Barcelona

What I Learned While Working in Barcelona for a Week

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. – Mark Twain

I recently had the great pleasure to travel to Barcalona. It was a work trip, and we spent most of our time in the hotel working, but the experience gave me some important perspectives that I’d like to share here.

Empathy

I work with many people for whom English is not their first language, and while their English skills are very good, it is taxing to spend hours every day thinking and speaking in a different language. I’ve heard them say that some of the idioms or abrievations we use in Slack are confusing to the point that they don’t know what they mean.

My Spanish skills are below those of a 3 year old native speaker, but I tried exercising them every chance I got. And people corrected my mistakes immediatedly. But I also noticed that they used shorthand like saying otra when asking if I wanted another beer (San Miguel). For the first few days, I didn’t understand the word the server was saying, I thought she was saying ulta, but I understood the context. On my last day I finally figured out she was saying otra as in otra vez, meaning again.

I also gained a greater appreciation of the timezone difference between Spain and the U.S. The greater part of the day is done before the U.S. comes online. On one hand it’s kind of nice to have those hours without all the noise from the U.S. but on the other hand, it means working with people at the end of the day when your energy and mental capacity is starting to wind down.

Bathrooms can be weird. I have no idea how this spray nozzle is supposed to be used.

Eating

• It’s no joke… you can’t get lunch before 1PM or supper before 8PM. You just can’t.
• They do not put butter on bread. You will get a very judgy look if you ask for butter. And you won’t get the butter.
• They may be the only place that is more sensitive to spicy food than Minnesotans. Both seem to think ketchup is spicy
• Patatas bravas (I call them brave potatoes) became my litmus test for a restaurant. They should be honest and not covered in squid ink (Look at me, I’m now an expert)
• The worst food I had was at the most expensive place we ate. Meals were extremely reasonably priced in general.
• I had the best tuna tartar ever. I ate most of it before thinking to take a picture. It truly was outstanding.

I Hope to Go Back

We didn’t much time to be tourists, but we did get out for evening meals and a cocktail making class. It was definitely enough to get a taste of the city. I also had the benefit of coworkers who live there that were gracious with their time to show us around and tell us some of the history of the city. It is a beautiful city with beautiful architecture, and friendly people. I hope to get back for a proper visit soon.

• Barcelona
• Travel
• Spanish
• Food