Barcelona: Day 5 : Golden-Roasted .

So, in all honesty, I've never given two shits in my life about being tan. My 'natural' skin color is an unnaturally bleak hue of what cannot be any better described by anything other than the word "white." I've always been the guy with super tan sleeves, and a white upper body. I've always been the guy with the ghostly thighs, and the silly sock tans. I've always been the guy with the ridiculous V-neck tan from wearing polos at work outside and white V-neck undershirts every other day of the week. Weird and silly tans happen, and I've learned to accept that being white is perfectly okay. I rarely go to the beach anyways, and thus it is not really a big deal. Howevveerrrrrr.....


For the first time in my life I am presented with a situation where I have four months in an abnormally warm and ridiculously sunny country, with a gorgeous beach about a 20 minute walk away. And thus for the first time in my life, perhaps I might make a little bit of, shall I say, effort? to actually gain a little bit of color. And what better way to do so, than in a speedo. Let's just say, I enjoy the choice European bathing suit. Although unfortunately, it seems that the speedo has lost a bit of its pull in the Barcelona area, because there are quite a few guys not wearing it, and just sticking with shorts. That's fine, but I prefer the class of the speedo, whether its the shorts kind, or the full out version. (Note: hard to explain what those actually are, so I've included a picture!)

 The difference is above -- I brought one of each kind with me, and have been wearing the shorts kind to the beach. Now, I feel like there are two things necessary in order to pull off the speedo: First, you need a pretty decent physique. To guys with the big gut wearing a ridiculously small amount of cloth as your bathing suit? Please, spare me. The second thing is probably being at least one even color... preferably not white, like myself. I suppose the third thing that is obviously needed is a pair of balls big enough to go out there and sport it in the first place (figurative balls not....--- on second thought let's not get into that...) I love the way they look and feel, and frankly, I've worked out all summer, why not flaunt it a bit? Everyone should be able to feel good in their own skin a bit.

And thus I am just trying to get myself a bit of color to sort of even out what is already there. Perhaps, for one time in my life, I will be what they actually call, semi-tan! We'll see. But the odds are pretty good -- we've been to the beach twice in three days, and we have four months here so we'll have lots of free time!

One more thing before I sign off, many thanks for all those that sent prayers upstairs for the upcoming hurricane. From what I hear, everyone made it through more or less without a hitch. And while there is still tons of water on the ground and lots of areas are a bit flooded, it's nothing that a good amount of sun can't fix. We probably needed the rain anyways... but I'm just glad everyone is safe!

Another night comes to a close -- pues, te hablaré mañana, y por supuesto, buenas noches desde Barcelona, España!