I’ve recently seen some posts online, as well as statements made to me personally about how much they’ve hated living in and visiting Barcelona.
Now, if you’re not aware of me and my Barcelona story, here’s a run-down: my family moved to Spain when I was 12. We didn’t live in Barcelona, anywhere near in fact. We were in the Basque Country, just outside Bilbao, and I didn’t get a chance to visit Barcelona until I was nearly 19 and had just graduated high school. I’d wanted to visit for the longest time though. I can’t remember why, just that it had a large amount of cultural heritage even within Spain, and I knew from my time living in Spain that Barcelona was the city to visit. I’d spent some time in Madrid and it never really appealed to me (still doesn’t, but that’s a story for another time) and Barcelona had always been on my list of cities I’d really wanted to visit. I mean… who lives in Spain and doesn’t visit Barcelona? Especially with as much as my family had traveled around Spain. It had always been too far out of the way from our usual journeys, so we just never made it out that far until 2004 when we took the long way through France and Spain on the way back from Southwest Germany just to be able to spend an afternoon in Barcelona. Simply because I wanted to say I’d been there before going back to the States that summer.
We parked the car at the parking lot right underneath the Sagrada Família, and I remember this because I distinctly remember getting out of the parking garage only to come face-to-face with that iconic building for the first time in my life. It was like in 2000 when we came out of the London Underground right across from the Houses of Parliament and saw the sun reflecting off of the clock face. It was just like that. We stopped at the Starbucks right across the street, and then walked down the street I’d later recognize as the Passeig de Sant Joan up to the Arc de Triomf, before turning back around and going to the car where we left the city and headed back to our hotel in Montmeló. I was mystified.
When I went back to Spain for my study abroad program in 2008, we had a long weekend over May 1, so I convinced a few friends to go to Barcelona at that time, and we went. This time, I had more time to see much more of the city, and I ended up falling in love. Completely head over heels. I went back again in 2010, this time having much more Catalan under my belt, and after 6 years of not being in Spain at all, I went back in 2016 for 5 days, and then in January 2019 which started my yearly tradition of going back twice a year, with the exception of 2020. When I only went once. Ah well.
Anyway, all this to say, my relationship with Barcelona is heavily biased. How could it not be, it’s a city that’s had its hold on me since before my first visit in 2004! I took it upon myself to learn the language so emblematic of the city, immersing myself in its history and culture, and teaching myself about the people who inhabit it. I’m not saying this to talk about how special I am, how much more “worthy” I am of this city or how it owes something to me, or how much better I am than everyone else who spends time in this city and wasn’t born there. I used to think that way, even up until quite recently. Everyone deserves Barcelona, everyone deserves to enjoy it and fall in love with it. I’m just not like everyone else and that’s something I’ve really come to accept. I can’t project my own thoughts and feelings on everyone else.
Especially since in recent years, Barcelona has developed a reputation among foreigners (and by this I mean people from outside of Spain), both those who have moved there for whatever reason and those who simply go there to visit. I came across a blog post about Catalans geared towards people interested in living in Barcelona, as you cannot possibly hope to live in Barcelona without understanding that Catalan culture is not Spanish culture (and vice-versa). And the comments. The comments. So much vitriol, so much disappointment, and in some cases, so much hate towards the locals who’ve spent their entire lives in the city.
I got defensive at first, finding points made by those who were so frustrated with the seemingly unappreciative and disrespectful behavior towards them as foreigners. A lot of entitlement (“I’ve been wanting to live in Barcelona for years and now I live here, why are the people here so rude?”), a lot of generalizations (“I met a Catalan girl who was an absolute b*tch and I can’t help but think every single Catalan is like her.”). As is my style, I typed up my own comment that I didn’t send, just to get my thoughts off my chest. One thing I’ve noticed is that the entitlement of so many foreigners who live in Barcelona is very real. They assume that because Barcelona is a major tourist hub that has people from all over the world visiting that this means that living there is going to be a breeze and that the locals welcome foreign money and foreigners as a whole and even without speaking Spanish it’ll be just like the city they experienced when they visited and decided to move to (I am, of course, talking primarily about the experiences of other Europeans and North Americans who move there because they can, not because they have to). They seem to view Barcelona and Spain as a whole as a backwoods city that somehow didn’t exist before tourism and that’s the only reason why Barcelona exists to begin with.
On the one hand, as someone who’s seen this entitlement firsthand, as well as how foreigners tend to react to Barcelona as a whole and see it as a giant amusement park that people happen to live in, I can’t say I don’t blame the local people many of these commenters have come across. Barcelonans (and Catalans as a whole) have a lot to deal with: rising rents and housing prices due to Airbnbs sprouting up in formerly working-class neighborhoods that prioritize short-term rentals instead of long-term ones, and the overall disrespect and lack of understanding of the fact that Spain has different cultures and different languages and people from one part of the country shouldn’t be expected to behave like people in another part of the country. The complaints and grievances of the Catalan economy, being one of the primary reasons for the rise in the independence movement and plastered all over the Catalan media, are legitimate. After all, Catalans have been there for centuries, if not millennia. Now all of a sudden foreigners come in and expect to have things their way? Where they don’t bother to learn the local language, some of them barely bother to even learn Spanish and stay in their “expat” enclaves the entire time. Yeah, I’d be pretty rude myself. I’m tired of “expat” bloggers and people talking about living in Spain and Barcelona where there’s little to no historical or cultural context to anything they do, and even if they speak the language, their friends are all foreigners as well. It’s a playground to them, nothing more.
And yet… I really think their experiences need to be validated. It is bad that people are being treated rudely simply for just existing, even if they’re not locals. Even if you don’t like that foreigners are seemingly “invading” their neighborhoods and not associating with the locals or socializing with them, does that mean they deserve to be treated rudely? Absolutely not. Someone recently posted on my Facebook about how she thought Barcelona was pretty but that she didn’t feel welcome there, and while my first instinct was to get defensive, I ultimately realized that it’s perfectly fine for her to be disappointed in her experience. I’m just one person and it’s not my responsibility nor my job to “make” people have the best experience ever. I adore Barcelona, always have, and I do everything within my power to visit as often as possible. After all... I've been going there twice a year since 2019 (with the exception of 2020 when I only went once, for obvious reasons) I’d like to think I can absolutely help people with their enjoyment of the city, and assist them in navigating the city so they can have the best experience by respecting the local culture and language, but ultimately… I still can’t make anyone have the best time in their lives. People are different, and they like different things. This is what makes us human.
Basically… I can look at it in multiple ways. I can definitely use my knowledge and expertise on the culture, history, and language, to help people have a better experience and avoid unnecessary altercations and rudeness (in other words, explain to people how to have respect for the host culture as a guest). I can also sit back, laugh, and just say “Well, more Barcelona for me I guess!”. And, I can acknowledge that everyone is different, that Barcelona is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. The last one is definitely the hardest for me, but I like to think that if I can pride myself in acknowledging everyone’s perspective even if I disagree with it, then that means I can accept the disagreements as well without dehumanizing even those who hate one of my favorite cities and the people whose home it is.
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