The food in Barcelona is terrific quality and relatively cheap. The way that locals enjoy their meals is interesting. Small restaurants are abundant on every block, and each of them has tables set up outside on the walkway along the street. Most people eat outdoors because the inside is usually not air-conditioned and because the COVID-related mask requirements are not as strict outdoors. We have noticed that locals take a very long time to eat; the same people that are there when we arrive are always still eating when we are leaving. This is because they typically enjoy several rounds of tapas (appetizers) before getting their entrees and then moving on to dessert. This practice is even more extreme during lunch because this is the biggest meal of their day. The times that they eat are also different from what I am used to. Breakfast-serving restaurants mostly open at ten in the morning. Lunch is eaten around two in the afternoon, and dinner is around eight-thirty at night.
Locals take eco-friendly practices seriously. Using paper towels and buying plastic bottles of water is frowned upon; they have a lot of glass water bottles, especially in restaurants. There are also many recycling dumpsters along the city?s streets. These are different colors, symbolizing the type of waste that they are for. Also, they are serious about reducing electricity and water usage. We are expected to turn off everything in our apartment when we leave.
Lastly, the locals seem to admire the United States a lot. I say this because many shops around the city sell t-shirts and other clothing items with U.S.A. graphics and U.S. city names on them. We found a t-shirt in a shop that had ?TEXAS? across the front!
