P-Rod V Shoe Release Weekend in Barcelona Article at Skatepark of Tampa

Upon arrival, it was an immediate push around the city with whoever happened be hanging out in front of the hotel. I was by myself on this trip so it was a nice exercise in making myself be more social than I'm used to.

Andy Henrie

Andy Henrie found the best way to get around town here. Everyone wears helmets here, not matter how small or big your motorize bike is. It's pretty different from other cultures. Andy was victim of pickpocketing on this trip. Watch your pockets, even the fronts. They're pro here.

After a long all night flight, the first stop everyone had was some tourist food spot to throw back local sauce.

The entire hotel was taken over by people here for the P-Rod weekend. This stuffed swag bag awaited everyone who checked in.

That's a serious man purse.

Loaded like you just went on a shopping spree.

P-Rod's words are in this mock passport that was in the bag.

You get the Fives and a pair of runners. Most of us usually never wear shoes like this. These were like walking on clouds.

Attention to detail in each room by the marketing dues.

There wasn't much time for tourist mission, but I did get to walk around a little. They have the craziest street performers here.

Why can't my town be all on two wheels like here?

Wieger Van Wageningen

Sauce with the swooshy ginger, always down for a drink. Thanks for the beer, Weiger.

Maybe if all American girls were on two wheels and foot like here, there would be less wide ass piles waddling around this country.

The first night, we were all grouped into teams with a filmer, photographer, and local skate spot guide to take us around and get our three-minute edits done. iPhones loaded up with spot photos and the Tumblr app to share the adventure of our day were given to each team. Unfortunately, we found out that Tumblr has a 100 photo upload limit within a certain time period. That was quickly used up early in the day and no more photos could go up.

Ben Kelly

Made lots of new friends and got better aquanted with some old ones. These flower sniffers are Chris Thiessen and Ben Kelly from Transworld. Chris films and Ben's the editor.

Daniel Lebron

Daniel Lebron welcomes us all to his town.

These ladies were like the wedding photographers. They were on the sidelines filming and covering the entire weekend. Ladies, where can I view your work?

We all spent some time coloring up our own custom P-Rods. I made myself a nice Consolidated pair.

Youness Amrani

Even when there's not an event in town, you'll find no shortage of skaters at the Manolo Bar. It's the Max Fish of Barcelona. I'm getting lit with Youness Amrani now.

Juan Carlos Aliste

Wow, randomly ran into Juan Carlos Aliste that we first met at AmsterDamn Am a few weeks ago. He's from Chilie and staying here for a few weeks with all the homies. We can barely communicate because I suck and can't speak Spanish, but we get by on basic skate stuff.

Ishod Wair

It's Friday night and the bar is packed late with everyonee that's supposed to be skating all day tomorrow to get our edit done. Didn't seem to phase anyone. What's up Ishod? I spy a ripping ginger.

Gino Iannucci

Everyone's loving the Instagram. You need to high five me because I got over butterflies in the stomach, stage fright, and shaky knees star struck status, plus an extra two beers of social confidence, so I could muster up the guts to ask this universal idol Gino for a photo.

Chris Roberts

Chris Roberts showcasing the local sauce.

Good morning, we have varmit leg for breakfast. Yikes.

Tatiana is on the hotel staff. She loaded up and passed out each team's iPhones. Everyone's battery was done by like 1pm. Oh well, next time we all need the backup battery, too.

The first spot we rolled up on was this double hot foot contraption. Neil Smith's got a back lip on it.

Shane O'Neill

Shane O'Neill, Niel Smith, and Nico our tour guide made up the skateboard talent on our team.

Shane O'Neill

Unfortunately, Shane cracked his head on this nollie flip noseslide on the warm up spot. It was just one of those falls where it's the last thing you're expecting, plus your hands get all tied up and can't break your fall.

Shane, while we were running the first aid kit on your head, I couldn't help but notice the bangin' Stefan's you got on. When do those come out?

Shane O'Neill

In less than an hour's time, Shane was in a hospital and out with three stiches paying 130 Euro for the service. In America, it would have been three times as much and taken all day.

Neil Smith

Neil is setting up for something scary here.

Neil Smith

Neil Smith - wallride to fakie with no fear of heights.

Shane O'Neill

Shane was getting stopped by random skaters and their groupie girlfriends everywhere.

Hunter Muraira

It was crazy how you know every spot we went to. Joey and Hunter are doing couples routines at the manny pad to bank spot.

Neil Smith

Neil Smith killed it at every spot we went to. He's Blueprint's newest pro. This front feeble to frontside tailslide was pretty damn long.

Another very recognizable spot.

Mark Goldman

Mark does all the social media stuff with Nike SB - Facebook, Twitter, all digital marketing stuff, etc. I handle very similar things for the Park as part of my job. This noseslide shuv 90's style reminds me of Rothmeyer.

Neil Smith

Neil was right up on this thing to drop in as soon as we got there.

Joey works with Nike SB on the digital documentation type stuff. Everyone has such cool jobs. That's a kickflip fakie he may not have done if it weren't for Hunter and his one man cheering and motivation tactics.

Nico lives in Barcelona and was on our team as the local guide. It starts with "What do you want to skate?" Then Nico says, "No problem," and we're there. He's got a 360 flip on this weird ass thing.

Neil Smith

Neil Smith - 5-0 into the steep bank. I felt bad that I finished nearly two beers while he worked his ass off pushing uphill for this one.

Hunter Muraira

Hunter and Joey, chill mode.

That's our filmer Charlie. He's French, but one day decided to just move to Shanghai for a change. He speaks French, English, Mandarin, and Spanish. Damn, I feel inferior. He rips, too. That's a 360 flip into that bank on his filmer board. We'll be seeing Charlie in Shanghai next month for the China Damn Am that we're doing there.

Ishod Wair

Yep, another very recognizable spot. We ran into Ishod there with his team.

The ground is so good everywhere, which also fits for breakdancing, I guess. These dudes had no music going, though. Real strange.

Even the older gentlemen rock a stylish manpurse in these parts.

Pause for a foot fetish, this time on full blast on the big screen at the hotel where a local Spanish band entertained.

Charlie's adding his signature to the guitar strap that Daniel Lebron got for P-Rod this weekend.

We had lunch at this little three stair spot you might recognize.

Then it was a little bit of shoe nerd talk about what went into the design of the P-Rod V. I can't get enough of this stuff.

Over at the beach, the most bangin' Spanish women you've ever seen are all topless. So hard not to beam like a douche.

Paul Rodriguez

Paul Rodriguez, thanks for having us all out here.

Chris and Ben's coverage and interview with P-Rod will be on the Transworld site.

Colin Kennedy

I spy Colin Kennedy. The rubbernecking bartender spies mad bangin' boobies on the beach right now.

Ishod Wair

Even the skate machines couldn't resist taking a nice all day break at this beach.

These locals were our tour guides on our all day skate mission on Friday.

Saturday night was a gathering to watch all the footage our eight filmers put together from our all day mission the day before.

Paul Rodriguez

Daniel Lebron got P-Rod a custom made guitar.

Ben Kelly

For you camera nerds, this is how the X100 takes almost all party photos. It's an amazing camera, but the focusing system has caused me to lose so many photos. It's definitely geared more towards "compose, think, then shoot," like a true camera nerd does, not "I'm drunk, woo, snap!" style photography like I do. Anyway, that's Ben with a nice pocket protector ready for Raekwon to come on.

The hotbox level in the hotel basement where Raekwon played was insane. Everyone had full sweated out shirts from top to bottom like a mid-afternoon Florida skate session.

After this show ended at about 2am, I got a few hours of sleep, then was on a plane back home. What a weekend again. Damn. Thanks Nike SB for the invite.