Little Facts about Barcelona, 2007

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a Word document I created back when I was studying in Barcelona. I was there studying for just five months, but made some pretty interesting observations about seemingly insignificant but quite telling differences in lifestyles, cultures and languages...

Me in Barcelona, 19 years old

Now that I have been living in Spain for a more significant amount of time, I never seem to notice these small differences that seemed so big to me when I was just 19 years old. For those of you who have spent some time in Spain, you might just find this interesting.

Little Facts about Barcelona 2007

1. Old men walk with their hands held behind their backs.

2. Spaniards are OBSESSED with saving energy because utilities are so expensive and scarce.

3. Long showers don’t exist. If it’s longer than 8 minutes you’re American and ridiculous.

4. They are also obsessed with every single door in the house being closed at all times (and they also have a lot more doors).

5. Fat people do not exist here. Anyone overweight is over 65.

6. All the music played in stores (of any kind) is really terrible American 80’s and 90’s music. Celine Dion and Mariah Carey always top the list.

7. Everyone is stylish- but weird 80s stylish. Ankle tight jeans are very popular, along with high-heel knee-high boots, and tights or leggings.

8. The city smells pretty bad.

9. Everyone smokes cigarettes.

10. Siesta doesn’t really exist in the big city, but lots of shops and stores close for two hours from lunch (1:30-3:30).

11. They eat five times a day. Breakfast at 8am, snack at 11am, lunch 2pm (their big meal), snack 5pm, dinner 10pm.

12. You can get a bocadillo anywhere for pretty cheap and they’re always delicious!

13. A huge piece of French bread (baguette) costs $.50.

14. They can talk at 5million miles a second a still understand each other.

15. Public transportation is amazing. There’s always the metro, the bus, the train, or your own feet.

16. When you order a pop at a restaurant it comes in a can and a glass with no ice.

17. You can’t get tap water at a restaurant.

18. They don’t really drink water here… but you can get a 1 liter bottle of water at the grocery store for $0.30!!!

19. Mopeds are everywhere!

20. They take “public display of affection” to a whole new level.

21. Hanging out at someone’s house doesn’t happen. To spend time with friends you meet at a bar, restaurant or café.

22. All of their convenient shops end with “ia.” Panadería (bakery), Farmacía (pharmacy), Perfumería (Perfume and makeup shop), Peluquería (hair salon).

23. Milk and juice for drinking at home comes in cardboard boxes that you can keep warm for a long time.

24. Chocolate is everywhere! Every block there’s a bakery that sells tons of chocolate covered/filled croissants and goodies. Nummy!

25. Cell phone minutes are really expensive and can be paid for by contract or by pre-pay.

26. To be able to walk to the grocery store and back home after shopping, lots of people own bags similar to a rolling suitcase to carry their groceries in.

27. Dogs are everywhere, poop everywhere, and go without a leash- without a problem.

28. For an area to be considered a “park” here it just has to be a brown sandy/dusty area with a few benches.

29. The blinds are outside of the house and you open and close them with a cord inside the room.

30. They don’t drink tap water.

31. Chocolate is king here!

32. Clubs (discotecas) are open until the wee hours of the morning (7am, 9am, anyone?)

And back to Barcelona I went...

VOCABULARY LESSON 3: Barcelona

Chupito- A shot

Guiri- Tourist or foreigner. In cities plagued by tourists and foreigners throughout Spain, the word guiri is employed to describe them.

Jarra de sangria- A pitcher of sangria.

Leche de pantera- A milky, alcoholic mystery drink that tastes of cinnamon and goes down like, well, milk!

L’Ovella Negra- My favorite bar in Barcelona when I studied abroad. Nights here were spent ingesting jarras de sangria for hours over a variety of drinking games (makeshift beer pong with glass glasses included). The after party always consisted of a drunken walk to the beach, (even in the middle of winter) which is why I never got to know any other bars or clubs in Barcelona.

“Se sube!"- Literally translated it means, “it rises!” This expression is used when you start to get tipsy, when the alcohol goes to your head really quick.

After leaving my family behind in Madrid, Holly and I headed to Barcelona where I studied abroad almost three years ago. My dear friend Nacho come to pick us up and I immediately felt at home. It was as if I had been there yesterday. We arrived on the afternoon of New Years Eve, just in time for a quick meal and a quick nap before the not-so-quick New Years celebration. The evening started at Nacho’s house with all of his good, life-long friends who I had surprisingly never met before. 

In the United States, we ring in the New Year with a countdown to midnight, celebrated with (more) drinks and that (hopefully) special New Years kiss. In Spain, they do a slightly different countdown. The last twelve seconds of the year are celebrated by eating a grape a second, thought to give good luck for each month in the New Year. Well, a mini giggle fest erupted throughout the table as we shoved pre-peeled, seedless grapes into our mouths, and I only finished nine grapes in twelve seconds. Close enough.

The group on New Years: Jaraba, Nacho, Holly, Urtzi, Javi and me.

After enjoying some appetizers and drinks, we headed to my favorite bar in the city, L’Ovella Negra, a bar which is filled with weekend upon weekend of drunken memories from when I lived in Barcelona. Next we were off to one of Barcelona’s hottest night clubs: RAZZMATAZZ : A three-floored, multi-roomed club filled with hundreds and hundreds of people from all around the world. The promotional posters plastering the walls read “F**CK THE 2009” which made me want to scream “WHY can’t you hire a competent translator (at one of the biggest nightclubs in the city for one of the biggest parties of the year)?!”… “F*CK 2009” is the grammatically correct way of saying goodbye to last year. But, whatever, this will forever be one of my biggest pet peeves about this country.The fiesta continued until the wee hours of New Years day, concluding with a makeshift celebration of the Midwestern New Years at 7am with a very loud, American countdown in Jaraba’s car.

Too early the next day (around 5pm), we headed to Nacho’s aunt's house for New Years day dinner. A large chunk of the night was spent talking about how the world is too small. A girl I went to elementary school with in Minnesota, Kathleen, is the daughter of who used to be Nacho’s aunts neighbor. Kathleen was born and spent the first few years of her life in El Prat de Llobregat (the town where Nacho lives), and I’m sure Nacho and her played together as really small children. The world is small, small, and smaller than small sometimes. 

The following days in Barcelona are a blur… mostly because they were spent sleeping due to night after night of partying. The night that stands out the most was a legendary one. Now, as the joke goes, we spent the night as guiris…

Guiri action #1: Eating at a pseudo Asian food chain restaurant called “Walk to Wok.” We got Nacho to try some really spicy sauces and therefore he make some really funny faces, as the Spanish version of “very spicy” is the equivalent of the American mild.

Guiri action #2: We started drinking early… around 8pm (any good Spaniard doesn’t start until midnight or later).

Guiri action #3: We went to “Bosc de les fades café,” a bar that looks like a fairy forest… A super-tourist trap bar (which I’m sure is mentioned in every Barcelona travel guide book) with overpriced drinks.

Guiri action #4: We gave into drink fliers handed out by barmen… and actually drank at the bars using their flier coupons. Locals don't do this. Ever.

The madness began innocently enough at “Bosc de les fades,” a bar which looks like you are in fairy land. There, we ingested one jarra de sangria to start the night off right. The second bar is famous for its 80 cent glasses of pink champagne that goes straight to the head (se sube, se sube!) and that’s where the guiri action began, as we were officially on our way to drunk town at 10:30pm, something Nacho and Jaraba had probably never accomplished before. Bar three was the leche de pantera bar, where we finished off a few glass bottles of potent, liquored up milk. Our time there ended with the purchase of three roses from one of the typical immigrant guys that walks around Barcelona in an attempt to sell roses to couples out for dinner. Somehow, not one rose made it out of that bar alive. Bar four is when we gave into a bar’s drink coupon and enjoyed a mojito and a chupito for a whopping 3 euro. Bar four was what Nacho and his pals refer to as “Bengali bar” because it is owned by Bengalis! They also have potent mojitos… Our fifth and last stop was to the club Apollo.

The next day was January 6^th, the day of los Reyes Magos (the three wise men day). The Spanish Christmas celebration is a bit different from ours, as it goes from Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) to Reyes (kings) day. Reyes is the day when gifts are given, as Jesus received gifts from the kings a few days after his birth, not from a fat, white bearded man better known as Santa on his actual birthday. Reyes was spent hung-over at yet another Nacho family gathering celebrated with food, gifts, and roscas. Roscas are the traditional Christmas cake in Spain. Inside each rosca is a small, glass king and a dried bean. Whoever bites down on the king in their piece of rosca has to wear a paper crown that comes along with the cake, and whoever bites of the dried bean has to pay for the rosca. Well, I got the bean!! This got a pretty big laugh from the table but thankfully the rosca had already been paid for by Grandma and Grandpa.

The next day I went to Manresa (a pueblo about an hour outside of Barcelona) to spend some time with the Tomás Sr. and Trini (the family we met up with in Madrid). I spent some time recuperating, retirement style, from a wild week in Barcelona by watching the news all day along with late night movies. But, of course, a Friday night in Spain couldn’t be spent inside, so I went out with some of Tomas Jr.'s friends to the new nightclub in Manresa. Another party ending at 6am made for a rough ride to the airport the following morning... I embarrassingly threw up on the way through some windy mountain roads.

I ended up back in Jaén a little more than exhausted and spent the next week doing nothing besides battling off Polly #2. Who is Polly, you ask? Well, Polly is my mom’s nickname for that awfully painful and swollen bacteria-infected salivary gland I suffered from just a few weeks ago. Polly came back with a vengeance after Barcelona… my doctor says it could be some kind of salivary gland disorder. All I can say is that I’m glad this gland thing popped up in Spain, where I am covered by insurance, and not in Minnesota, where my insurance wouldn’t have covered any of my medical costs… that’s a chat for another day though.

On a lighter note, my life-long friend Greg arrived to Jaén yesterday and will be spending the next three months living here and traveling throughout Europe. Last night his arrival was celebrated with some tapas (of course) and an evening of reminiscing about our times in Minneapolis.

Until next time…

Molly