***IDEALIZATION***
To come up with a story that involved the city and my experience living here for almost 9 months now, I started to think about how I felt when I first arrive in the city. It was my first time ever traveling to Barcelona and Spain.
The first impression that I have about the city wasn't really good.
I arrive on a Saturday and stayed at a hotel in Poblenou. I wanted to rest a little bit and I took a very long nap. When I woke later in the afternoon I realized that I had nothing to drink or eat. So I went outside to find a supermarket or convenience store to buy some groceries. Everything was closed. So I taught that I could wait until the next morning (Sunday) to eat something. WRONG AGAIN! everything was still closed.
I remember walking and walking and nothing. At this point I was tired and hungry and uncommunicated because I didn't have signal or WIFI on my phone. The view around me was sad, grey and full of constructions site and bad smell. I still remember how I felt, the colors, the views, the people, etc.
So my first thought was: WHAT AM I DOING HERE??
After those first 4 days, everything started to look better and I moved to another place.
That's why chose the word IDEALIZATION as a thought to start digging for a story, because we tend to idealize a lot when we are travelling abroad and for the first time like me.
I live by idealizing everything and everyone. In this case, arriving for the first time in a new country and a new city was no exception. As from Latin America and from immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents, we always have in our mind the idealization of what life in Europe is like.
That's why I decided to come back to this place again, with a different point of view now.
And everything went well, but some things like the smells and noise and some thoughts remain the same.
I decide to create a canvas with the map and start to write as a comparison, my thoughts and feeling then and now.
Thank you for reading!!
JS.
(this is a short video resuming my walking around Poblenou)
