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I was sweaty for like this entire week lmao, Spain is so hot right now.
Sunday, June 5th
Woke up a little before noon and grabbed brunch with Malcolm, Drew, and Danielle. Place was good but slow af, so we were there for like an hour and a half. Malcolm and Drew are doing the classic dirt-cheap travel budget, and they planned to game their tickets to Barcelona where they could spent like five hours overnight sleeping in the Madrid train station before catching their followup train to Barca.
It didn't work, by the way. They got kicked out of the train station on Sunday night and had to sleep in the lobby of a hostel they stayed at a few days earlier. This picture is from their travel insta page. Give it a follow @smacking_drew_whattup
I headed back to the hostel, worked on some stuff, and took a nap. It was absolutely scorching outside lol.
I hit the gym when I woke up, then hopped on a call with one of our Litquidity interns. We're bringing on some new guys this week, and had to work through the transition growing pains.
Afterwards I headed to the rooftop to hang out. Peter, Andrew, and Ben were up there, so I kicked it with them for a few hours before dinner. We chowed down on some homemade paella and stayed up there til it closed at midnight. Given that it was 1) a Sunday and 2) we had a big Saturday, no one was in a going out mood lol.
Monday, June 6th
Finally did some laundry again, much needed after sweating through everything I owned for the last three days! I dropped my stuff off in the lobby in the AM and let the hostel handle it.
I spent most of my afternoon at the local Starbucks working on stuff (0 off days around here lately) before coming back to the hostel to hang. Three new Canadian girls (Vanessa, Kate, Paige I think) had checked in (from real Canada in Alberta, not Toronto). They were on a postgrad-post quit job trip.
They said Kate was an instagram fitness influencer, which I thought was a joke until I saw that she had 80k followers and was literally and instagram fitness influencer. Mad respect to the entrepreneurial women out there.
Nico (bartender at the hostel) said that he would take the group to "Ruko Roll" if we were interested. 25 of us ended up signing up, and we were rolling deep. Ruko Roll is basically an American dive bar, but in Spain. They played Mr. Brightside, as is tradition. Absolute banger of a place.
This is the gayest picture I've ever taken.
I met an Australian dude (no idea what his name was but he was cool) and girl (Oli, short for Olivia), and they both had super pleasant Australian accents. Aussie boi had an Argentinian friend who, when I said I had been in Buenos Aires and loved fernet, proceeded to hand me his glass of fernet. I didn't even know you could get this stuff in Spain.
Spent the next couple of hours just doing typical bar shenanigans with my friends/casually and unsuccessfully hitting on the Canadian insta-influencer before calling it a night.
Tuesday, June 7th
Woke up at 11 threw on some shorts, and attacked the gym with an hour of self-loathing weight-lifting. The cycle continues. I ran a couple of miles around town before it got ridiculously hot, grabbed some breakfast, then headed back to shower.
As soon as I showered I was drenched in sweat again, because it was 102 degrees in Sevilla. Very cool!
I went to hang out in the lobby where I saw Naz, a British guy from my room.
He asked me if I heard anything last night.
"Not particularly. I got back at like 3 and passed out. What's up?"
"Well the French guy in our room had a party of two in the top bunk, and he wasn't exactly quiet about it."
It turns out that this French guy, Sasha, brought a Tinder date to his 8 person hostel dorm lol. Love finds a way, or something like that. Glad I was asleep. @Jake Mezei if you're reading this I hope you have some flashbacks from the military dudes in London.
Anywaysss it was literally way too hot to do anything, so I hung out with Naz and Federico in the lobby while I worked on some stuff for most of the day. About to start a sports betting newsletter, so had to get that website all set up and stuff.
I took a lil siesta, told the Canadian girls which gym I went to (because Kate is a fitness influencer, after all!) and grabbed dinner (Taco Bell).
A Taco Bell dining area
I met two girls from Colorado who had moved into my room, then I went to the rooftop to hangout. There I met Brad and Sung, two American dudes who had just graduated from the Air Force Academy. Brad was going to pilot school and Sung was doing grad school in a few months, so they were traveling for a bit beforehand.
The rooftop closed at 12 and we headed downstairs to hangout a bit longer. The three Canadian girls came down and chatted for a sec, then I updated one of the seemingly 27 newsletters I'm working on now. I walked around town on the phone with my roommate for like an hour, came home and showered (it's like 2 AM at this point) then called it a night. 7:30 wake up for a train to Barca!
Catch you guys later.
- Jack
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See below for the previous and next chapter:
Chapter 38: Me Gusta Madrid | Backpackin'
https://www.backpackin.blog/p/chapter-38-gusta-madrid
Chapter 40: Weekend in Barca | Backpackin'