I've missed writing and sharing what I've been up to on here! I now back in England, I miss Barcelona 100%. I miss the sounds of the waves, I miss being surrounded by different cultures and constantly hearing different languages and unknown accents. My time in this beautiful city just made me love life even more.Who books a flight 3 hours before departure? Me ...Why? Because my working visa was approved 20 hours before my supposed 1st day at work. Here's a bit about my wild 6 month move to Barcelona as a new Conference Concierge in Events at a rather amazing hotel, where I went onto meet people from all around the World. My mind and eyes were blown away- I worked with people from Belarus, Mexico, Ecuador, Canada, India, Switzerland and many more. It really felt like I travelled the World all in one place in such a small amount of time. Surprisingly I did spend most of my time at work speaking Spanish.. well trying to haha. The greatest thing we were all working hard and learning together.
I made business contacts from Nice to New York, I was so exposed to so many exciting things and had the pleasure of meeting high class business people who have worked extremely hard to be where they are. The funniest times were when I would meet Americans and they would love my British accent so they would ask me to say anything to just talk haha.
The best that came out of it I learnt the challenges of being a working adult, waking up at 4am in the morning for work, walking to the metro station & dodging all the drunk people {in Barcelona people will be coming out of the clubs at this time, trying not to get robbed and having to put my best face on ready to greet guests was very difficult. Those mornings I'd give myself that pep talk like listen girl you've come this far, your doing great go get it! More so living in a country away from everything I know and everything I was used to was so exciting, there was always a happy feeling inside of me because I knew I could learn so much.
The people I lived with were also all part of my great experience, I lived with many dutch people, American, Belgium, British and Portuguese. Which some
Funding whilst I was in Barcelona, I was paid 200 Euros and I had Erasmus funding whilst I was away- which went towards paying for my bills and food shopping. Speaking of Erasmus two of my flatmates where in Barcelona based on an Erasmus exchange scheme- it was super nice to learn that this programme gave people these types of opportunities to explore Europe whilst they are young.
I discovered that Barcelona was swapped with Tourists and the numbers were insanely high and many locals didn't like this. I also found that Airbnb played a huge role in some of the disruption in the local communities in the main town centre- due to the fact that some people had lived there for many years and some apartments were used for Airbnb which means a change of people constantly- but what can a country do when its Economic income is greatly helped by Tourism ?
My Barcelona experience started wild and ended but I made the greatest long life friends, I've been so fortunate to visit my Dutch and Spanish bff's in their home towns since meeting in Barcelona.Who knew I'd meet so many good people with such good vibes.
My advice, if your ever get the opportunity to do an internship abroad- go for it and don't doubt it because you grow, you meet people and your enrich your mind and create so many memories and you collect stories.
Have a read of my article Travel Tuesdays to Barcelona;
http://nervemedia.org.uk/nerve/travel-tuesdays-welcome-barcelona-2/
I love the unknown, but that's all from me for now-
Gracias Chicos
Cheers to Good vibes, T x
