Going into the study abroad trip, I had no idea what to expect. My first impressions of the city were that Barcelona was a heavily industrial city based on the shipyard and factories that we saw when initially leaving the airport when we first arrived. There were mass amounts of shipping crates being loaded onto boats and trains being prepared to be shipped to other countries or other parts of Spain. My expectations were that we would be in the classroom everyday of the week for all five weeks that we are here. After learning that we are in the classroom for three days out of the week rather than all five, I now realize that when you are in a new environment such as Barcelona, you are constantly learning new things even if you aren?t in the classroom, which I really did not take into account. I can honestly say that I have learned so much about the culture in the past three days just doing little things like ordering food at a restaurant or figuring out the Metro.
The day trips we have done such as La Sagrada Familia and the scavenger hunt that we did were super enlightening and overall a fun way to experience the city and its culture. The quality of life in the city has exceeded my expectations as well because everywhere that we have gone, there seems to be thriving businesses with lots of people buying and selling goods in order to promote economic growth. When we went to La Sagrada Familia on Saturday, I was in awe of the architecture of the Basilica by Antoni Gaudi. I then noticed similarities in the architecture in a lot of the older buildings around the city and then when I was informed that Gaudi was the main architect of the entire city back in the late 1800?s and early 1900?s it made sense why the structures were similar to each other. I also noticed that people in the city mainly walk or take the Metro as their main form of transportation rather than drive like we do in Texas. I guess since the city is so dense when it comes to the amount of people residing in it that it is not feasible to drive around places due to traffic, the cost of buying a car, as well as having to pay for gas. There are street performers and farmers markets everywhere you go, especially in Sant Antoni near our apartment as well as around Las Ramblas, which I think is such a cool aspect of the culture of Spain but mostly Barcelona.
On Sunday, me and my roommates watched the Euro 2020 Final between England and Italy, and it was fascinating to see how big of a deal that game was to the city because it seemed like everyone was at a restaurant or bar watching the game even though Spain was not even playing. In the United States soccer is not a very popular sport, but in Europe I can already tell that soccer is more than a sport, is a big part of the culture of many European countries including Spain.