Yes, I went to Barcelona last weekend. And yes it was amazing!
Before coming to Madrid I told myself that Barcelona would have to be one of my first trips, and indeed, it being my third, it was. I wanted to go when the weather was still nice, and we got blessed with amazing weather.
It was a long weekend in Spain because on Monday it was a national holiday, and so it was perfect. Three days is hardly enough time to visit this incredible city because the main sites are so dispersed throughout the sitting. Anyways the main attractions in Barcelona remain the Sagrada Familia and the Park Guell, so naturally these were our two first stops.
The Park Guell was amazing but unfortunately it cost like 11€ to go to those cool mosaic benches with the good view, so we did everything there but that. We climbed up to another viewpoint though and this view was arguably even better. And, of course, we did see all the cool buildings and architecture.
Barcelona is must, much more than just these two attractions though. Must-sees also include the Gothic quarter, highlighted by the amazing Las Ramblas Market, the fountain and the huge palace near Plaça de Espanya (<– yes, written in Catalan, though in Barcelona you hear much more Spanish than Catalan), and Spain’s own Arc de Triomphe.
The market was AMAZING, and highlighted by these super inexpensive natural fruit juices.
The Palace was amazing, and even nicer at night!
And, of course, we visited Camp Nou. I am not necessarily an FC Barcelona fan but this was pretty cool!
No trip to Barcelona is complete without a crazy night out, though, and so what happened was that we’d heard of this club called Opium, apparently it’s equivalent to Madrid’s ‘Kapital,’ which I wrote about in a previous blog. Turns out the two are completely different but Opium is definitely worth a visit. It was probably expensive to get in, but since we dropped by in the afternoon to ask about the price, some lady gave us free passes. We didn’t drink anything there though, non alcoholics cost about 12€, I don’t even wanna imagine how much alcoholic drinks cost…
Of course, being in Barcelona, the heart of Catalonia, I need to draw some comparisons between there and Quebec. As we know, only about 25-30% of Quebecers are separatist, so chances of Quebec separating from Canada are extremely low, and it’s better like that. Now, Catalonia’s situation is similar to Quebec’s and the separatist party won the provincial elections just a few weeks ago. Before going to Barcelona I was even warned by some friends that some people might not respond nicely if spoken to in Spanish. Seeing as I don’t speak Catalan, I had little choice; however. Once in Barcelona, though, it was not bad at all. In fact, I barely heard any Catalan at all. Employees at restaurants and stores and the locals were all even speaking to each other in Spanish, and they all spoke fluently, without an accent or anything. Apparently it is mandatory for all Catalonians to learn Catalan in school, but they also get taught perfect Spanish, and seeing as Barcelona is a huge international city, I feel that Spanish just has a greater influence on the city than the Catalan language has, hence why they all seem to speak Spanish as a first language.
They do have language laws there too, though. For example all signs must be in Catalan, and they could write stuff in Spanish if they want, so some things were written in both and others just in Catalan.
Now, last week my aunt came to visit me from Cancun. She had a conference in Sevilla during the week so she stayed in Madrid during the weekend. It was so nice to spend some time with family, especially seeing as I haven’t in a while. She’ll be coming back in November! We’ll probably even go visit my great uncle in Milan!
On that note, my trip to Italy over the Christmas holidays is booked! So Excited!
Oh, and school is going well too.
– Dan!
Studying Abroad in Madrid!! 