Going to visit Boston College for a few days before leaving for Barcelona sounded like a great idea at the end of school last year. Mostly because exams are the absolute worst time to say goodbye in a meaningful way, or to say goodbye at all, for that matter. But when I got to BC and had a great time with my old roommates in their new casas, played soccer with all the guys, and made a deadline-day signing for BC club soccer with their new coach, a recently minted BC graduate and the dude who is almost directly responsible for me being in Barcelona (he studied at UPF for a semester, and in Buenos Aires for a semester) It felt really weird to leave all that. I had half a mind to petition the Office of International Programs to let me register for classes at BC and move in off-campus with everyone else. But no, that would be silly. Far-fetched. And after spending three months getting an FBI-issued proof of absence of criminal record in order to obtain a year long student visa... ha! What jocularity!
I have since ignored any and all second thoughts. After a week, I can safely say that I am going to not want to leave in June.
Barcelona is not what I expected. I was not aware such an amazing city existed. There is a criminal lack of information available to Americans about the amazing place that is Barcelona. The history, the people, the food, the things to do, the places to go, it is all quite overwhelming. Unfortunately, studying abroad in Europe is a privilege and not a right. It is hard to express how grateful I am to sit where I am sitting in my little apartment in this city and type this very sentence.
The culture here breeds poor work ethics. Mind you, this is an American speaking. An American from a very structured academic and temporal culture. In America, assignments are due on time. Things get done on time. People eat normal meals at certain normal times. People wake up at certain times. People do not venture out their abodes for the first time at 2:00 AM to hit up the beach clubs. On Tuesdays. For better or for worse, all this happens in Barcelona. It is quite relaxing well perhaps not the clubbing but nonetheless I have made my point. It all begs the questions: is one culture better than the other? What is normal?
I need to better organize my paragraphs. Sheesh.
We went here on Tuesday after our first day of class. We took the Metro to a stop a little farther away from the center of town, and then took a series of outdoor escalators to the foot of a large hilly park named "Parc Güell". The park was originally planned to be the residence for the wealthy families of Barcelona, which each property outfitted with a pool, garden, etc. However, since it was too far away from the bare necessities of life (food, water), no one really ever lived here. Besides a certain architect.
Panoramic view from the top of the park, on a brown religious mound designed by a certain architect.
Gaudí is the certain architect. He's quite the famous dude around here. His buildings are impressive. This, for example, was the front of his house in the park (he was one of the few who lived there).
I thought "Rome" when I was sitting out there twisting my head around and seeing nothing but Barcelona in all directions. But I've never been to Rome.
La Diada, it is called. Catalonia, the state/province in which Barcelona is located, very much does not consider itself a part of Spain. La Diada is traditionally a holiday commemorating the defeat of Catalonia to the French throne in 1714. Contemporarily, it is a celebration of Catalan nationalism and a springboard for political action. The big thing the Catalan people did on Wednesday was to make a big human chain throughout the whole province at 17:14 (read: 5:14 PM).
These guys played drums and walked up and down the path by Parc de la Ciutadella. Pretty cool.
Blaumut performed a free concert near the Arc de Triomf, a big red arc you can see me standing under in a photo from the last random update. They are a Catalan rock band. Very chill sound.
Look! A small memorial to Pompeu Fabra, the dude who standardized the Catalan language in a dictionary and multiple books on its grammar. He is after whom my university is named.
Gràcia, perhaps my favorite barri in Barcelona. Full of walking streets and restaurants and beautiful buildings and cafes.
People enjoy hanging those yellow and red flags off the balconies. This is very much related to La Diada.
Gaudí is everywhere. Even in Gràcia.
The beach is named Barceloneta. I have gone the last two days, and it has been lovely. Today especially. I ventured down the left (right if you use the above photo as a reference) of the coast past the marina and out to a less crowded and more relaxing area with a few restaurant bar things on the beach back near the walking path. It is so great there. I have now swimmed, swam, or swum in the Mediterranean Sea!
The FC Barcelona store. I actually went here with Grady and Ryan, two BC students in our little group, on Thursday afternoon and not on gameday to check out Camp Nou. Grady had his phone stolen the night before. We decided to rendezvous at a Metro stop, but he was 15 minutes late, so we kinda just telepathically assumed that we would reconvene here in the store. Which we did. After the store, they went back to their apartments, I went to El Corte Ingles to buy some clothing and a pair of shoes. Unless you categorize "shoes" under "clothing" in which case I only went to buy "clothing".
Pièce de résistance: the first FC Barcelona game. Almost our whole group went, and despite not all being soccer fans, it would have been hard to find anyone who wasn't entertained. Barcelona scored mid first half, and mid second half, making it 2-0. However, Sevilla counterattacked twice late to tie the game with only a few minutes of stoppage time left to play. However. Messi is a magician, and in the last few seconds he bundled past a few defenders in the box and Alexis Sanchez scored to win 3-2. What. A. Show. I regret missing the first 15 minutes (I lost track of time at the beach. Whoops. However arriving late is a very Spanish thing to do...)
Barcelona's first half goal. Messi and Neymar were so CLOSE.
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