My firs step into the world: Barcelona

¡Hola amigos de todo el mundo!

Yo quiero empezar mi viaje en la más fantástica ciudades que yo conozco: ¡Barcelona!

Barcelona is the first city where I have opened my eyes abroad. And I can tell you one thing which is that Barcelona is one of the best cities where you can start with. I started living in Barcelona in August 2010 for my internship for 6 months only unfortunetely!

One of the first thing you should know if you visit Barcelona for the first time is: Be careful with your belongings! Barcelona is well known of there thieves in the famous street "Las Ramblas" or in the other famous places of Barcelona. Some tips for this:

• Always put your handbag in front of you and not at the back.
• Keep your hand on it.
• If you are standing in a crowded place watching a show, for example on Las Ramblas, do not get distracted, keep always an eye open.
• When you are going out, do not take much stuff with you. Take only some cash money and not your wallet with all your cards. If you take a small handbag with you, do not put it in some corner or beneath some jackets.

Barcelona is an exciting city with a lot of things to do. I was living in the main center, in barrio Gótico. It was one of the best places to live and close to everything. So I can recommend you this area to live and definitely to visit! Barrio Gótico is famous for its old streets and squares. Also you can find here nice bars and places to have breakfast for example. Some bars for example in Barrio Gothico are:

• Tres Flores
• Ryans
• Bar 32
• Bar Rosa
• Sugar Bar

And there are more!

A couple of these bars mean a lot to me because I have met there great people. Tres Flores was located at the end of my street, this was actually the first bar where I started my journey in Barcelona. It is always crowded over there and the crew was really nice (back at that time, I don't know if they still work there). The next bar that is really important to me is Ryans. Ryans is an English pub with a few locations in Barcelona. What I can tell you about this bar is that it is the best place to meet people all over the world. I met there my friends from Sweden, France, US, Mexico, Algery, Italy, Australia and more! We were one big family! And because of them I had the best time of my life!

If you are looking for the really nightlife, I can recommend you Razzmataz and Apollo. These are one of the best places in Barcelona. If you are going to live in Barcelona, I can advise you to search these clubs on Facebook or on the Internet and subscribe for their emails. In this way, you will always know about the parties and the guestlists, so you won't need to pay entrance.

There are also great places to eat of course in Barcelona and the variety is so high. For example in Carrer Ample in Barrio Gothico, you can find Pizza Pazza, where they have the best pizzas made by the nicest Italians! There are also nice places to eat at Place Tripi (its not the real name but everyone knows it when you ask it).

One last thing that I would like to add; it is if you can choose the period to go to Barcelona. Go around the month of September, because then there is the festival of La Merce! This is one of the most important and biggest festivals of Barcelona. People actually say that If you haven't seen and experienced La Merce, you haven't actually seen Barcelona! I was lucky that I was there during that period, and La Merce was all about dancing, music and events all over Barcelona for four days. From the early morning till the late hours! For young and old!

If you go to Barcelona, for 1 week or 1 month or even 1 year, you won't get bored! Never! Impossible! There is always something to do!

This big city disadvantage (what I have experienced) is that most of the people that you meet, are people who are visiting Barcelona for a couple of days or are there for a short period of time. It was really difficult for me because to deal with this. Because I was meeting new people every day! But almost every day, I had to say goodbye to friends! It was really hard to say goodbye! However, its not really a goodbye, it's more a ¡Hasta luego!

Photo gallery