While living in Barcelona my first week, I noticed many things about society that are different from the United states. Small things like the near perfect grid system of roads or smaller portions of food have had my intrigue from the time my plane landed. But none of my observations compare to the seemingly slower pace of society to enjoy simpler things. This first showed itself to me when we spent 3 hours on a school night to get a tapas dinner. When compared to the pace that Americans live it seems so slow. Why would I want to spend 3 hours eating when I could go to bed earlier or do more homework? This manifests itself in many ways in the society and to be very transparent, may have knocked into my impatient side at times.
Our program has an excellent guide named Manuel who helped us settle in and show us around Barcelona when we first arrived. I have gotten to have many conversations and have great conversations about Spain with him and have gained a different level of respect for the way society functions. People having a long time to eat meals was designed to strengthen friendships and families. People staying up late reflects they are not over consumed with work or school shedding light on different values. Some smaller things I have noticed in this are the involvement of all generations in the families and the country’s labor laws that favor workers’ well-being much more than in the states. Getting to experience this with a community of very intelligent and ambitious aggies has made the trip all the more interesting and new friendships much more genuine.
After my first week of being in Barcelona I have more questions and intrigue than I did coming into the trip. I am very excited to see what new things I notice and what more I can learn from this complex and loveable city.
