24 Hours in BCN

Barcelona has been good to me over the years. It was my home for many months of my life, and I am always happy to head home :). This time, however, I was just passing through. I only had 24 hours in my home away from home.

As soon as I got to town, I went to my old host family’s house. I have kept the contact over the years and truthfully, they are my family. Period. I got to hang out with my siblings there until me and junior went for a walk to talk and catch up. We ended up at the bar at his university, since that is always where the cheapest food and drinks are. When we came back, the rest of the family had arrived and we had a lovely dinner together - just like old times.

After that, I texted a couple of my friends that are still around and told them to meet me at a 100MON, the cheapest place to drink. After a few beers, we decided to go to Marina, my old stomping grounds. Marina is basically the area of the best shitty bars. In other words, where the broke young people go to drink and party. And as I do on a rare occasion in Marina, I found some trouble LOL. So much trouble that I ended up getting sucker punched in the head and jumped by a bunch of lowlife people. Thankfully, the police were right there and chased them all away before they could do real damage.

I have heard a lot of stories about how bad Barcelona has gotten over the past 3 years or so. The crime rate has skyrocketed and the conditions in the city have gotten a lot worse. I no longer feel safe walking around the streets of Barcelona, especially at night. It makes me really sad to see that it is not the same city that I fell in love with at 15.