Barcelona is a fantasy playground for grownups
You can have everything you want here... almost.
I should say something before I leave this city, which if all goes as expected, will be in a little over three months’ time.
I should try to say something about what it is really like.
I am a writer, after all, and I have been living here. Maybe people would like to know the real stories. Not just the logistical click-bait informational blog posts about how to do things, but something deeper.
I’ll start here:
This is a city of vices. Adult fantasies. It is a playground for the grown-ups. Leisure and pleasure made manifest in a half-planned, half-medieval, modernist, paternal, liberal Catalan city.
My own vices are few—I’ve already spoken about the day drinking and endless croissants. I might start day-drinking one day when I have nothing left to do. I will tell myself it is to feel solidarity amongst the wizened men sitting outside at the bars in the morning sun. Meanwhile, I’ve fully embraced the endless croissants. I stop for them on my way back from Spanish class, lured by the smell of freshly baked bread and pastries, choosing my bakeries carefully depending on my mood and willingness to walk.
Then there is the cheap wine. Vinya del Mar, €2.10/bottle. Trust me, I’ve tried all the cheap red wine—this cheapest of the cheap is, in fact, the best of the cheap.
I used to buy it from the Chinese market diagonally across the street, but then the old Chinese couple retired, and now I must walk a little further to the Condis, which is also always open. On the way, I might stop at the cake shop for one of the mini-cheesecakes.
Anyway, as vices go, they are relatively few. Barcelona’s many pleasures, which I will catalog in a moment below, are not so much of a draw for me.
On the weekends, I climb. After, I have a beer and go to bed early. On the weekdays, I may have a coffee or a drink with friends, but otherwise, I cook at home and spend time with my son. I like to watch movies, and tickets are so cheap here that I find myself at the theater a few blocks from my apartment every two weeks or so.
I didn’t move here to sample all of Barcelona’s many charms, though certainly I’ve sampled some. I came for the international school I wanted to send my son to. But my heart is in the mountains, and my mind is often on the fixer-upper there.
In fact, I haven’t lived in a large, international city in more than a decade (if Washington D.C. can be counted). Perhaps I am out of practice at how to do it. Everyone seems to be going out a lot and staying up late.
Anyway, the pleasures are many. I can see them all around:
- I can start with the music because it is benign and universally approved. There are the big clubs and DJs of course, but I prefer the blues and tango in the small, converted art spaces. The dive bars with open mics, the international music festivals, the Catalan music halls, the folk, the new age, and the raves.
- Then there is the dancing: outdoor salsa nights next to the Arc de Triumph (the Barcelona version), salsa that starts at one in the morning and ends at five. Clique-y salsa and community salsa, professional and amateur. There is the swing, the tango, and the hip hop, all with communities and sub-communities, WhatsApp groups, and booked teachers. And the choreographers from around the world making their home here.
- The food. Endless food, with endless options, from every corner of the world. “The best Filipino food I’ve ever had,” said one. Just in my own neighborhood: the Oaxacan mezcal-tasting shop with the smokey imported stuff, the perfect margarita picante from the Colombian bartender, and the most delicious Mexican tacos outside of Mexico (Latin immigrants, there are many). Ethnic grocery shops everywhere, and food for every budget, every night—outdoor seating if you can find a free table.
- The drink. Specialty cocktails, cheap beer, craft beer, and brewery after brewery. So, so much cheap wine. And the Vermut. Not like the Italian stuff—this is the Catalan version, which some call dangerous because you can drink it so easily, but which I call the perfect, light, sweet drink after a meal. Or before. Really any time.
- There is every ambiance. They like to be outdoors here, preferring simply the ambiance of the streets of Barcelona, but there is also cozy inside, sterile, dingy, fancy, modern, modernist, and incredibly old-world charming. The places where the writers and the artists hung out, and the places where the kids and tourists go. Baroque interiors like Paris, only cheaper and less pretentious, and the uninspired Catalan pubs with the casino machines in the corner.
- Culture and cultural events, of which I’ve lost count and could not hope to keep track. The art exhibitions, the Picasso and Miro, the endless Catalan festivals, dragons and dragoons in the streets, fireworks, drone shows, folk celebrations, and Castells, kids in helmets perched on top, breaths held. New libraries, old libraries, and hundreds of independent bookstores—bookstores owned by wealthy patrons for their own ego and edification.
- And everywhere, the sex. Sex shops on the way to my son’s school, dotted through every neighborhood. Sensual massages, couples massages, Asian massages. Sex booths, sex clubs, sex shows. The dating apps (not to mention intimacy, commitment, serious connection) can’t compete, goes a common complaint. There is just too much on offer elsewhere. Sex in every form.
- And last but in my book perhaps first: enough outdoor pursuits for a dozen lifetimes. The beach and the ocean: sailboats and SUPers, surfers and kitesurfers, cruise ships and super yachts. Whatever you can do on the water, you can do it here. The mountains accessible by subway and by train. The hikers and the runners. Here, you don’t just run: you trail race with your dogs if that’s your thing. And the climbing. Oh, the climbing. Not just Montserrat, or Siurana and Margalef, but so many crags within an hour’s drive, with every type, style, and level, that I’m still discovering more, even after eight months.
So there is a lot, and more I cannot think of just now.
Work is another question. I hear it’s hard to find. People who are looking say they’ve been looking for a long time. If you can manage it, come with income from elsewhere—the U.S. usually comes off reliable in that regard.
In any case, the city is a strange place to me. Not this city specifically, but cities. They’ve always felt like such a contradiction in human nature: everything built concrete and straight lines, people passing time in pursuit of activities completely frivolous to survival. Given, survival is insufficient, but still: civilization in its current form has always appeared quite strange if you ask me.
But Barcelona is doing it well.
Yes, there is crime, mostly petty theft. The air quality is quite bad. Rents are expensive (relative to elsewhere in Spain). And they should just ban the cruise ships already.
But no complaints.
As I said, I’m not entirely sure how to take advantage of such a place. It seems to involve a lot of staying out quite late. I am quite grateful for my in-person, group Spanish classes, which I know I could not get in the countryside.
So, I’m doing my best.
It is a great city.
One hundred percent recommend.
Good stuff. Thanks for writing. Thanks for sharing. I read it after subscribing for free. Your post prompted a good many knowing smiles. It seems we have something in common. I've been living and working in Barcelona for 21 years. There are a few things I would pick you up on … Vinya del Mar, €2.10/bottle! Rubbish. Just this afternoon I picked up a good bottle of a Samsó from Terra de Alta for just 2,90€. My favorite wines are from Montsant. Anyway, thanks again for posting this — it has entertained and inspired. All the best.