Barcelona, Spain

Reece and I have spent many a year contemplating the virtues of Los Angeles versus San Francisco.

We had SO much fun living in SF, that I swore at the time I would never go back LA. An endless array of things to do, friendly people, amazing food, everything accessible by public transportation or cab or foot. Festivals upon parties upon street fairs. Flamboyant open-mindedness.

But you can’t beat the weather in LA. Riding your bike along the beach, wearing tank tops and flip flops, whiling away your afternoons at sunny outdoor bars and cafes. It doesn't get much more perfectly chill than that.

Enter Barcelona. It’s like they took the best things about LA and SF, rolled them into one city, and dropped it in Europe. Why live in either US city when you could live in Barcelona?! Despite being repeatedly warned, we were seriously floored by how much we loved it there.

Sadly, I don’t think the feeling was mutual. We got a pretty unfriendly vibe from the locals. And then of course, there was this:

Who cares if our unemployment rate is 25%! Take your tourist dollars elsewhere!!

It’s not as if anybody was unkind to us. It just wasn’t the most welcoming place we’ve ever been. And the Spanish is much less familiar to me than that spoken in Mexico, which posed an additional set of challenges.

Still though, life is good in Barcelona. If we were fluent in the language, we would absolutely consider making it our European home when that time comes. Either way, we hope to spend much more time there.

For photos of our sunny, fun-filled weekend in Barcelona (with our VERY FAVORITE IRISH FOLK!), click HERE.