ONE YEAR IN BARCELONA

Am I making it more difficult for myself by moving to Spain? Absofreakinlutely. Is it going to be worth it? I will let you know :-) These are the words I wrote over a year ago, before moving to Spain. Last year, our slightly crazy “let’s live abroad” dream suddenly became reality when Chris got a job. It was time to pack or stuff, say goodbye and move to the south. Let’s take a look back and see if it was worth it! 

The arrival

Tuesday October 15^th, 2013: I believe this was the day I moved to Spain. Chris was already living and working here for 2 months; I joined later as I had to get rid of all our stuff, pass my driving test and be there at my Master ceremony. Finally I arrived with my 42 kilos of luggage at Plaça Espanya and Chris & I were reunited. We stayed for two weeks in a teeny tiny room with a Portuguese flatmate. I soon realized it was not going to be easy to get my NIE in order to be able to work here and that we really needed to find a place to live ASAP because we had nowhere else to go after two weeks. We spent some time apartment hunting and luckily we found a nice apartment just in time.

I remember moving day: we had to be out of our room in the middle of the day, but we couldn’t enter the new place before 20:00. All we could do was sit in the living room with our suitcases, and once we arrived it was too late to buy any blankets and other stuff so we had to sleep under towels for the first night (so cold!).

Finding work

After raiding IKEA and settling in, I had to focus on paperwork and getting a job. These first few weeks were not that much fun: I did multiple attempts to get my NIE, and I was sitting home alone all day browsing job offers, writing cover letters and stressing about where the hell I’m supposed to work in Spain after studying French!

After weeks of job hunting I was tired of sitting at home and I kind of “gave up” by getting a job in a call center. I became a Technical Advisor for printers (so much fun!!!) for the French & Dutch team. At least I got out of the house, had a salary and met new people, but fixing printers over the phone wasn’t exactly my idea of a dream job and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Luckily I found an internship in an online marketing agency a few months later. It was an internship in project management and I was in contact with French companies every day. After 5 months, the internship contract ended and I was hired for another position in the same company, in Analytics. Unexpectedly, a few weeks ago, they announced I had to replace someone in the Advertisers team. I am now an international account manager, setting up campaigns with our advertisers. This is my fourth completely different job in the same year (the last 3 within the same company), and I can say I have learned quite a lot in a short amount of time! So far my work history in Barcelona…

Weekends & fun stuff

Here’s where my pancake obsession started. Every Saturday, it’s pancake time!

Now let’s forget about work and move over to the fun stuff. Weekends are always fun, there is literally always something fun to do: discovering new places to eat & drink (even though we often go to the good ol’ places like Bitácora and Bootleg), going to the beach, taking trips outside the city (Las Fallas festival in Valencia, Montserrat, Carnaval in Sitges, Montgat). There are always festivals and parades going on (like the Gracia festival, la Mercè, Sant Joan, Holi, Three Kings parade).

 A day in the mountains: Montserrat.

Trip to Valencia to see Las Fallas.

Carnaval in Vilanova and Sitges

Beach day in Montgat

Holi festival in Barcelona

It’s also fun to learn about Catalan traditions, like the “let’s eat a bunch of onions”-party calçotada and crazy Catalan Christmas traditions. They are poppin’ up everywhere around the city again, the caganers and caga tiós. Last weekend, I saw a huge cagatió being beat up by a group of kids (gotta love Catalan traditions!):

Calçotada, an odd onion fest.

Caga tiós at the Christmas market in front of the Cathedral.

I also just love wandering around in Born, Gótico or Gràcia, finding new spots in little side streets where we always just pass by, or bike around on a sunny day.

Colorful terrace Mescladís in Born.

Plaça del Rei, close to Jaume Metro station. We probably passed by this side street a million times, but we just found this beautiful plaza only a few weeks ago.

Hospital Sant Pau, not far from the Sagrada Família .  There is still so much  architecture to discover here!

Living abroad indefinitely

All I can really say about this experience is that I am absolutely loving it and that it feels like it has only just started. I am learning Spanish, meeting more and more people and getting to know the city better but there is so much left to discover.  We’re also still very happy with our apartment, and even though the area is a bit quiet, it’s also fun to live in a very non-touristic, Catalan neighborhood where we get recognized every time we go to our usual places (the bakery, the fruit store, and of course the kebab place) as probably the only foreigners  in the street. It really is our home, but at the same time it still feels like travelling, walking through unknown parts of the city,  sipping gin tonics on a hotel roof terrace with infinity pool (just another Tuesday night!), or doing Christmas shopping on a sunny December day (17 degrees!). It’s amazing what a little sunshine can do; no more winter blues for me.

So all I’m saying is we like it here, and yes, it was totally worth it! And this is only the beginning :)