Mi Loca y Hermosa Vida: Spanish Living

Our first full day in Barcelona started with a historical walking tour of the Barri Gotic which was full of narrow spanish looking streets and alley ways mostly free of cars. We stopped in one of the pretty plazas with a fountain designed by Gaudi (The most famous architect and artist of Barcelona). We had tapas and sangria, and I ordered both of these in spanish. I think my ability to speak this native language is going pretty smoothly, I translate everything for mom and I ask everything in spanish. It's hard though because I will ask something and be confident in my correct way of asking, then they will respond in really fast and lisped spanish and I'll be like "yeah no. no idea what he said." Its incredibly useful. Overall, me turning into a spaniard is going pretty well. We then went into the famous cathedral of Barcelona, which was beautiful, and we walked around the block surrounding the church. There is so much incredible architecture that is everywhere in these cities and its so fascinating for us to see, it makes me wonder what foreigners come to the U.S. to see. I mean we have cool things but since I've always lived there I wonder what is so great to see in the U.S. that other places dont have, physically I mean, not like liberty and justice for all or whatever. Also, side note: I have no idea the difference between a church, a cathedral and a basilica. So I will use them randomly throughout my stories.

We sat and had coffee at a cafe next to the cathedral and listened to an elderly lady belt out some soprano notes that felt very old romanesque. Walking throughout the neighborhood was fun because it was so easy to get lost and run into so many pretty things about the city. We turned around a corner and saw the remnants of what used to be Roman walls from when Rome controlled the city. They are still standing from daaaays ago and it was very cool to see the physicality of such rich history, mom especially loved this. We went through another plaza that is known for being the political heart of the city where many protests are held, there was even a protest for something or other as we walked through. This is the kind of city that I love to shop in because there is so much color, one of my favorite stores called Desigual that is in both New York and San Francisco was started in Barcelona and there is a Desigual store on literally every corner, kinda like Starbucks. I enjoyed some shopping at different spanish stores and chuckled at the language barrier in terms of translations and just overall wording. On the walls of Desigual was "smile is great happy time", and my all time favorite was a shirt in a store that read "smile for me, just another time, click, what a great picture!!, its easy with a handsome like you, thanks baby!!". I died. We were tired and trying to catch up from the craziness that was Paris so we went back to our hotel for a siesta (The spanish take siestaing very seriously and it is a fantastic way of living). After relaxing on our balcony overlooking La Rambla and napping, we went out for dinner at the recommended Los Caracoles, which means snails. I didnt get snails, although we did get really good paella (traditional spanish food) and this white asparagus that is also traditional here and was actually quite tasty. After a fine spanish meal, we meandered home and called it a night.