A Large Popcorn with EXTRA Butter, Please

I was walking around Barcelona in Parc de la Ciutadella trying to think of something to describe my experience and then I came up with it: movie theater popcorn. This may have been a result of a foul smell and my sudden craving for popcorn. With artificial butter. So hear me out.

Going to the movies has become an EXPERIENCE. Sitting in uncomfortable seats, crying babies in rated-R films, cell phones ringing, and to track back a little further, standing awkwardly in the parking lot post-movie for the parentals. What would American adolescence be without the movie theater? And who hasn't had their share of a collective bucket of popcorn greased, and greased, and greased, and then shaken for equal saturation, and then greased one more. I remember when our local theater put out the do-it-yourself butter machines where you could push a button and saturate to your gastronomic desires.

I've never REALLY been of fan of this popcorny. My mom would never let me touch that shit whenever we went to the movies. In fact, we never got to partake in any of the concessions; only snacks from home that we had to smuggle in like contraband. So how could I not, after years and years of health food snobbery, scoff at those who stand in line for edible styrofoam and butter that could just as well be massage oil?

I think that's how it was in Barcelona. I felt like the non-Spaniards that had all come to live in Barcelona, attracted by the warmer mediterranean weather and the no-worries attitude, were taking part in something foul and excessive. Barcelona is renowned for it's nightlife, but it's the tourists that bring the vigor, not the locals. In fact, the many British, Dutch, German ex-pats I met were just...TOO laid-back for my tastes. These would be those poor souls who don't think twice about the buttered popcorn and finger lick without any guilt. Sure going away to the beach and a land of siestas is nice for a vacation, but to use it as a permanent haven from the work and grind in my own country? No thanks. I'll get on that treadmill and count the miles and calories, i.e. go back to America and worry about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. A life without worries? I'm sorry...I live by the maxim of worrying about life.

I remember the first time I got movie theater popcorn sans parental supervision. I found it extremely difficult to spread the butter evenly and quite overpriced. But that's what you do when you go to a movie theater right? It's time to escape. But not for me. Too much escaping to a land of overt paradise and you just might throw up. Literally. In a bar. In front of your friends (I still really can't let that one go).

I don't really need Barcelona to get any better for me. In fact, I don't really even want it to get better. But at least now I can say I've tried it. It's part of the whole Europe "experience" right?

Some great flatmates who were biding their time in Barcelona before moving on with their lives:




















































A German, a belgian, a swede, an italian, a dutch, and a fellow american.