¡Hola amigos!
When living in Spain, overcoming the language barrier could be a big issue especially if you are like me, staying in a flat with only Spanish speakers. But it is the perfect opportunity to improve the language even though conversations have been quite confusing for me and with lots of pantomime in between. Usually it's just funny trying to understand each other but sometimes it can be a bit more serious. What happened was that I almost got a pizza delivery in my room because of a misunderstanding. Instead of "Did you order pizza?" I understood "Do you want some pizza?". So after a couple of seconds of listening to someone speaking over the intercom, I realized we weren't on the same page. Finally, I practically jumped out of my room and told them that I was not the one who had ordered it. :D
But before having the opportunity to share any kind of story with my flatmates, I needed to find one. Actually, looking back, I've realized it had been quite a bold decision to come here without any conformation of an existing apartment waiting for me. Well, of course I had corresponded with some landlords/ladies but after my arrival they contacted me to say that someone else would rent the rooms for a longer term. So you can imagine that after my first week of struggling to find a nice flat I was more than happy to call friends and family from my new home just few steps away from Park Güell and Sagrada Familia and tell them the good news.
Park Güell
Sagrada Familia
Lovely to meet these pretty faces at the hostel
As there are a lots of bank holidays in the autumn in Barcelona, it was not a coincidence that there was one also during my first week here. That's why we had a chance to discover nice places in and outside of the city. My favourite stop was the coastal town - Sitges, located just 35 km southwest of Barcelona. It's known for its seafront promenade lined with grand mansions, many expensive hotels and good, but also very pricy restaurants. I've heard that lots of the permanent residents living there were from Northern European countries, such as the Netherlands, UK and Scandinavia. On that day the city was full of tourists but even so, we still enjoyed the old city centre, the breathtaking view from the Sant Bartomeu church and, although a little bit windy, the pleasant time spent at the beach.
Umbrella with an easy stand appliance Beautiful seafront promenade
Sidges in its beauty
Almost every day we spent at least few enjoyable hours at the beach, because you can never have enough of the beach, right? And thinking about it, the Badalona beach has actually been my favourite city beach so far. It's way cleaner and less touristic than for example Barceloneta (the one closest to the city centre). The latter actually means "clean Barcelona" in Spanish, but I think lots of people, especially the locals, would be far from agreeing with its official name, due to all the pollution and waste that can be found there. The locals say they avoid swimming in that coastal area.
Eating lunch & enjoying the view in the only natural shadow at Badalona beach
Specially designed shells-almost ready to wear :D
Apart from spending time like a typical tourist, I've also started my internship in Natural Machines and from the very beginning, I immediately knew that I would totally enjoy this job. It's very diverse and dynamic. I've had a chance to create new shapes of food and be creative in preparing recipes for sports nutrition diet using the 3D food printer called FOODINI. It allows you to print food in practically endless ways!
"To bring the message home": When moving to Spain, your language skills are one of the most important things to pack.
Until next time. ;)
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