Article by Robert Guerrero
Here is a picture of Greg and David taken with Greg’s new GoPro camera I must say that the quality of it is really good for such a small camera. I am now in the UK, and looking back at this photo as well as writing this really makes me miss Barcelona. We were only there for like 4 days and for 3 of those days it rained. I was most proud about the amount of Spanish I spoke while I was there. I had only one class in 7th grade and one semester my sophomore year of highschool but it just seemed to come back and I was surprisingly confident in trying to speak it. Cheers to me.
David, Kevin Chow and myself getting ready to skate just one of the plazas Barcelona has to offer. Skating Barcelona made me happy for many reasons, but the main one was that all of the spots reminded me of spots I used to skate in Northern California back in the 90’s. You know, those perfect ledges you used to skate before skating was big and people didn’t really understand that you were “destroying” property. This particular Plaza had some really nice angle iron ledges and we skated there for probably like 3 or so hours.
David wasn’t particularly stoked on all the kids running around playing cricket and soccer. He still pulled a 360 switch sweatydance on one of the ledges which I will probably never do in my life. I really don’t understand how so many people have been able to do that trick natural and even switch. There must be a trick to it much like there must be a trick to doing 450 tricks and all that but I have yet to discover them. If you are reading this and know the trick to doing these types of tricks please send me detailed instructions on facebook and unveil these secrets to me.
Kevin Chow skated with us all day and showed us around to some really cool spots. One spot in particular was this really long brick ledge that was maybe 20 something or so steps long. David helped me wax it and I did a backside on it going fairly fast. I wanted to do a topsoul as well but was having some problems staying on top of it until Kevin pointed out that my route towards the ledge wasn’t the most efficient. After I recieved this new insight from Mr. Chow it made the ledge much easier. Both Kevin and David were my full on support group in this session and definitely played a part in the making of the clip you will eventually see in an edit by Greg Mirzoyan. After this session I realized/remembered that session skating plays a big part in my skating. From the days of super crew skating back in the 90’s, energy from my fellow blade friends has always propelled me to new heights. Kevin also had a very rad Medium hoody on which coupled with his motivation made me miss Jayson Reduta who would always make me skate better just by being a better skater. Whattup Red! Erray!
Later that night after eating some food we headed out to “Nasty Mondays.” Now normally I am not much of a club person as I am not into going out, getting wasted, and picking up on the ladies but what I am into is dancing. I love dancing. And not just dancing, but like taeboe jazzersize 80’s/90’s/and beyond turbo style dancing till your clothes are drenched with sweat. And no lie, that is exactly what happened. First we were all on the lower floor where they were playing some techno/dub step where every time I looked over at David he seemed to be coming up with new dance moves. There is something about dancing in other countries I think that makes you extra not care about how you look. We were definitely the craziest looking white boys at the spot.
Upstairs they were playing all kinds of music from Queen to Rage Against The Machine. At one point I pulled out my camera to film everyone when I looked up on stage and saw David doing the same thing but from the stage! That experience was lived very shortly though because the biggest bouncer came and literally gave him the boot off the stage. Another notable mention was putting myself into 2 separate mosh pits and fully raging. It stayed proper and didn’t get out of hand which made it a lot of fun.
Here is a panorama shot I took of the secret restaurant Greg took us too after Nasty Mondays. I believe this photo was taken sometime around 5:30AM.
This is a photo taken by Greg of David skating one of the many amazing spots Spain has to offer.
Here is Richie Eisler filming me on his VHS camera while I was eating an extremely overpriced dragon fruit I had bought at the market that morning. Even though I think the lady that sold it to me took advantage of my Americaness, it was still really good.
Dragon Fruit is red, and gets all over your face when you eat it.
Dustin Werbeski is a great dude and a very talented skater. I was happy that we had the pleasure of meeting up with and skating with him and Richie. The last time we were all together was at Winterclash and we all had a really good time. Thanks guys!
I was struggling with finding something fun to do at this spot. The spot itself looks blatantly awesome and with just one look your mind could probably imagine a million things but not mine. I had looked at simply just launching off of one of these to the flat grounded and ignored this initial impulse at first, but later came to it when I had tried many failed attempts at doing something cool. Instead I just did something that looked fun and I think it actually ended up looking pretty “cool.” Funny how that works, huh?
I also bought a bag of nuts at the market earlier that day and after we found this random stone on the ground all of us began to enjoy. There is something about having to crack them open yourself as opposed to just being able to eat them immediately that just makes them taste better.
I was able to fit in a little melodica time in between the spots. I haven’t been making enough time to play it more, but I have also been tinkering around with David’s ukulele which has been really fun as well. These 2 instruments really are perfect for travel. David has inspired me to get one when I get back to the states.
I wasn’t here for this trick, but I did see the old man with the stick that actually hit David with it while he did this rail to drop. I guess he had taken many swings at him and got one good one. Another older man told us that a different park we were skating at was for kids and that we were grown men and shouldn’t be skating it. Little did he know we were from Neverland and that we were kids using the park correctly.
David, drop rail, tree. Use your imagination. What actually happened was much better then what you just imagined.
This is the picture of the crowd of protesters which were at the center of the City in Barcelona. There have been protesters living in this park for some time now and are not going to leave until changes are made within their government. I first came here with Richie and Dustin and then later that night with David to partake in a bit of history in the making.
These people who set up camp actually started a farm section of the park by digging up some of the grass and planting some crops.
Here is a group of Meditators focusing on a peaceful resolution. From reading the sign that was on the left, it says that they offer yoga and tai chi classes. These protesters basically set up a city/camp in this park and are prepared to stay there as long as it takes. I even saw some people that had a futon setup in the trees. Pretty remarkable.
And so this last picture ends some of the photos which were taken of Barcelona. I wish we were able to stay there longer because I definitely did not get enough of it. Next up for story telling is David Sizemore and he is going to talk about our experience at the FISE in Montpellier France.
Thank you all once again for reading my take on our Euro experience so far. In 3 days I will have officially been on the road for a month, and starting on the 15th will be on the Nomades tour with David for 2 more weeks. After that I will be at Lake Owen Camp for a week, and then New York until the Team Rollerblade Cali/Colorado Road trip tour starting August 2nd and ending on the 16th. After that I have no idea where I will go next. Life on the Road is nonstop reality in your face 24/7. I treasure moments of solitude for they are rare and much needed for sanity. Until next time, buenos noches!
Thinking of joining Team Rollerblade on one or more of their tour stops to hang out and skate? Find more info about the tour over here.
