I went back to Barcelona last weekend. It’s my first time I’ve been back since I first went in 2012. It was everything I had wanted it to be. A city filled with music, delicious food and a culture within a group of people unlike the Spanish, the Catalan.
Going back and seeing a place for the second time is an experience within itself. If you ever have the chance to go back to somewhere you’ve been before, and experience it through a new perspective, your world changes. Even if it is by the littlest amount, you gain new insights and become wiser.
When I arrived Thursday morning and could see that I had felt familiarity with reading a language that was not my first or second language was a beautiful feeling. To say that one can do this is not the average person’s capability. Spanish I understand: Dutch not so much.
I often wonder if I made the correct choice in not deciding to study in Madrid. I knew I could probably get in, I had the grades for it. But something about Madrid didn’t feel right. It would have made more practical sense if I had enhanced my Spanish. I do go to a a business school after all. Every chance you get is potential for you to increase your marketability. But I didn’t want to go to Madrid. IF i was going to study in a city in Spain, it would be Barcelona. The way it captured me when I first got there is something I can’t explain, but it’s something I’ll try to explain.
This city has an aura of community. For such a huge city, it forms little cultures within its neighborhoods. When we got lost trying to find the Montjuic, we stumbled upon the old neighborhood of El Poble-Sec. It was so quaint and communal. Little grocery stories with reasonable to low prices, a real working class neighborhood of honest and hard-working people. Then you took the metro a couple of stops, and you were in a more hip location where people are just having fun and dancing. Young adults are drinking away at some sangrias and vermouth while eating some delicious jamon tapas. It’s completely immersive and diverse in its cultures.
Barcelona has an art to it that is so breathtaking. Antonio Gaudi’s modernism fills up the city with colors and fascinating shapes and curvatures. Every building whether its his magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, his collaboration park with Eusebi Guell, has colored captivating ceramics and sometimes, even geckos. Gaudi’s lasting impressions perpetuate an atmosphere of enlightening culture and honest happiness.
Do I regret not studying abroad in Spain? Absolutely not. I love Amsterdam. It is quite honestly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It holds liberties. And open and free permeation of knowledge.
It holds some pretty awesome people as well. My seven friends who came with me on this trip, every single one of them at one point made me laugh and smile. Honest and kind friends really. Thanks Kelsey, Laura, Anna, Parker, Thomas, Amit, and our new friend Jussi! Jussi, if you are reading this, you are a hilarious human being! So no, studying in Amsterdam has not been something I have regretted.
I’ll come back to you Barcelona. Fins la pròxima vegada!
