Buenos Dias,
Greetings from Madrid. I’ve just come back from a trip to Barcelona and it left a lasting impression on me. Even though I have traveled to many cities in Europe, including a few in Spain, Barcelona has easily become one of my favorite cities I have visited. The array of beaches, parks, nightlife, and history has me eager to come back for more. I arrived in Barcelona Thursday afternoon after a long but enjoyable train ride through the Aragon and Catalan regions. Once coming off the train I immediately noticed the clear difference between the dialects used in Madrid and Barcelona. It was much more difficult to understand locals, to the point where I wasn’t sure what language was being spoken. I noticed that in most touristy areas signs were written using Catalonian, Spanish, and English. The first place of interest was the area of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. We walked through the village and got to see the stadiums and arenas athletes competed in and even the buildings in which they resided. Afterwards, we spent the night walking along the beach enjoying the various attractions there. Friday consisted of roaming the streets of downtown Barcelona and enjoying the vibes from the city, which included going through Las Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter. We spent time on the lovely beach which was packed with locals and tourists along the coast. Saturday we embarked to visit La Sagrada Familia and Park Guell early on in the day so we had time to enjoy the Champions League Final later on in the day, of course. We headed to Las Ramblas an hour before the game kicked off, where the streets were flooded with Barcelona jerseys and fans yelling chants from everywhere you glanced. We watched the game outside a bar with a jumbo screen viewing on the inside. We positioned ourselves right next to a group of hard core fans who didn’t go a single minute without screaming a Barcelona chant at the top of their lungs. We even partook in some chants with them towards the end of the game. Then complete madness occurred when the final whistle blew and when Barcelona were crowned kings of Europe. The street became a center for a mosh pit of crazy fans, and there we were in the middle singing as much as we knew and jumping around. We stormed down the streets with the rest of the crowd and celebrated the victory in the city center for hours on end. This morning I said my farewells to the lovely city as I got on another high speed train back to Madrid, and now I sit here with a bittersweet feeling of the great memories I created in such a short time in Barcelona, hoping that I continue to enjoy my time in Spain to its full extent.
Until next time,
Hristo Koussev