Week 2 (Barcelona and Andorra)

2/12

Week 2 in Barcelona has been full of new suprises. I started school which was both bizarre and motivating. The school system in Spain is very similar to America but also very different. While class sizes are small and connected, they also only meet once a week per class. This makes it somewhat challenging to get acquainted with the teachers and peers in my various classes.

Since getting to Barcelona I have learned a lot about the political standings of various individuals. It's important not to speak about politics in Barcelona if you want to get along with people (just like in America). My roommates are in favor of Barcelona staying as it is as a major city in Spain, rather than becoming individual and disbanding as a sole country. This is because higher tax rates will be imposed and many different new tariffs and actions will need to take place, changing their way of life. I haven't met anyone who supports the other side of this argument, but I do somewhat understand the other side. They don't feel respected by the Spanish government, they don't feel that they need their help in order to run their city. Barcelona speaks a lot of Catalan, which is why it would make sense for Barcelona to succeed and become its own state. Of course there are many more pros and cons to each side but those are the major factors.

Barcelona, like California, is very expensive. Clubs are usually $20 euros to enter and drinks vary in price from $8 to $16 PER GLASS. The only way to not go broke in Barcelona is by either sneaking drinks in, or drinking before entering the club. It's hard to keep track with the many changes in metric system like feet to meters/kilometers, pounds to kilograms, Fahrenheit to Celsius and even dollars to euros. I think once I get used to these metrics I'm never going back to the American way, they just make so much more sense logically.

I went to Andorra yesterday, the first time I've been out of Barcelona. I made a lot of new American friends, as the bus trip I went on was solely for foreigners, Honestly, the Spanish countryside wasn't much to write home about but the mountainous Andorra was absolutely breathtaking and even more importantly CHEAP. I bought a bottle of water, a flask of vodka, chips and some candy for a total of $4 euros. I might need to start traveling the 3 hours north to buy my groceries from now on :))

2/16

Today is my two week mark of arriving in this amazing city and the excitement has yet to die down. There are dozens of differences in the way of life in Spain compared to California. Yesterday I joined some friends in Hostafrancs, a small suburban area in West Barcelona, for pickup basketball in a park. We spent 3 hours trying to play with the locals who were nothing short of dangerously aggressive. Every time they get touched, "FALTA!" before getting in your facing and yelling a bunch of Catalonian slurs. You couldn't help but laugh. It's always nice to see the same level of competitive nature among hoopers wherever I go in the world, and it felt good to blow off some stream by matching their anger levels.

Another thing I noticed about Barcelona is how environmentally woke they are. Throughout my entire visit I haven't seen any paper towels in bathrooms, very few pieces of plastic lying along the ground, and constant deep cleanings of city streets. They are also very fit and healthy. Many people go to the gym and those who don't eat right. Even KFC only offered sugar free sodas and gluten free french fries to customers.

I went to an international irish pub the other night. Zero natives. While it was nice to talk to some American's this is not really what I'm looking for on a night out. Although it's difficult with the language gap, I always feel like I'm learning new words and ways of speaking when I'm around Spaniards. The night ended up being fun anyway, we ventured to Shoko, a club by the port of Barceloneta. I made friends with some Portuguese girls before calling it a night at 3:30 (which is early for a night out in Barcelona) and going to bed. The only difficult thing about going clubbing, besides the bizarrely expensive drink prices and angry Morroccons that try to fight anyone that bumps into them, is that I'm about 35 minutes North from all the good clubs. It's a whole trek to get down there and it's not exactly easy to find your way back up when youre a drunken foreigner.

2/18

I had the opportunity to visit my roommates village in Villa Franca on Friday. It was cool to see what suburb life in Spain is like. Some areas were beautiful but most were slightly run down and dreary. The farms were not well kept and the restaurants gave the impression of description from a book about the Wild West. The rest of the town made it feel like I entered a time machine to 40 years in the past. The town was filled with either elderly citizens or young children and there was no in between, apparently this is because all the generation x'ers are studying or have moved out of the country. With all this said, I actually really enjoyed Villa Franca. It was relaxing and sunny, plus it was only 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. Would I ever want to live there? No.

Weekends in Barcelona feel like a lifetime. Every time I go out I meet new people from different countries. Oddly enough, the nationality I've gotten along with the most have been Romanians. Aside from their accents and barren, reserved look they've been very friendly. They are eager to teach me words in their native language like "la naiba" or "futu-i". Such kind hearted individuals.

I feel so lucky to have grown up in a country that speaks an International language, nearly everyone I've met here speaks some english. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel somewhat embarrassed to ask "tu hablas ingles?" to workers or bar-goer's. Even when I try to speak in Spanish to waiters or bartenders they respond to me in english, I guess I need to work on my pronounciation. I do feel that I've been improving with my Spanish as the days go by. I'm really trying to put some of my time into rolling my R's, it's such a necessity in Spanish that I know it'll be worth my while. It's just so fucking difficult.

My Italian friend visited from Florence yesterday, and when she asked me to be her tour guide I realized that I haven't even had a chance to be a tourist in Barcelona yet. We walked through Placa Cataluna and down La Rambla before I got the idea to get my first tattoo. I think it was a mixture of being in such a unique place and getting such a special

design (shout out to Doucey). That, and the fact that tattoo's in Spain are naturally cheaper than in California. The person who gave me the tattoo was a beautiful Spanish woman. She was clearly professional and fit all the characteristics of being a tattoo artist. She wore gothic clothing, played heavy metal music in the background and had dozens of grim, yet serene tattoos across her body. The tattoo parlor itself was in great shape and was the perfect place for a first-timer. It was hidden behind the walls of an artistic neighborhood that looked straight out of a 1950s based Woody Allen movie. Getting the tattoo felt different than I expected. Rather than feeling like a needle stabbing you, it gave the sensation of a sharp scraping along the skin. A lot of people hate the idea of tattoos. While, I used to be skeptical I think it's great to decorate your body, as long as you do it in the right way and with sentiment and meaning behind it.

Here are some cool foods I tried recently: