free to talk to her as she started to do her laundry. She's visited Seattle and I've visited Canberra since then. That's the only hostel I've ever stayed at, but I'd say it was a great experience Ed O.
Yeah, all kidding aside hostels are great places to hook up. I've, uh, gotten intimate to some degree or another with around half a dozen girls I've met in hostels. The girls are looking for a "wild foreigner experience" to brag about to their friends when they get back as much as you are. Some are traveling alone and just want to hang out with somebody for the day (as my future wife was when I met her.) So it's a really natural way to pick up on someone without really seeming to pick up on someone. You sometimes can't find a damned room there to actually screw thanks to single-sex dorms, though. I bribed my future wife by offering to cover the hotel room in the next city if she came along with me.
I had trouble getting "alone time", too... I was sharing a room with two buddies and a stranger. Not ideal, that. Ed O.
If you're still looking at apartments as an option, here is a site I think we're going to use for our trip next month. Some of the places look really nice. There is one on Plaza Rieal (might be too small, I forget how many are going with you) that would be in the perfect spot. It's the same Plaza as Kabul. http://www.airbnb.com/
dude that looks perfect. I might check it. i wonder about these apartments, are they safe to give credit cards to? can you just pay cash?
Not sure about credit cards. Someone sent me the website just yesterday so I've mostly been looking at some of the properties in our price range. Haven't thought about payment yet. I'm sure there is a way to wire them money rather than use a CC.
Some places seem to have a minimum stay requirement, but yeah, the fact that a lot of per night, per week and even per month prices is great.
Is it really the price that it advertises? For example. this is 300$ http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/31484 Thats pretty unbelievable
Oh, and based on what you said you're planning on doing while you're in Barca (party mostly), I'd say stick to the Gothic quarter or El Borne. In either of those you'll probably be in walking distance to wherever you want to go. El Raval might be good too, but I didn't spend too much time on that side of Las Ramblas, so I'm not sure. Eixample, Gracia and La Sagrada Familia (where I lived) are pretty close, but since the trains stop at midnight (I think) then you'll be cabbing it, which isn't all that expensive. Anything outside of that is probably further than you want to be. Google barcelona neighborhood map and you'll get a pretty good sense of the city/neighborhoods, which will be handy if you book an apartment.
Yeah. I'm probably going to be around Las Ramblas...doing Tapas crawls and shit like that. Haven't booked flights, pretty expensive since its peak season looking at miles. we'll see what's up. just hoping they keep the reservation, would hate for them to randomly disappear, which is hard to do if you're a hotel but if you're a private renter might be weird. only qulam about it.
Last time I flew British Airways LAX - LHR direct. the other airlines make you stop on the east coast before going to europe. depends though on their schedule. Usually go for the national airlines for the country you want to get into.
I've been watching some shows on itunes to get ideas. Mainly Samantha Brown, Bourdain, 5 Takes Europe, etc. 5 takes is good because they got the apartments (although they booked them when they actually arrived and it was kind of a clusterfuck). I have a Rick Steves 2 hour show on my DVR on spain from last weekend I'll probably check out.
Is it really the price that it advertises? For example. this is 300$ http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/31484 Thats pretty unbelievable
I thought I had responded, but I guess not. I'm not sure about that property. I'd be leery of renting for someone with no reviews, which I think is the case on that property. I also didn't look up where it is. If it's in some sleepy town or an area with a lot of drug cartel violence, I could see the price being super low. For Barcelona, there weren't any deals like that, so they mostly looked legit. El Prez, I ended up booking an apartment on http://www.habitatapartments.com/. Because we're there over Easter, most of the spots on Airbnb were booked. To make things worse, their site seems a little slow to update availability, so we kept asking about apartments that were "available" only find out they were booked. We got a small apartment in El Born for about 1500 Euros for 2 weeks. I know you wanted to pay in cash, rather than a credit card. We paid a 30% deposit when we booked. It was with a credit card, but it went through a bank, not their site, so it seemed pretty safe. For the balance, we're paying cash upon arrival. I found a couple of more sites if you're still looking for an apartment over there. Let me know if want me to post those sites too. I can't think of them off the top of my head, otherwise I'd just put them in now.
