Sarah Does Italia: Barcelona

I just said to my roommate, “Barcelona will be quick to write because I was scared”. Sadly, this statement pretty much defines my time in Barcelona. We arrived on Thursday morning and weren’t leaving until Sunday afternoon so had plenty of time to relax and see the city. Unfortunately, every person I talked to prior to going to Barcelona told me they either were robbed, knew someone who was robbed, or just to watch out from getting robbed. Even my study abroad program sent out an e-mail saying to be careful about getting robbed ESPECIALLY IN BARCELONA. Really, they had to mention just one city and it was Barcelona? Even the workers at the hostel mentioned in the first night I was there. I overheard guys in the dorm next to me talking about how they got pick pocketed outside of a club the night before. What did all this lead to? Constant anxiety about being robbed. I lived with my money belt on and even slept with it. I didn’t take out my camera (not because I was so much worried about my camera getting stolen, well I was, but mainly about all my pictures from the trip thus far). I never took out more than 50 euro when I went out and only took one credit card if I took one at all. I always locked up my stuff in the locker the hostel provided. I even had trouble sleeping and nightmares about being stolen from. I am a pretty rational and logical person (I think like an economics major). And I know some may consider this an irrational fear—but let’s look at the evidence. Everyone I knew was robbed or knew someone who was robbed and people in my very hostel had been robbed! So my fear was pretty justified. And in the end it lead to the safe keeping of all of my possessions.

Now to the trip. Our hostel was great despite the nine person mixed gender (ah, scary) dorm that was connected to another dorm with a half completed wall which made the place very loud. But you get what you paid for; it was only 45 Euro for the three nights I was there (plus another 2 euro for a blanket, and another 2 euro for a towel). It was in a great location, literally 50 meters from the sea. There was also free breakfast and free use of three computers with internet. I was a little tired and worn out by the time we got to Barcelona so I was mainly interested in eating good food, practicing my very rusty Spanish, and relaxing.

I realized that I had one aspect missing in my adventures. It was a very un-Claxton trip in that I didn’t eat great food. I find many times that my favorite trips are described by the food I ate and then what happened in between. This is definitely not the case with this trip. I guess it happens when you don’t have enough time or money. I was determined change this in Barcelona! I consulted my guide book and sought out the best yet affordable food in town and also the local cuisine. I enjoyed wonderful paella. I went to the oldest restaurant in Barcelona which was a fabulous Catalan restaurant and enjoyed their specialty spinach enchiladas and fish. I also enjoyed eating tapas for lunch especially croquettas.

My Spanish has gone from awful to horrendous. I realized I would start speaking Spanish and end up speaking Italian. They are just too similar! I did not realize how quickly my Spanish would go when I got here but I would constantly try to think of words in Spanish and the Italian ones were the only words that would come. I also didn’t realize how much I missed speaking Italian. It was so nice when I ran into Italian tourists in Dublin and spoke Italian with them. They were even from Florence! I was desperate to speak Italian in France because I speak absolutely no french—only bonjour, merci, and hoh-hah-hoh-hah (i.e. the French laugh). I definitely wished my roommate was with me when I was here—she is fluent in Spanish.

On the first night, I ended up having dinner with ten native Barcelonans. How did I get myself into this? Well, Sonia’s sister met a guy in Costa Rica who lived here and they stayed in contact via facebook when he learned we were visiting he invited us to meet up with him. Little did we know, but he invited us to his friend’s birthday dinner. So here we are two American girls, both pretty much speaking no Spanish and ten male Barcelonans. Dinner was pretty fun the guys were all crazy and loud and singing. The one next to me was really cute and spoke English very well! It was definitely nice to meet the locals.

The next day was Halloween and during the day we saw some of the sights, mostly Gaudi architecture. It rained all day and I lacked proper footwear so that was no fun. However, it had finally stopped raining by nightfall. Halloween was a bust in Europe. I dressed up like a devil i.e. wore a red outfit and could take off my devil horns and be normal if I needed to. Sonia dressed up like a cat… i.e. wearing a black dress and cat ears with cat makeup. Then we hit the town and found only other Americans dressed up. Oh well, so we hung out with Americans. We went to this really cool bar though that was like a big tree. It sounds weird (I wish I took pictures but alas I didn’t have my camera because I didn’t want to get stolen). But it was really cool, probably because it reminded me of Lord of the Rings.

My absolute favorite day was the next day (Saturday). Sonia decided to go to the Dali museum which was about a two hour train ride away and I wasn’t really interested in because I am picky about my artwork. I went to the beach (without money of course because everyone gets robbed near the water) and read Eragon and put my toes in the sand. It was fantastic and probably the first time I was relaxed since before mid-terms. And then I ate some delicious food.

On Saturday night, we took it easy but went to one of the nighttime tourist attractions: the Ice Bar. Yes, very touristy but whatever. It was a bar made completely out of ice! When you arrived, you were outfitted with a winter coat and gloves. The cups were even made completely of ice! And there was a beautiful ice sculpture of Gaudi’s Sagrada Famiglia. One thing I regretted about Barcelona was not having one big, crazy night out. After all, Spain is known for their nightlife with discos not starting until 2 and people not going to bed until 5. However, I was tired and poor after a week of traveling and was perfectly happy sleeping eight hours.

When Sunday rolled around, I was ready to come home! I definitely missed Mama Fiama’s cooking and hanging out with Alti. I also became homesick for real home when I was in Barcelona and I thought it would help to come back to Florence for a while. On my flight back, there were about fifteen people from my program including my roommate! What a pleasant surprise. Also, just to tell you how small Europe/Florence is (to American students that is). We met two groups of students studying abroad in Florence while in Barcelona and I have run into them three or four times since I have been back (about two weeks).

Anyway, I am so incredibly lucky to get to travel so many places. I have traveled more in two weeks than people have in their entire life! I really am so fortunate! Thank you parents and Whitman!

Also if you want to see more pictures, you can view all my pictures from my semester at http://picasaweb.google.com/demingsc