First time poster, so be gentle. Feedback is welcome through comments or DM. There is definitely some backstory, so scroll down to the page break if you want to skip to the sexy stuff.
It was July 1st – Canada Day – 2015, in Barcelona, and the effort to rally was not going well. The first 8 days of this post-law school European adventure had been filled mostly with an unsustainable pace of partying, and by now the growing list of toxins pumped into my body was gaining the upper hand. It was around 10:00pm and in our hostel’s common room, my best friend, Jason, and I, considered our options: a) an increasing nausea-inducing bottle of Jamieson and joining our hostel’s pub crawl; or b) a couple grams of some quite top-notch weed procured at the local cannabis club, street food, and the first decent sleep of the trip. As I tried to will myself awake with some Red Bull, the night’s patriotic duty to represent the Great White North at the bar was not looking particularly compelling.