Whenever I thought of Barcelona I always imagined a city with a bunch of buildings crammed together similar to Atlanta. It wasn’t until I got here a few days ago that I realized it is much more vibrant and beautiful than I thought it was. Although there are still many buildings it seems so much more open and organized than cities like Houston or Austin. Since Barcelona is such an old city I did not expect it to have such a well-organized grid system and that makes me appreciate the city so much more.
One thing I quickly noticed about Barcelona is the plethora of grocery stores. Every corner has a grocery store, making it incredibly convenient for people without transportation, saving both time and physical effort. For instance, our A&M study-abroad group is just a 5-minute walk from two supermarkets and a 5-minute walk from a mall.
I was planning on visiting Barcelona with my family before COVID happened and all our trips consisted of visiting famous architecture and sites in the city. As a result, it never even crossed my mind that Barcelona might have beaches. I first noticed the beautiful beaches when I gazed out the airplane window during our descent. I was amazed at how long the beaches were and the amount of people there were on these beaches. Just looking out that window I could instantly tell how important beach life was for the residents of Barcelona.
I think the Aggie community is doing great so far on this trip. Many people don’t like tourists, especially American tourists, because they can be loud, ignorant, and arrogant. Americans already carry that stereotype and I recently encountered this during the scavenger hunt. We had a task to take a picture with Spanish citizens and ask a few questions regarding what they like and don’t like about the European Union. We approached a father to ask him some questions, and he responded quite rudely with, “What do you want?.” After talking with him for several minutes, writing his answers down, and taking a picture with him and his family, he apologized for being rude upfront. He explained that he thought we were pulling a prank on him. This just shows that he might not have had the best experiences with American tourists in the past. Although some citizens may not like tourists, this sentiment is not shared by all of them. One of my group members and I started asking another Spanish couple about their opinions on the EU and they were really nice to us the entire conversation. I’ve had the chance to walk around and talk with the majority of the group we have and they are all very nice and polite not only to each other but to everyone in public. We don’t have any people who show inappropriate behavior in public and that reflects very positively on A&M study abroad students.
I’ve spoken Spanish most of my life but never did much research about Spain. When coming here I thought that the whole country spoke Spanish but that’s not true. Catalonia is actually an autonomous community of Spain and many people speak Catalan. It is a romance language similar to Spanish but more extensive and complex. 46% of Catalan people want independence from Spain. There are some Catalan people who dislike Spanish people, and the feeling is mutual. When doing one of our tasks for the svaneger hunt we asked a working man about his opinions on Spain and he told us that he hates it. He is fully Catalan and does not consider himself Spanish. He also dislikes the Spanish government and its political leaders. This surprised me since they live in the same country, and you would think that they would get along after so much time together. Although not all Catalan people feel this way, he told us that there are many who do.
On Saturday I visited some cool places with my brother. We first went to see the most famous food market in Spain. Mercat de la Boqueria is the largest food market in Barcelona and it has a wide variety of foods including fresh fruits, fish, cold cuts, etc. I had a zumo, a fruit juice, and it was amazing. We then visited the Barcelona Cathedral which was stunning. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get inside but we were still able to appreciate its beauty from the outdoors. We then enjoyed the last 30 minutes of our trip watching various street performances while eating ice cream.
