Over The Fence
English rose Rosie Cade and her Catalan neighbour, Marc Gracia, need no prompting to sing Barcelona’s praises
The New Girl Barcelona is the ultimate location for a fun holiday home according to 27-year-old Londoner Rosie Cade, which is why she’s had a flat there for the past two years. But she says she’s still getting used to the late nights and relaxed days.
“Everything happens later here and, for folk fresh off the boat, it can be weird. The clubs start up at the time most UK places close, no one meets for dinner until 10pm at the earliest, and even the big name shops don’t open early during the day. Everything is closed on Sundays and small businesses have a lengthy siesta,” says Rosie, who has been refurbishing an apartment in the trendy Eixample Izquierdo suburb of the Catalan capital. “It was irritating at first but, now that I’ve acclimatised, I value the fact that people stop for a proper lunch and have Sundays off to sit in squares and meander around the streets with their mates. Your local might not open bang on time but, when it does, the barman will know your name. It’s got a healthier work-life, concentrate-relax balance,” insists Rosie, who works for a website company based both in the UK and in Spain.
She says one of the big things she noticed about the city was the fierce pride of local people – not just of being Spanish, but particularly of being from the Catalonia region that has Barcelona at its heart. “You only have to go to a Calçotada (that’s a strange festival celebrated to commemorate a spring onion-like vegetable) or see the Castellers (that’s a dangerous human tower tradition where locals climb on each other) to realise that people aren’t going to stop being Catalan for health and safety reasons or to make the tourists happy. They are just proud, proud, proud,” she says.
But she insists Barcelona is very modern too and says there’s a huge buzz on the streets about a new high-speed rail link between the city and Madrid, and the Gaudí-inspired redesign of the Barcelona football stadium by no less a luminary than leading British architect Norman Foster.
Rosie’s enthusiasm is infectious: “What else do I like? The shared bike scheme is fab and you can see grannies, hippies and corporate types all pedalling along together. The lampposts are great too, designed to look like tree-trunks and therefore look better than ordinary ones. And the public spaces like the Parc del Laberint are brilliant because they’d be protected to death in the UK but are more accessible here. Oh, and I like the summer Sunday nights at the city’s chiringuito beach parties too.”
The Local “Barcelona’s got a great balance between the obsessive hedonism that typifies all of Spain and the typical Catalan practical way of thinking,” says Marc Gracia, a 37-year-old computer engineer. He is originally from Manresa in rural Catalonia but has lived in what he calls “the world’s greatest city” since 2000.
“I call the balance of Barcelona, seny i rauxa, which can be more or less translated as ‘common sense and madness’. That means that here there’s a time for everything. There’s a time to do hard work, and a time to get out and have some drinks. There’s a time to take things seriously, and a time to make jokes and laugh about everything. This is what I love most,” he says.
Marc, who lives in a loft apartment close to Rosie, says this part-casual, part-formal attitude is what makes Barcelona so attractive to foreigners.
“You can feel the Spanish relaxed attitude about life but at the same time you can find some order and silence when you need it. I like to meet foreign people and, in common with most Catalans, I like to know what they think about us. Also that allows me, for example, to learn English without taking any classes and without getting out of Spain more than five days.
You can find lots of people from around the world here and I feel very lucky that happens in my own town,” he says.
The computer company where Marc works has staff members from over 10 countries speaking 10 different languages. Everyone cooks their own dishes at lunchtime and they also like to exchange their cultural likes and dislikes with workmates.
“It’s common to see the whole company out for drinks after work or planning some trip to any of the beautiful spots that we have in Catalonia. I’ve been with work colleagues to some traditional festivals, some trendy new restaurants in hidden villages, I’ve gone to the beach or I’ve been trekking in the Pyrenees. Barcelona is full of places like that, and they’re only one or two hours away,” he says.
Marc has some advice for visitors: “I’m very proud of our culture and always ready to show it if someone is interested. So if you’re in my lovely city and you ever find some Catalan on the street, try saying, ‘Adeu’ or ‘Bon dia’. It can be enough to turn the serious Barcelona seny to a comfortable rauxa smile.”
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