There’s no place like home…well maybe except Barcelona
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- The Barcelona Crew
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- Desigual-mobile
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- Day 1
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- IESE
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- La Rambla
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- Placa Catalunya
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- entrance to la boqueria, a famous market on la rambla
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- The group during our tour at IESE, a prestigious business school
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- The crew I hung out with at the concert with last weekend
Having been in Barcelona for only eight days, what amazes me is how much it feels like home. A large factor contributing to this is that I have done miles upon miles of walking, such that I truly feel like I have a halfway decent sense of direction around here. And with just these eight days of experience to write about, I still don’t even know where to begin (so I guess we’ll just go chronologically for now).
After failing to achieve even a minute of sleep on the flight over, my eyes were only to be kept open by the incredible city sights, including some Gaudi architecture, that I saw in the cab coming from the airport to the apartment up in Barcelona’s Gracia neighborhood. I am living with Katie, the on-site coordinator for the interns here, while the 4 other interns, all girls, are living together in an apartment across the hall. Everyone has gotten along very well so far. We spent the first day wandering the city, getting local cell phones, stocking the fridge, and anything else to keep ourselves from napping before nighttime, so that we could get to sleep at a normal hour and avoid lingering jetlag.
After a good night’s sleep, we all headed to check out the beach on Sunday. The main beach is pretty touristy and the water was freezing, but the weather was absolutely beautiful, so who’s to complain? While all the other interns had their vacations cut short by work beginning Monday, the owners of my hostel were in the states until Wednesday. In their absence, they simply left me an itinerary for the first few days, which consisted of sending me running all over town. It really helped me to get to know my way around.
One part of this itinerary was a reservation with GoCar. GoCar is a company that rents out mini cars that operate like motorcycles to tourists. You actually drive these GoCars along the streets of Barcelona. It was nothing short of death-defying, but also a lot of fun, and something I would definitely recommend. For the sake of the safety of pedestrians and other drivers however, I don’t know if I’ll do it again myself. Work began Thursday for me at the hostel, and it’s a really a great atmosphere. Somnio is really nice and clean, and I enjoy getting to interact with guests who hang out in the lobby. My coworkers have been very welcoming so far. On Saturday I went to the sonar music festival night-show with a girl from work and a few of her friends, which began at 11 pm, and ended around 6:30 am. It’s great to already have some friends at Somnio, and I can’t wait to share the adventures with you that next week will certainly bring.
