Spain was great – I loved Spain despite the horrible trip out there. Madrid is a gorgeous city – I met the people who were putting Robin up for the several months she was out there, shared a hookah with her friends. We shacked up at a hostel right downtown, private room with a balcony – not much for amenities but we had plenty of bars and restaurants around us.

Did the touristy thing – saw the castles and the churches – drank sangria, discovered Spanish calamari is nothing like American calamari. Visited the erotic museum where some perverted old man hung out at the final exhibit which, I believe, was the porno exhibit. Cuban restaurants with sexy Cuban entertainers, drinks that were served out of volcanoes, a late night cafe that served up hot cups of fudge with your churro.

I fell in love with Madrid. I thought it was the greatest city I’ve ever visited (not saying much, considering this is my first real vacation)…until we went to Barcelona.

We flew out to Barcelona – the airport in Madrid was a mad house and when we finally went to get our boarding passes they told us that they were out of seats so they needed to bump one of us to first class. Robin obviously wanted it but I decided to be a bit of a dick, complained about my horrible trip to Madrid to begin with, and got the upgrade. It was an hour flight or so, you know, whatever. She was only pissed for about five minutes.

We get to Barcelona – we’re staying in a hotel right by the water, not at all far from the beach. We check in, change into our bathing suits, and walk right to the waterfront. We purchase some beers from a vendor, pick out a spot, and lay out. When in Rome, as they say – Robin takes off her top and I find it to be a bit of a turn-on. I mean, there are plenty of tits exposed on the beach but Robin’s where nice AND she didn’t have hairy pits – part of me imagined the guys were checking out my lady and that made me feel a bit like The Man.

But that’s what Barcelona was – a bit of freedom for us, a place where no-one knows us, where we’re taking our first vacation, we both finished with college and we have money for the first time in our lives – no worries. And we did whatever the fuck we wanted.

Every night we ended up at the same restaurant, eating mussels and paella and watching the street performers while drinking bottle after bottle of wine. We went to the aquarium – the beach everyday – we even went to a Six Flags park out there. It rained the whole time but we had a blast, rode all the roller coasters, stayed for the fireworks.

I fucked up on the last night, though. Pretty badly.

I was drunk. A lot of you who read this blog have shared drinks with me – most of you have seen Jason the funny drunk, only. The one that cracks-wise, makes fun of people to their faces, and occasionally rips the underwear off of my body without taking my pants off. Some of you, unfortunately, have met the completely irresponsible, violent, and depressed drunken Jason. He’s not a nice guy.

He came out that last night in Barcelona. We called some street performers to our table; they were a guitar/singer combo from California. We bought them wine, shared our food, and exchanged stories. They had some friends come sit with us, girls and guys – we all had a great evening. But it was a weird evening – I think signals were crossed the whole night and at different times different people were expecting different things, the alcohol not helping at all. I don’t know what was supposed to happen but I know what did happen – Robin and I went back to the hotel and she passed out.

And I got angry. Really fucking angry.

I became fixated on the stupidest thing – watching the sunrise. When Robin was in Ibiza she told me that her and her friends danced all night and watched the sunrise. To me that sounded like fun, and for some fucking reason, I wanted that.

I had a bit of a problem back then – I used to equate fun with sex; a fun night is one where you have sex. If you’re having fun it means you’re having sex. If I ended up not having sex, like that last evening in Barcelona, I’d attempt to substitute it with something else, usually the first thing that pops into my head. I don’t really do that anymore, thanks to a couple of therapists, now I associate a lack of fun with not having sex. It might sound like the same thing but for me it makes a huge difference.

Anyway, background aside, I was obsessed with this fucking sunrise. I stayed awake for hours, lying in bed, breathing heavy, until finally I woke Robin up and told her that I wanted to see the sunrise.

She had no idea what was going on but here I was, dragging her ass down to the water.

The sunrises – I don’t know what I was expecting – fucking angels to come down from the heavens or some shit, but it certainly didn’t fill this fun void I was having. So, instead, I started to tell Robin I was having second doubts about her moving to DC with me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Jason Rodriguez, and I’m the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet.

(Or was the biggest asshole, anyway).

Fuck it, though. If I wasn’t having fun, no-one was having fun.

Robin told me she didn’t feel the same way and somehow maneuvered out of the conversation and got me back to the hotel and into bed, which was probably a good call. I have to hand it to her – she puts up with a lot of my shit. There we were, together for over two years, she’s a week away from moving to a brand fucking new city to live with me, we’re on a vacation, and I’m giving her the break-up prelude. But she knew I was drunk and stupid and just found a way to get me to shut-up and see if I felt the same way in the morning.

I didn’t, obviously.

The next day we were back to Madrid. The last couple of days in Madrid were uneventful – just beer and eating, really – we were beat.

Robin and I – here we are, seven-plus years together – I grew up a lot, thankfully, but I almost threw it all away one morning in Barcelona. Luckily for me, Robin’s too strong of a woman to let that happen.