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Barcelona, districts and neighborhoods

This article is to close the topic Districts and neighborhoods of Barcelona on which I tried to describe my daily life in the 10 districts of this city and I am sure that I have forgot something or little details...

I tried to not repeat what I said in other articles, more to create a complementary. Barcelona, for me, is a beautiful city done for consuming where in each corner, I can find a bank to get cash and to spend it for something useful or not.

In front of the airport bus station at plaza catalunya, there is a tourist point where you can buy tickets for the touristic bus, take a map of the city and some useful information.

The best part is its good weather during the year, rarely snowing and raining few days, the temperature can go down until 0 degree in winter and 30/35 degrees in summer but with a high humidity rate which can raise easily until 90%. This makes that the cold seeps into your bones and the heat makes you sweat until a sticky feeling.

Spanish people love animals and majority of them, when they walk with their dog, they pick up their shit to throw it to the closest trash can. And in some part of the city, some streets stink and it is not from the garbage but more from sewers. I still remembered when friends asked me “why Barcelona stinks ?” and “why there is no shit in this city in spite of numerous dogs ?”.

The life cost has double, even triple but still cheaper in comparison with other european cities - in fact it has increased a lot since the euro. Some spanish people has not get used yet of this currency and in some shops, they still display the price in euros and pesetas.

The beach at Barcelona is not very clean, I will say “dirty” (sea and sand), either to swim or to take a sun bath, I prefer to go to its outskirts like Sitges, Masnou... well the section near to the forum is better than the one in Barceloneta and Vila Olímpica neighborhood.

But it doesn’t mean that I don’t go !!! From june to september, you can find beach bars and the best section is the Vila Olímpica one. You can eat and/or dinner there, sometimes there are some fire spectacles by jugglers during night time and that is the best part. I like to take a cocktail meanwhile sleeping on one of the loungers, it is very cool because I can enjoy the breeze of the sea and it is very appeasing since the summer is very hot.

One of the main and big problem for foreigners at Barcelona is the language. Indeed, the national language in Catalonia is the catalan but the national one in Spain is the castilian. Of course, it is best to learn the castilian because it can be used in many countries and the catalan only in this Autonomous Region.

I speak castilian fluently but catalan I understand and read but not speak it. I don’t have any issue in my current life but for example, finding a job is more harder if you have this handicap except if you are looking a position in an international company. The other thing which can be disturbing, depending of the person, it is that when you talk to a local person in castilian, he/she answers you in catalan and keep on this language even if you say you don’t understand and some catalan people don’t speak castilian or have difficulties !!! Worst they can ignore you if you don’t speak their language.

So far I don’t have this problem even if I told the person that I don’t understand what he/she is saying, he/she will switch it in castilian but I know that some friends faced this issue. Generally, people are very friendly but exception can be encountered !!!