Here’s the situation, been to every nation…

A bar crawl in Madrid, Spain.

Sitting in the hostel lounge waiting until 11pm to go on a bar crawl I muttered “I’m too old for this,” to Stewart (or maybe it’s Stuart), an Australian I was rooming with and had convinced to come out.

In Spain they don’t even start the party until after bars in Chicago are closed. It’s a hard thing to get used to. But I guess it helps that I have nothing to wake up for.

“How old are you?” he asked. “30.”

He, apparently, thought I was 21. Bless him.

I sometimes think about lying about my age. Maybe I should. I think I could pass for 25. I know I look young but I don’t know where these people are pulling 21 from. He wasn’t the first.

But, anyways.

I went on the hostel bar crawl. They tend to be the type of things where waiting to go out I think “I’m too old for this,” and in the first bar I think “I’m too old for this,” and don’t want to pay another 7 euro for another drink, and by the fourth bar and a sangria, three rum and cokes, and two shots in I’m going home with a guy who said he was from Seattle but lied in the way that everyone just names the nearest city everyone’s heard of.

And by home I mean a park. We’re backpackers after all.

And with that I broke my actual number one rule of overseas travel hookups: no Americans. But, whatever. Because, if I’m actually being totally honest here, I kind of do regret over thinking things and leaving that bathroom. And maybe when you’re traveling for longer than a week there should be no rules.

But, whatever.

And, while we’re on the subject I just want to talk to you for a minute about the backpacker hook up situation. Because it’s funny and weird. Because first off you don’t ever have a place to go back to, really. So it’s always in a park or in front of a museum or in the shower. And second, afterwards, one of you always has to ask the other to write down your name. Because of course you have to add them to Facebook where you’ll either never actually talk again or have random odd conversations every now and then where you try to convince the other to go to Turkey at the same time as you. Or you add them to the block list so they can’t find you. The writing of the name step is also important so you can cross check with your brain that they have the name you think they had. And third, you’re kind of gross because you don’t get to shower as well as you’d like and you’ve been using the same razor for two months and none of your clothes are clean. But you kind of forget to care about those things after a while.

I’m just sayin.

Here’s the situation, been to every nation… A bar crawl in Madrid, Spain.

Bucket List: Go on a Bar Crawl