10 reasons why to choose Barcelona (2)

Guest post by Christina

As promised, my numbers 6 to 10 of the best reasons why you should experience an Erasmus year in Barcelona follow. Just to give you a little insight of our last night’s scary party, which is part of my favourite reason as you may know, I am sharing a quite funny picture with you. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a good one of our flat looking like a huge cave with ghosts, spiders and spider´s webs, scary figures in the corners and loads more. I am not sure you would like to see it right now, though! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Halloween as well, and are not fed up with cleaning all that sh*t up! Happy cleaning!

6.  A comer

My number 6: the most annoying and, at the same time, greatest thing about Barcelona, and probably the whole of Catalunya, is the food. As you already know, there are thousands of good places to eat out, and especially if you live very close to the centre like us, it is impossible to resist eating out at least once a week – either because it is so cheap (and delicious) or it is absolutely delicious. My favourite dish at the moment is definitely “patatas bravas”, small rectangular potatoe wedges with an absolutely tasty dip. Apart from that, as Melanie has already written in her blog entry about our shameful spending of money on food, every time we pass the frozen yoghurt shop, we just cannot resist. I know, froyo is popular all over the world now but believe me, the possibility of having 8 different scrumptious kinds of frozen yoghurt in your cup, with all types of toppings, fruit, chocolate, brownies, marshmallows, muesli,… makes the temptation even worse. But enough of food, otherwise I can’t stop thinking about it, and we’ve already paid Bacoa a visit this week….

7. Sangria, sangria, sangria

Sangria is the most famous Spanish drink apart from the Catalan cava. Usually, I don’t drink red wine, but sangria is sooooo good! This sugary, surprisingly strong drink, sometimes with delicious fruit in it (so actually something very healthy), is the reason for loads of good nights out – and at the end of the day, you just had some red wine. Last week we discovered how easy it is to make your own sangria: you only need red wine and orange juice – yes, so easy! However, if you are up for a really good Sangria bar, you should definitely pay the “Oveja Negra” a visit – they offer you a huge bucket filled with 5 litres of this delicious drink, absolutely perfect as a place to meet before going out.

8. Fiesta in the streets

Thanks to the good weather, life is happening outside in the streets, night and day. You can see people playing cards, children playing football, “xurrerias” (small shops selling xurros, which are slices of fried dough rolled in sugar) moving from one place to another, teenagers getting together to talk, neighbourhood parties and more. Once, we were on our way back home from the beach and passed a small road nicely decorated and with several chairs and desks full of drinks and food, and saw a big screen at the end of the street. While passing, we heard a woman asking what was happening, and the answer was quite simple: as there were loads of the old James Bond fans, the neighbourhood met to do a Bond marathon in the street for all of them, so they all could watch it together. How sweet is that?! Also, if you are a fan of Elvis Presley or Louis Armstrong imitations, just go by metro. Sometimes the performers are a bit difficult to understand as English is not always a friend of Spanish people, but most of the time they sing surprisingly well. During the night, the party people are on the streets: singing, dancing and shouting Catalan sayings. Be careful though, drinking on the streets is not allowed and can be fined, although people like to drink a lot of Coke and orange juice late at night before going to the club…

9. Catalunya’s pride

I’ve got a question for you – what do you see on almost every balcony in Barcelona? No, not people smoking, that’s another topic, I am thinking of the flags, specifically the Catalan flag. Catalan people are more than patriotic for Catalunya, in their eyes, their own language and culture is completely different to the Spanish one. That’s not a bad thing, but don’t ever say that Barcelona is in Spain – it is in Catalunya. Why this is a reason to do an Erasmus stay over here? It’s maybe not always the case but right now, as you may know, the conversations are getting more precise and demanding, who knows, maybe we can experience a huge change of a country while studying – I am talking about the urge of independence of Catalunya from Spain. A political change like this would be absolutely exciting to witness, so let us see what will happen the next months. And no, I won’t give you my opinion to this topic, not because I don’t want to offend anybody but because I haven’t made up my mind yet. There are loads of good reasons on both sides, so give me some more time to decide!

10. Change is good

My last point on the list is the constant change of the city. Every other day you find yourself wondering if that shop had always been over there and you just hadn’t had a chance to notice it yet or if it was another new one. Night clubs, food places, dress shops – every week there’s something new opening, and combined with that, there is always a new trend you definitely have to try out. Barcelona is literally a lively city, nothing stays the same, moving forward is the number one priority, which also means that it can never get boring. Who wants to live in a place which doesn’t change anything, ever? Go outside, meet new people, have new ideas – Barcelona is the perfect place to be creative, open your eyes and get caught in the feeling of “everything’s possible”.

Having said that, there are hundreds of reasons to stay in Barcelona for an Erasmus year, but I can’t tell you everything already, you need to discover some advantages yourself! I for one will join my flatmates cleaning up our apartment now, I wonder how much fake blood I will have to scrub off the floor!

Have a good weekend, see you soon folks!