After being in Barcelona for three days, I can honestly say I have been extremely impressed and amazed with the culture and people here. Coming into this trip, I was somewhat apprehensive due to the Omicron variant quickly spreading throughout the world. I was not sure if it would be cancelled or what would change with the trip. However, I was very relieved when I stepped off the plane in Barcelona and headed to our apartment in the city. When we first arrived at our apartment, we were taken aback at how spacious and nice our space was. Looking out at the view from our balcony confirmed that we were in a very beautiful city.
After getting all of our bags unpacked and making ourselves look somewhat presentable after an extremely long travel day, we headed into the city to have tapas and coffee. We had been exhausted since we had to wake up at 3 in the morning the day before and had been traveling all day and night. However, we knew we had to keep ourselves awake so we could get on the right sleep schedule. After a long and much needed lunch, we walked around the city and shopped. Then, we met with the rest of the group for a scavenger hunt throughout the city until dinner time. We had a wonderful dinner with our entire group in the upstairs of a restaurant where I had paella with chicken and vegetables.
The next day, we met downstairs to get on the metro to school. We got a little lost, but overall found our way. We had our morning filled with orientation and going over cultural differences. Then, we were able to break for lunch. My roommates and I headed over to a tapas restaurant we found on our map. We were able to sit outside and enjoy many different dishes before heading back to finish our scavenger hunt from the night before. We were able to see Paseo de Gracia which had many different shops similar to Fifth Avenue in New York City. We headed to La Sagrada de Familia which was beautiful. I had never seen such an amazing church in my life. However, we felt exhausted so when we had the chance we headed back to the apartment to refresh before heading back out to shop and eat dinner at Paseo de Gracia.
Today, we were able to head into the town of Sitges for our first company visit with Cellar Diaz which is a Vermouth company. When we first arrived, we met the owner Miguel who showed us around the cellar and explained the process of making the Vermoutt. He explained that they made 22,000 bottles per year mainly sold in Spain, Bulgaria, and Romania. After that, his counterpart Raquel showed us around parts of the city. Then, our ESA tour guide, Cristina, showed us around the rest of the city. We had some free time before meeting back together for lunch with the Cellar Diaz owners. They explained that they need more investors for their company and that we need to come up with ways for them to do so. So far, the city and country have been amazing. I cannot wait for the next days to come.