Experiencing the Best of Barcelona in Between your Classes
As you may expect, there are a lot of differences between daily life at UMD and life in Barcelona and I hope I can provide you with a few pointers on how to find your new normal during the school week. Before coming abroad and reviewing the choices of schools we were offered to attend, I decided to take classes at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) rather than the more common Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Since UPF ends around the last week of March, my school schedule has been a lot more time consuming than my roommate who attends UAB. At first, I was a bit disappointed after learning that I had Spanish at 8:30AM every morning (except Friday) along with other classes up until 4:30PM, with a few 2-3 hour breaks in between. It was definitely an adjustment having a longer continuous schedule similar to high school in a sense. If this was the case at UMD, it would feel more broken up since we’re a much smaller community and I go home in between easier compared to being in a city environment.
After a week or so, I learned that my at first “unfortunate” schedule turned out to be the best case scenario. It got me out of bed early and gave me no other choice but to dive straight into life in Barcelona for about 8 hours each day. Although I can go home between some of my two hours breaks, I always hold myself accountable to leave school and discover at least 3 or 4 different things to do around the city between my classes. The metro system in Barcelona is incredible and more importantly, punctual! Different parts of the city are easily connected to one another, allowing for easy travel throughout the many different neighborhoods of Barcelona.
You may be thinking,”well how many times can I go to The Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell or La Rambla?” Yes, those are all important sights to see but I really can’t imagine going to them every day. When looking for things to fill my long days with, I rely on mainly four websites: TimeOut Barcelona, Facebook Events, a website called MeetUp and Reddit. Here’s a brief summary about each of them and what you can find on each. These resources are also super helpful when looking for free options too. Below I’ve given a brief description of each:
- Useful for general recommendations and a great starting point until you learn the city a bit more. My favorite features are: Things to do in Barcelona Today, This Weekend and This Week and Whatever Day Trip or Low Cost Getaway features they have that week.
- What I’ve found through TimeOut: The Labyrinth Park, right off the Mundet Metro Stop, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Go through the Maze and explore the many different elements of the Park. Entrance is FREE on Sunday and Wednesday, any other day you pay around 2 euros.
- Facebook Events (use your Facebook account!):
- Best resource to use when you’re bored one day and looking for something random and focused around locals. I frequently go on when I have nothing planned and click “Events Today”. Beware that the list could very well be 50+ more events per day so choose some filters that cater to your interests!
- What I’ve found through Facebook Events: A random half-marathon up a mountain about 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. I did this race one of my first weekends here, with arguably better views than the Bunkers del Carmel!
- Definitely one of my favorites because it’s events organized by locals. It also gives you the ability to create an account and filter meetups based on your interests. You can find everything from Barcelona’s Running Club to week long trips to France with random adventurous locals or students too! The concept is really cool and helps bridge the gap between locals and people living here temporarily. It helps you get out of the tourist mindset!
- What I’ve found through Meetup: Free nocturnal tour of the Gothic Quarter from 9PM to 11PM. They happen at least 2x a week and you can choose between English and Spanish. I also really liked the idea of a free tour and then you can decide how much you want to tip at the end 🙂
- I use this one the least but they have a super useful reddit threat that is updated each Sunday for all of the events occurring in Barcelona that week. Another great benefit of the Reddit thread is people will just post something they’re interested in doing and if anyone wants to join. That may seem weird at first but if anything it gives you even more ideas on some of the best things to do!!
- What I’ve found through Reddit: Helped me double check that I wasn’t missing out on any big event that week. Helps answer questions too.
I hope some of the resources I’ve listed can help you find random events that match your interests. Definitely don’t underestimate the awesome things going on every day in Barcelona. This is just another way to truly make your study abroad experience your own and fill your time in Barcelona with some of the most unique parts of a local experience!