The last weekend of November (isn't that crazy??), I flew by myself to Barcelona. I enjoyed exploring Charlotte, NC a lot by myself way back in August when my plane was cancelled, and recently there have been a lot of articles about traveling alone, so I decided to try it myself. In Spanish, you say "sola" when referring to women, and "solo" for men.
It was a very interesting experience. Naturally, my parents were a little nervous when I first told them, but pretty much everyone was impressed with what I was doing.
I flew Friday evening from Granada to Barcelona and then flew back on Monday morning. So I had two full days to explore the city. I thought Barcelona was really cool and an exciting city, and I'm a little sad that I won't be going back when my family comes to visit.
Traveling alone means you have to be ok with eating by yourself. This can be pretty weird. You feel like everyone is staring at you and judging you for being alone. You just have to ignore it and enjoy your food and the fact that you don't have to deal with any conversation while your savoring your meal. I'm currently reading "La Joven de La Perla", which is "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" in Spanish. I think that reading books in Spanish helps a lot, but I only read books that I've already read in English or have seen the movie. That way I actually, sort of, know what's going on.
After breakfast on Saturday, I was wandering around what later became my favorite neighborhood, El Born, and stumbled upon the Picasso Museum. It was free for students, which is always awesome. Remind me to never graduate so I can always get discounted things. You can't take any pictures in the museum, but let me tell you, Picasso is amazing. Obviously, I knew that before, but now I know even more. It's a museum of paintings throughout his whole life, and at 12 years old he was painting things I couldn't even dream of.
I kept wandering around and was thinking about how I wanted to rent a bike. I loved our bike ride in Madrid, and thought it would be a good way to see the city. A few blocks later, I passed a sign for bike rentals. What luck, am I right?! This was the best decision I made all week. Renting bikes in new cities is my new favorite way to explore. Barcelona is a very bikeable city, and I went all over the place.
I stopped and visited one of Gaudi's famous houses, Casa Mila. It was pretty expensive and a little boring. But that might be partly my fault because I decided to be cool and challenge myself by getting the Spanish audio guide, which I then proceeded to tune out. I was also pretty tired at that point.
Aaanndd, the bike tour continues...
I think one of my best and worst qualities is the fact that I'm independent and don't always need to be with other people. This is awesome for trips such as these, but sometimes it leads to too much time alone. I really enjoyed my exploration during the day, but at night it was like "well now what?". I'm not really the type of person who can just strike up a conversation with someone in the hostel. I need some commonality or someone else to make the first move. This is something I really would like to work on, but that didn't happen this trip.
I have friends that are studying in Barcelona so I ended up meeting up with people for three different meals, which was so important to my trip. I don't think I would have liked being alone for so long. I called my family at the end of each day just to have someone to talk to. I didn't have set plans on Saturday night, but I sort of invited myself to dinner with the people with whom I had plans on Sunday night. And we had such a good time! I wasn't close friends at all with either of the two girls from Brown, I had actually only met one of them once. But their group came to Granada for a trip two weeks ago so it was so good to reconnect. I went to dinner with them and their other friends at this trendy place, really enjoyed it.
Then on Sunday, I woke up early to go tour the Sagrada Familia, which is the infamous church in Barcelona that STILL isn't finished despite the fact that they have been building it for the last 100 years. The projected finish date is 2028, but we shall see....
I finished the Sagrada Familia at 10 am, and basically did nothing for the next 4.5 hours. I had plans with another group of girls to meet up for brunch, and since I only can use my phone with wifi I had to sit in Starbucks forever waiting to here from them. I left and went wandering but always had to find more wifi to try to communicate. It was getting pretty frustrating waiting for them to get their act together, and we almost didn't meet up. But we finally did at 2:30 (Spanish lunch time), and I'm really glad we did! We went to the most delicious American style innovative brunch place called Travel and Cake. If you are ever in Spain, I would recommend going to Barcelona just for this food (and all the other cool stuff Barcelona has). It's yummy and pretty and amazing.
I finished Sunday with a trip to the popular Park Guell and another yummy dinner with the friends from Saturday night.
It was a great weekend and overall I enjoyed traveling by myself. I'm still trying got decide whether or not I would do it again. I think the answer is yes. I would probably first try to find other people to go with me, but if there is ever an instance where I want to do something or go somewhere and and other people do not, I will not hesitate to go alone. I know I am more than capable to handle the rigors of travel and also have a really good time.
I am currently finishing this post in my favorite coffee shop in Granada. My friend Bruna and I are leaving later today to go to the north of Spain, Basque Country, for MY LAST TRIP OF THE SEMESTER!! I honestly can't believe how fast time has flown. Also my family is coming in EXACTLY TWO WEEKS!!!!!!! I'm so so so excited. We will all be here together for two weeks, and then we all go back to the states January 1st, 2016. I'm going to try to savor these last few weeks as best as I possibly can.
Happy December!!
-Caro
PS. I forgot to mention the interesting debate over independence that is currently occurring in Spain. I think in America the media is probably portraying it a little differently than here. Most people don't actually think that Cataluña will separate, but we shall see... I think there is no feasible way for them to survive without Spain and the EU. Some people tried to speak to me in Catalan when I was there, and it's pretty hard to understand. It's a combination of Spanish and French, and I personally think it sounds more like French, which I don't speak. I would sort of stumble around trying to respond in Spanish to what I thought they asked. But so many speak English, they would often just speak to me in English.