Appendix to TPoCNBSGtCW

In looking over my no-b.s. guide to city walkin', I realize that it could easily be interpreted that I am saying I'm such a badass you could drop me in the middle of a strange city with a map and I'd be able to find my way to a defined destination. Actually, my intention was to say the exact opposite of that; that I'm the kind of person who can look at a map and figure out a place to walk, and then end up going in the exact opposite direction because I am confused by the layout of the map. My point isn't that I'm hyper-oriented; rather, it's that any idiot, even one with no discernable sense of direction, can make it work with the proper tools and preparation.

Additionally, I neglected to mention the fourth means of transport available in Barcelona (and the rest of Europe, as I've been told): scooters. Man, these things are everywhere. I see them as sort of a combination of the traits we attribute to bicyclists and pedestrians in the states: like bikes they'll shoot up the side of cars stopped at traffic signals or stuck in congestion, and also like bikes they have no compunction about jumping up onto the sidewalk if the streets are completely blocked. Also, you can't walk down the street without going past dozens of scooters (and honest-to-dog motorcycles to boot) parked on the edge of the sidewalk. But like pedestrians, you see literally every kind of person riding a motorbike down the street. No sooner will you catch a guy in a three-piece suit zooming by when a 16 year old hippie kid with dreadlocks will almost run you down on the sidewalk.

Finally (and this is the last one), I forgot to mention the eternal bane of city walkers the world over: the slow-moving urban groups who insist on walking three abreast on the sidewalk and are completely oblivious to the fact that they're an impassible convoy of wide-assery. Jesus god these people drive me nuts. Let me say right up front, I have no problem with old people going for walks down the street. I don't think, as Homer reads in his Ross Perot pamphlet, that they should be "isolated and studied, so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use." I am in fact generally touched when I see a little old couple shuffling down the street arm in arm. But when there are three or more of them, standing in a group or weaving slightly in a line on the sidewalk, and I have to step out into the street or re-enact the Donald O'Conner wall-climb from the "Make'em Laugh" number in "Singin' in the Rain," well... let's just say that I get a little steamed. Same goes for stroller-pushers, bored teenagers, businessmen...okay, ESPECIALLY businessmen, because I always imagine that what is going through their smug little heads is that they're better than everyone else, they make more money, and so therefore they can take up as much of the sidewalk as they want. That's when the donkey punch comes in.

What else is going on...oh, finally got my haircut. I was approaching, ironically enough, the mullet-by-inaction...that involuntary mullet you get by not getting your hair cut in a timely fashion. Shows you what fear will get you in this world: I was so nervous of getting an accidental mullet at the barbershop that I was farming an accidental mullet anyways. In the end, I just had Oisin use his barber clippers and razored the whole damn thing. Not bald, mind you, but as short as my hair's been since...well, since whenever, I think. The top is the longest attachment on the clippers, the sides and back one shorter. I have pictures, don't worry. And I haven't forgotten about that photo-journal, either. Should be coming soon...