Leisure Activity: Barcelona Nightlife

     One of my favorite leisure activities in Barcelona, and one of the many reasons why I chose the city as the location for my study abroad experience. Barcelona's nightlife is so different from the nightlife I am used to at school in America in a number of ways. The main difference is that most people who choose to go to clubs in Barcelona do not start getting ready for the night until around midnight, heading to the clubs around 2:00 AM. When I go out at my school in College Park, Maryland, I usually start getting ready around 8:00 PM and get to the bar by 11:30 PM. In College Park, I usually return home around 2:00 AM, which is when most bars close, whereas the Barcelona clubs are open until five or six in the morning and are very crowded until closing time. I love the schedule in Barcelona because I am always the last one of my friends to be ready to go out at school. I love going out late because it gives me a lot of time to relax and unwind after a long day of classes. I can take a nap and still have plenty of time to eat a leisurely dinner and get ready. Another difference in the nightlife is that in College Park, I usually go to small bars where people sit at tables and relax with friends. While Barcelona does have bars, I usually attend large clubs with strobe lights and loud music where everyone dances all night. In the small town where I go to school, all of the bars I frequent are located across the street from my apartment. In Barcelona, I always need to take cabs to and from the clubs. Another disparity that was hard for me to get used to is that Barcelona does not have restaurants that are open late at night after the clubs close. A big thing to do in America is to go out to get food after a night at the bars; when I go to a local pizza place  in College Park after a night out, I always see many of my classmates there and it is always fun to grab a snack, relax, and socialize before heading home for the night. A final difference is the way people dress when going out. At school, I usually wear jeans, boots, and a casual shirt to the bars. In Barcelona, girls go to the clubs decked out in dresses, tights, and high heels, while boys wear dressy pants, nice shoes, and button-down shirts. I enjoy this aspect of the nightlife and I love getting dressed up to go to the clubs.
     Since Barcelona has hundreds of clubs and bars to offer to people looking to go out and have fun, it is hard to choose which one to go to. I usually frequent the same clubs each week because they are the ones that many American students attend. However, I have also been to many clubs where there is a good mix of American students and local Barcelona citizens, as well as other tourists. Almost every Monday, I go to Otto Zutz, which is the club pictured in my photograph above. This club is always fun because it is full of American students. There is good music and a great dance floor. On Wednesdays, I usually go to Broadbar, a trendy club that usually has a nice mix of locals and American students. My favorite club is Opium, which is big on Thursday nights. I like Opium because it has a big dance floor and it is located right on the beach. There is an outdoor area where people can take a break from dancing to sit down, relax, chat, and take in the beautiful ocean view. A club that I enjoy going to on Friday is Oshum. It is a farther from the city center than other clubs, but it has the best DJ's. Other clubs that I like include a club on the beach called Shoko, a small club near the port called Mondo that has beautiful ocean views, and a bar called Elephant that has beachy wooden decor. I also enjoy a very large club called Razzmatazz that has multiple floors and always has great concerts.
     When I get tired of clubbing, there are some Barcelona bars that I like to go to for a more relaxing evening out. George Payne's is an Irish pub near my school's main campus that is a perfect place to watch FCBarcelona games and other sporting events on television. The pub always gets crowded during big games, making it a fun atmosphere to watch and celebrate victories with other fans. I also enjoy George Payne's because it very Americanized and it reminds me of home. Chupito's is a fun bar that offers crazy shots, such as one called the Boy Scout that is served with a toasted marshmallow. Pipperment's is a great bar at which to meet up with friends; it serves giant oversized drinks with dozens of long straws to share with a group of people. My favorite bar in Barcelona is Oveja Negra, a bar off Ramblas that serves some of the best Sangria I have had while abroad. Oveja is always packed with friendly locals and sitting the tables, which are very close together, can be a great way to meet Barcelona citizens in my age group and practice my Spanish skills.
    I have absolutely loved experiencing all that Barcelona nightlife has to offer, but I am exhausted after spending four months dancing all night at clubs! I am excited to make the change back to the low-key bars of College Park.

Leisure Activity: Yoga Class

     At home, I often attend yoga classes at my local gym. When I noticed a yoga studio on my block in Barcelona, I was hesitant to attend a class because I was not sure I would understand the Spanish-speaking instructor and would therefore be unable to follow along with the class. The yoga studio, called Centro Shri Vivek, is located on the first floor of Carrer de Industria 96. One Tuesday afternoon, I finally mustered up the courage to try the new experience of taking a yoga class instructed in a different language. The instructor could not have been more welcoming to me and even offered to do his best to repeat his instructions in English even thought I was the only American in the class.
     Everyone in the class seemed to be regulars--they all knew exactly where to find the mats, pillows, and blankets necessary for the class session. I followed their example. Some people even went to a room behind the studio and put on special linen white pants and shirts before class began. The instructor put on relaxing drum music and began telling us what to do; he instructed us to stretch our "espaldas, cuellos, brazos, y piernas," our backs, necks, arms, and legs. I realized that I chose to go to the yoga class on the perfect day because I had taken a Spanish test earlier that morning on the parts of the body. This benefitted me greatly during yoga, and I found out that I was able to follow along more easily than I had predicted.
     Other than the obvious language difference, one more difference between this yoga class and the yoga classes I usually attend at home in Massachusetts was that the class at Shri Vivek included more stretching, breathing exercises, and mind relaxation rather than yoga posing and strength training. While I usually prefer more posing, the class was very relaxing. 
     Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of taking a yoga class instructed in Spanish. During my time studying abroad in Barcelona, I have been in many situations where I have had to speak Spanish, but this experience was one time when I have really felt engulfed in the culture and the language. Unlike when I am speaking Spanish in my Spanish class or when I learn about Barcelona's culture through visiting cultural attractions, this experience allowed me to actually become engulfed in the language through a day-to-day activity alongside the citizens of Barcelona. I was proud of myself for trying something unfamiliar and for understanding some of the language. It was an experience that I will always remember.

Field Trip to the Guilds

     The third field trip I went on with my Barcelona Past & Present class was to the Born district of Barcelona. In medieval times, this area was home to the guilds. People would work in a specific profession and belong to a guild made up of other workers from the same profession. When children were old enough, their parents would send them to work under a skilled master of a profession. This was similar to what an internship is today. After a few years of working under a master, children would take a difficult exam and, if they passed, they were able to join the guild. The masters lived on the bottom floors of buildings and the apprentices lived in the small quarters on the top floors. The streets in the Born area are still named for guilds that were situated there in medieval times. One example is Carrer dels Cotoners, named for the cotton workers. Each guild had a representative saint and a president. Guilds helped to organized craftsmen in a political way. The guild presidents could talk to the King and the King had to respect commercial laws or else he would be beheaded. The craftsmen who belonged to the guilds made up a superior class that was just below the clergy, which was just below the nobles and the King. Some guilds became very powerful. For example, the sword-making guild became powerful when the army went into battle and demanded a large amount of swords. When this occurred, the sword-making guild could use its power to ask for lower taxes. This made the political system a democracy. The guilds created the origins of the business of buying and selling and the beginnings of the middle class. Craftsmen still work in small shops in the Born district today. During the field trip, I saw one of these small shops where a shoemaker still crafts handmade shoes.

     In Born, I saw a cathedral called Santa Maria del Mar. The working class was buried in the floor of this cathedral. One of the gravestones in the cathedral's floor was decorated with a design of a pair of scissors, showing that the person buried beneath it was a tailor. This shows how important membership in a guild was to the people in the medieval times.

     Last, I saw La Llotja in Placa Palau. The stock market was located here in the fourteenth century. It was developed soon after the first official bank was created in Florence in the thirteenth century. La Llotja is a neoclassical building in Barcelona's financial district. The street on which La Llotja is located is called Carrer de Canvis Vells. "Canvis" is the Spanish word for changes, and Carrer de Canvis Vells is where currency was changed.

     I enjoyed seeing the guild area because it is where the origins of business were located. As a business major, I really enjoy learning about the origins of business and sales, especially in a different country. 

     The photographs below show the entryway to a craftsman's shop and views of the Santa Maria del Mar Cathedral.