My niece was spending a semester studying University in Barcelona, Spain and so of course I wanted to go visit her while she was there. I visited Barcelona just once before, in 2017, but just for a few days so I was excited to return again and hopefully see more and do more around that city that increasingly seems to be one of the most popular places to live in Spain, and Europe.
Well unfortunately, my job didn’t accommodate my intentions as much as I had hoped. I ended up working from the hotel lobby for my entire duration in Barcelona; well most of it. I took a Thursday off since my niece had the day off from school, and I rented a car so that we could drive an hour and half east to check out the beaches around Girona, which were on her list of places to see.
We collected beach glass from the sand which happened to be more fun than it had any right to be. But the most fun was spending a day with my niece, just the two of us.
In the evening we met my friend, Silvia, for dinner in El Poblenou, the area of the city both my niece and I were staying. Silvia and I met while I was living in the Maldives in 2020, she was vacationing there along with her friends (and in fact she has been to the Maldives many many times). I still feel as though I need to spend more time in Barcelona in order to really love the city, as the time I have had there hasn’t been ideal for getting immersed in the culture.
