S2E1-Warming up to Barcelona: Do you have your interpreter ready?

Bon dia a tots i totes and welcome to the first Summer in Spain: Season 2 blog! If you haven’t read last week’s edition, where I shared my reflections before leaving, you can check it out here.

This article is dedicated to someone I was talking to before my trip, who—after listening to me explain that I would be working in Spain for two months—asked if I had my interpreter ready. Also, feliz cumple to my brother, Tyler, who is turning 19 today!

I am absolutely thrilled to be writing to you all from SPAIN!!! But man, am I tired. Today is Sunday, May 24th (it will be Monday the 25th when you’re reading this), and two hours ago, I finished the Cursa Diagonal 10k. Armed with zero training, €15 sneakers from Primark, and my apartment keys tied into my laces, I am happy to say that all of us made it through to the other side.

It was warm but not stifling, downhill most of the way, and the vibes were high with over 12,000 runners in attendance… well, at least until mile 4, when I was exhausted and ready to be done. If there is one thing Catalonia and Spain get right, it’s how to host a race. The music was pumping at the start line, a woman was yelling into a microphone hyping us all up in Catalan (no idea what she was saying, but it worked!), and the energy was electric. With so many people, the race felt like a sea of blue pulling you along the route. It was incredibly cool to see Barcelona from a brand-new angle—right from the middle of Avinguda Diagonal.

Why did I run a 10k with zero training?

Not really sure, honestly.

Maybe I thought the t-shirt looked cool?

Maybe I was just a little too bored sitting on my apartment couch on Tuesday or Wednesday when I saw it advertised on the Barcelona city events page and thought, why not?

After all, registration was only €17 (€15 for the 5k), which is sooo cheap for a race. In the US, an event of this caliber with a nice t-shirt would easily be over $60. Really, I saved money—even when factoring in the emergency trip to Primark for running shoes!

Anyway, enough about running and shoes (my feet are aching just writing this). Let’s get you caught up on my first week of life in Barcelona.

🇪🇸 Expectations vs. Reality

To be honest, I thought moving back to Spain was going to be easy. I was already used to the 15:00 lunches, the late dinners, the weirdly small elevators, the military time, the food, the Spanish, the coins, the late sunsets, the oddly sized paper, the heat, and the lack of clothes dryers, just to name a few. I wasn’t expecting any challenges. However, as you’ll see, it has been a week of hurdles, adjustments, adventures, travel, and even meeting a celebrity. (I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t Bad Bunny, even though he is in Barcelona this weekend).

✈️ The Arrival (And the Nightmare of the EES)

On Saturday the 16th, I arrived in Barcelona. I was two hours late and extra tired because I can never sleep on planes, but I was entirely ready to get that first sip of café amb llet (coffee with milk). Instead, I was greeted by the longest customs and immigration line I have ever seen in my entire life.

If you’re unfamiliar with what is currently going on in the EU, they have transitioned (or really, attempted to transition) from having immigration officers stamp your passport and say “Welcome to [insert country name here]” to using these terrible “digital” immigration officers. Known as the Entry/Exit System (EES), these kiosks require you to scan your passport, select a reason for your visit, declare how long you’ll be there, and scan your fingerprints.

The problem?

Using the machines is incredibly complicated. There are no actual text instructions—just confusing pictures trying to explain what to do. They don’t work well, they freeze and load for minutes on end, and if you do a single thing wrong, you get a giant red X on the screen. That X promptly sends you into yet another long line to talk to an actual human immigration officer anyway.

After waiting in line for over an hour and a half just to reach this machine, I unfortunately made a rookie mistake: I looked into the camera with my glasses on. Because it couldn’t identify me (again, this is why we need instructions!), I was slapped with a dreaded red X.

At that point, I was so exhausted and aggravated that I flat-out refused to accept defeat. Instead of shuffling into the rejection line, I decided to stay put and try again. After ten more minutes of fiddling around with the stupid machine, I finally coaxed a green checkmark out of it, which allowed me to move into a shorter line.

But the saga wasn’t over. The green-check line led to a set of electronic gates where you had to scan your passport again, stare into a camera for a deeply uncomfortable amount of time, and say a prayer while the tablet decided your fate for three or four agonizing minutes. Person after person in front of me ended up with a red X because the system couldn’t identify them, forcing them all the way back into the massive line to talk to a human officer.

Luck must have been on my side. I stepped up to the tablet, incredibly nervous after watching all three people ahead of me get denied. I took off my glasses (even though there were still no instructions telling me to do so), scanned my passport, stared into the camera, and watched that loading icon spin for a solid three minutes.

And…… it let me through!

From there, I waited way too long for my baggage, got thoroughly lost in the airport terminal hunting for the Cabify pickup point, and finally made it to the apartment—completely ready for a nap.

Little did I know, what was waiting for me there would be a major disappointment.

🏠 Home Sweet Home? (The Room Lottery)

After a long overnight flight and a two-hour battle with subpar airport technology, you really only think about two things: coffee, and the bed you’re about to crash into. I arrived at the apartment eager to see my new home for the next two months, only to be met with a tiny closet of a room with an even tinier bed.

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. To be 100% honest, this room is actually bigger than the last room I stayed in when I was in Barcelona. What really made it disappointing, though, was seeing my roommates’ rooms. They had arrived before me, and while they had the same tiny bed, their rooms were massive. Each of them had two beds that could easily be pushed together to make a double bed. They also had desks, large wardrobes, dressers—the works. One even had a balcony, and the other had a huge window. Meanwhile, I had no desk, no drawers, and a window about as wide as the span of my hand.

It’s fair to say I was not happy. I have no idea how the rooms were chosen. Maybe they just got here early and claimed them? Maybe the program coordinators assigned them (since one of them was there that morning to show me to my specific door)? Either way, it was clear that all of my good luck had been entirely used up at immigration.

But outside of my bedroom—and the tragic lack of persianas in our apartment (I was genuinely so excited to play around with the Spanish blinds this summer)—the apartment itself is actually beautiful.

It features:

-1.5 Bathrooms (a luxury!)

-A large kitchen fully stocked with an oven, stove, coffee maker, toaster, microwave, pots, pans, and not one, but two neveras (fridges).

-A spacious living room with a large TV, a comfy couch, a desk, and two coffee tables (one of which I might be using as a footrest right now).

-The absolute highlight, though, is that we are on the highest floor with a huge private rooftop terrace space. Yes, you technically have to climb through a window to access it, but it is so worth it.

-Oh, did I forget to mention our neighbors? We basically live inside the Sagrada Família. We are located just two manzanas (blocks) away from it, making us a prime tourist destination—and right along the Tour de France route when it passes through at the start of July!

“Call the Guardia Civil because I’m not happy.”— Notes App, 5/23

While I hoped the universe owed me a little good luck with roommates after handing me the closet-sized bedroom, let’s just say that the universe did not deliver.

Within the first week, they managed to eat almost an entire two-pound bag of onions I bought, drank my milk, used my Tupperware, and literally stole my cheese.

The cherry on top? I left for a solo weekend trip to a destination I had explicitly told them I was visiting. They, along with the one other Princeton guy in Barcelona, decided to travel to that exact same destination together without telling me. I only found out when I saw the pictures posted on Instagram lol.

Honestly, even if they had invited me, I probably would have said no. If I learned anything last summer during my first stint in Spain, it’s that I absolutely love solo travel. You don’t have to deal with the “I’m tireds,” or the endless debates over where to eat and what to do. You can walk as much as you want, go where you want, and eat whatever you want. Still, they had told me mid-week they were going to Ibiza, so it was a bit of a shock to see the Eiffel Bridge in the background of their stories.

🧹 The Unofficial Apartment Parent?

Beyond the food theft, I have spent a staggering amount of time cleaning up after them:

-The Bathroom Trash: Their bathroom garbage was overflowing and compacted so tightly it wouldn’t budge. I had to use one trash bag as a makeshift glove and another to hold the pile.

-The Shower Drain: The drain was so clogged that the shower was overflowing. Thank goodness for trash bags again, because I had to fully stick my hand down the drain to pull out a massive clump of hair.

-The Kitchen: Ten bags of trash overflowing? Me again. A total mess left behind after their 6:00 PM dinner, leaving zero clean dishes for my later dinner? Time for me to deep-clean the kitchen and run the dishwasher before I could even start cooking.

I feel like a parent, yet I have no children. Parents of the world: thank you for your service. Thank you for cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the bathrooms, unclogging the drains, and taking out the trash. And a special thank you to my parents for actually teaching me how to do these things.

I kid you not, the other night I overheard them running the dishwasher from my bedroom (which is right next to the kitchen), and it was all kinds of wrong. You know those standard dishwasher pods? They were actually cutting open the plastic packets and pouring the loose powder into the machine!

To be fair, these are the same people who:

-Arrived in Spain expecting to plug American chargers straight into the wall, then became terrified to use a wall adapter because they thought their “computer was going to blow up.”

-Walk up to locals on the street asking, “Can I pet your dog?” in plain English.

-Asked me what “vale” meant on our second day here.

-One week in still have not tried any Spanish food, but have gone to a Vietnamese and Mexican restaurant

I wish I were exaggerating.

I think part of the food confusion comes from the fact that Roommate A, Roommate B, and the other Princeton guy wanted to start a cooking co-op. It sounds great in theory, but there were three major problems:

-The Timing: They want to eat at 6:00 PM. Yeah, that is not how Spain works.

-The Cuisine: They have zero interest in Spanish food. The number of times I’ve heard them debate going to McDonald’s or getting tacos is staggering.

-The Goals: I am here to practice my Spanish cooking! Mercadona has every ingredient for incredible regional dishes. Walmart does not.

So, I turned down the co-op. Apparently, they assumed that turning it down still meant they had open access to my grocery shelf. It really sucks because I am on a tight grocery budget based on my stipend, so losing food means losing actual money.

Luckily, I have ample experience dealing with “challenging roommates,” so I’m confident that these “challenges” will soon resolve themselves.

🍳 Mastering the Culinary Classics (and an AI Fail)

On the bright side, my solo cooking endeavors have been a massive success. This week, I successfully MASTERED the tortilla española.

I made the absolute best tortilla of my entire life. It was cooked to absolute perfection: not runny, but still a little soft and wet on the inside (I can’t get behind those completely liquid tortillas). And yes, it had onions—I am firmly team cebolla.

I also attempted my very first Cocido Madrileño. Well, realistically, it was a Cocido Madrileño de Delia, because absolutely nothing was right about the ingredients I brought home.

Having never made a cocido before, I stood in the aisles of Mercadona texting Gemini for a recipe. It fired back a massive list of about 30 ingredients, including specific soup bones. When I asked where to find those in the store, it totally hallucinated the layout and lied to me about the meat selections. I ended up with completely wrong cuts of meat, but whatever I threw into the pot still tasted great and I ate every bite. I’m counting it as a win!

I also whipped up some pasta. It’s not very Spanish, but I absolutely love the prepared sauce from Mercadona, and I needed a quick, reliable meal that would last me through the weekend chaos of traveling and running a 10k.

Next week, I’m attempting pulpo (octopus) and albondigas. I’m honestly a bit unsure on where one sources a whole octopus from—hopefully Mercadona, which is just one manzana (block) from the casa—but we shall see. If anyone has any good platos or recetas, please let me know! I can’t promise I will cook it right or even buy the correct ingredients, but I can promise a good laugh when you see the results.

☕ The Orientation & The Four-Euro Coffee

Sunday was orientation, where the IAU study abroad staff explicitly told us to call them if there was an emergency—but clarified that getting locked out of our apartment apparently does not qualify as one.

Afterward, the roommates, the other Princeton guy, and I had a nice almuerzo (mid-morning snack) and walked around the city. At almuerzo, I encountered the absolute best coffee I have had this entire week. It was sweet, decently large for a Spanish coffee, and had a great overall flavor. My one queja (complaint) was that it cost something like four euros, which is a lot for a coffee in Spain. I’m seriously contemplating going back, though, the next time I’m over by the IAU building.

If you’re confused about why I’m talking about a study abroad organization when I’m supposed to be doing an internship, don’t worry—so am I. Basically, from how I understand it, my internship is through Princeton (an IIP, or International Internship Program). Princeton partners with IAU, a study abroad program here in Spain, and pays them to source internships and handle housing for us.

So while I may not be paying for this internship out of pocket, someone else is. It feels a little sketchy for a position where I am not getting paid to do the actual work in the first place! Either way, we have to meet with the IAU staff once every two weeks to discuss how the internship is going.

🏢 The Internship: Desk Hunting for an Office that Doesn’t Want to Move

I am interning with the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan. I initially thought this would heavily involve people, seeing as people are both the causes of and solutions to most urban issues.

But nope. In fact, my roommate (who is also interning here) and I are doing absolutely nothing related to the city of Barcelona or the ciudadanos/as (citizens) who live here. Instead, our “challenge”—as our boss put it—is to decide if the organization (which consists of about 18 people) should get a new office space. Based on our early conversations with a few employees, a move is something they have very little intention of actually doing.

What’s even weirder is that the internship is technically five days a week, but we and the rest of the staff are only supposed to go into the office two days a week. When we are at the office, we don’t even have dedicated desk space. Instead, we’ve completely taken over the “meeting area”—a tiny corner surrounded by cortinas (curtains)—because the entire office is incredibly small and open-concept.

From my very first day of research—and honestly, that was all it took to scan the available literature on workplace design—I learned that the ideal office is definitely not open-concept. It should have dedicated meeting rooms, a comfortable temperature, ergonomic desks and chairs, privacy for employees, and a good amount of plants.

The bottom line of all these studies, paired with advice from my brother (who studies business and engineering at Lehigh), is that productivity increases when employees are physically comfortable. Step one should always be asking the employees what they actually want.

So, day two was spent writing up a thorough survey covering employee satisfaction on everything from their daily commute and the office coffee to the workplace temperature.

🛋️ Work from Home (Or: Bored from Home)

And that was pretty much my week. “But Delia, that doesn’t sound like a lot of work.”

Well, besides scrolling through some office rental listings, that was literally it. I honestly can’t think of a single additional thing we can do until those survey results come back. I asked for the financial information and budget, and I received a single lump sum—which is more than enough to buy a very nice office vastly superior to the one they are in now.

Oh, and did I mention this project is supposed to last eight weeks? And that this workweek included Monday off, where our only assigned task was to visit a museum because it happened to be International Museum Day?

While many people would be overjoyed to have almost no work and the ability to “work from home” for most of the week, I’m honestly really disappointed. I was genuinely looking forward to learning how the city of Barcelona operates, finding ways to improve it, meeting locals, and networking. So far, it feels less like a traditional internship and more like… well, a “challenge,” to use my boss’s words.

It’s hard to feel like part of a team—or that a cohesive team even exists—when everyone is working scattered from all over the place, and it’s tough to feel like we’re doing anything useful that they actually plan on implementing.

That and the fact that they won’t speak to us in Spanish! On day one, we explicitly told our boss that we both speak Spanish, but he just continued right along in English. Four hours later, after my roommate had left for lunch, he came back up to me and said, “Are you sure you both speak Spanish? The Basques are coming.”

This is what I get for spending eight years studying Spanish—two of them at Princeton: living and working in Spain, only for everyone to want to speak to me in English. English at work, English at the piso… where am I supposed to actually practice?

Even trying Catalan didn’t get me very far. On the first day, I walked into the office and greeted everyone with a cheerful “Bon dia,” to which they all just started laughing. I have no idea what was so funny about it. I was ready to get in there with some “Sóc la Delia” (I’m Delia), but our boss quickly intervened and killed the vibe.

🔍 The Quest for a Spanish Conversation

Determined to find places to actually speak the language, I set out on a few adventures.

Stop 1: The Barcelona Expat Job Fair

Did I find a job? No. There weren’t really any interesting companies there, nor was I actually looking for employment. But I did speak to the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística, an organization that offers Catalan classes. All week, I’ve been scouring the web and emailing company after company trying to find a Catalan course while I’m here, with zero luck. All the classes are either year-round (starting in September), don’t start until July, or are one-month intensives that cost upwards of €400—which is way out of my budget.

Did the Consorci people help me out? Not really. They basically just confirmed my suspicions that the Catalan class idea is canceled. But in the process of looking, I did find a class for another regional language of Spain for €100 that fits my budget for two weeks at the end of June… so maybe I’ll be learning a completely different language after all!

Stop 2: The Barcelona Language Exchange

While I got a little Spanish practice in at the job fair, I wanted something more. On Thursday, I headed to a free language exchange event. These happen every day of the week in various bars throughout the city so people can meet up, practice languages, and hang out. My roommates were supposed to come with me, but they bailed at the last minute. So, you can’t say I haven’t been putting in the effort!

The problem is that these exchanges don’t attract many native Spanish speakers. The only native speaker I met was from Mexico, which didn’t exactly help me connect with locals. I also met some girls from England, France, and a country in Africa that escapes me right now, plus a drunk guy from another African country who kept telling us the USA was his dream country.

While it was fun to meet people who weren’t my roommates or my English-speaking boss while sipping on a Pepsi (Coke is better, for the record), everyone just wanted to talk in English. For the first hour, we spoke English. By the second hour, when everyone still insisted on speaking English, I decided it was finally time to break out my Spanish and force the issue.

I have more activities planned for next week to keep trying, like going to a local “Sounds of Barcelona” event, a sports conference/fair, and heading back to the language exchange. Hopefully, I’ll have better luck getting people to speak Spanish with me.

🏖️ Corgis, Bad Burns, and a Day Trip to Girona

On Friday, I had absolutely no work to do. As I mentioned, I finished all the office research, we’re waiting on my boss to send out the survey, and he left for Venice. So, my big adventure for the day was visiting a corgi café (which ironically had exactly one corgi in it) and hitting the beach.

I thought that by wearing pants and a shirt to the beach I would be fine. But after about 30 minutes, I figured it would probably be a good idea to put on some sunscreen. If only I had realized that 30 minutes earlier! Now, my entire forearm where my shirt didn’t cover is bright red. It looks ridiculous. I know I said last summer—again and again—that I had finally learned my lesson about the Spanish sun, and how going to the beach basically guarantees a burn no matter how much sunscreen you use. Clearly, I haven’t learned a thing.

On Saturday, I headed over to Girona, a smaller city about an hour and twenty minutes away. I wasn’t expecting much since it was a total last-minute decision I made on Thursday while diligently scrolling through office listings, but I was so pleasantly surprised.

I saw some beautiful churches, walked across the Eiffel Bridge (designed by Gustave Eiffel himself, before he built the tower), and took in the incredible views of the city from the ancient walls. I hung around the outside of some stunning religious buildings, pretended I was in Game of Thrones (which was partly filmed there, though side note: I’ve never actually watched the show), and got happily lost in the winding streets—something you can’t really do in Barcelona’s grid system.

It was also nice that instead of manually importing all these locations into Google Maps, I just dumped the list of places I wanted to see into Gemini. It calculated the optimal route and bookmarked all the locations directly onto my map. It made for the easiest travel day ever. #NotSponsored… which is hilarious, considering my final essay for Social Theory last semester was literally about how AI preys on human anxiety and is on track to dominate us.

However, the absolute highlight of the day was when I successfully ordered a coffee entirely in Catalan!

The formal course might not be happening, but as of today, I have a 20-day Duolingo streak, so I know a little bit. The entire cafe menu was in Catalan, so I pulled out my best:

“Bon dia, un cafè amb llet si us plau… per aquí, gràcies.”

The only minor issue was that I kind of struggled to understand what the barista said back to me, but we got through it, and it was so much fun!

One thing I am still confused about, though: Duolingo insists that “thank you” in Catalan is gràcies, but every local I hear out in the wild keeps saying merci. If anyone knows which one is actually right, please let me know!

The second big highlight of the day was meeting the famous Tió de Nadal, also known as Caga Tió. For those unfamiliar, it’s a wooden log with a painted face and a little red hat that Catalan children beat with a stick while singing a song, keeping it covered with a blanket hoping it will poop out gifts on Christmas. I may or may not have brought a small Tió back to the casa so that Burrito (the stuffed bull from last summer) could have a friend… though they probably won’t get along too well because Tió obviously only speaks Catalan lol.

After a busy day, I headed back, picked up my race packet, and finally had lunch…. at 4:00 PM.

Other than all of that, I’ve been trying to stay active:

-Scrapbooking: As you’ve probably noticed from the photos!

-Cross-stitching: Picking up a project I completely abandoned the second the weather became bearable back in Princeton.

-Walking: Doing lots of exploring on foot (though said walking may be a bit limited for the next few days after that 10k).

Oh, and I’ve also been basking in the success of my second semester of sophomore year! My final grades came back this week, and let’s just say I’m quite happy with them.

While this week had its fair share of hurdles, I’ve realized that transitioning back to life in Spain hasn’t exactly felt like culture shock. Instead, it feels more like when a Spanish 20- or 30-something finally moves out of their parents’ house (which happens pretty late here due to crazy housing costs and low wages) and has to adjust to independent life.

You suddenly have to remember what specific brand of sauce your parents used to buy at Mercadona, figure out how to live with roommates, and assume full responsibility for keeping the casa habitable (cleaning the hairy shower drain, anyone?).

While the first seven days may not have been entirely smooth, I am still overjoyed to be back and living the Spanish lifestyle once again. I’m savoring every sip of that cafè amb llet, cherishing the jamón, taking in the incredible views, and making the absolute most of my time here. I am ready for the next aventura!

Que tinguis una bona setmana i ens veiem al proper,

Que tengais una buena semana y nos vemos en el próximo,

Have a great week and we’ll see each other in the next one,