Mar Bella - The Gay Beach! 07/07/2010

The guys on the boat!

Me and my oh-so-classy Drag Queen

The boys and I at the chiringuito

As far as cities go, I have to say that Barcelona is one of the gayest that I have ever been to. Considering that as far as people go, I am one of the gayest I have ever met, it looks like it's a match made in heaven! Needless to say I was excited when some new friends I made here invited me to go to a gay beach near the Poblenou Metro stop. Speedo? Check. Rainbow towel? check. Muscles? Er...Well I *thought* I would be fine, until I got to the beach and felt like I was backstage at a bodybuilding competition! Let me tell you, if you ever need some motivation to go to the gym, or a dose of humility, Mar Bella is the place to go - on some of these guys I saw muscles I never even knew existed! Luckily, my friends informed me that the majority of these guys are on steroids and have balls the size of peas, which made me feel better, but I still couldn't get over how muscular EVERYONE (okay, myself excluded) was - and perhaps also that's just me being american, where overweight is the norm.

Anyways, once I got past the muscles things, I really enjoyed myself. You can go nude on the beach if you please, but for some reason the only people who seem to take up this offer are the exact same that you would never want to see naked. There is also a lovely little chiringuito right by the entrance that blasts house music and gay anthems - Cher, Madonna, Kylie...well, you get the idea. What's lovely is that the sun doesn't set here until around 9:30, so you can spend the evening at the beach after school or work and have a couple of drinks and relax - on which note, I should mention that there are roves of merchants wondering the beach selling cold beer and massages, so you really can do both of those things!

All in all, I loved the beach and it's such a nice place to go to hang out with friends. I even met a lovely Drag queen there (I LOVE drag queens) who, although a bit of a mess, at least gave me a chuckle and a free picture. I was also lucky enough to go on one of my friends' friends boats, which was fantastic, until one my friend's friend's friends got swiped in the face by a medusa (Read: Poisonous Jellyfish) . You should have seen how quickly the boys on that boat offered to pee on the wound. Oh dear.