Este es mi día final en España. A celebrar, yo quiero a escribir mí entrada de blog final en español. Qué un increíble tiempo aquí en España. Este ciudad es un lugar muy interesante por a decir lo menos. Barcelona es un ciudad muy grande, tiene un millón y media personas. Un millón y media personas en un zona urbana, fluentes y integrados. La gente tienen un identidad de orgullo y nacionalista para Cataluña y este parte de España. Fui al la Sagrada Familia ayer, y yo vi la trabaja de Antoni Gaudí. Es un lugar a reflectar y contemplar en mí vida y en mi experiencia aquí en España. Yo siento muchos sentimientos, y es posible que hablo con un dio en la basílica. El arte de la iglesia fue un buen conclusión para mi viaje. No voy a traducir mi entrada en inglés para todos, pero voy a pongo más en inglés para mi sentimientos porque no sé muchas palabras para mi pensamientos profundos, y yo necesito a poner estos pensamientos en mi reflexión final. Fui al playas, montañas, a las iglesias y al parques y naturaleza. El mundo total es asombroso, y mi tiempo en Barcelona me ayudó contextualizar mi lugar en este mundo.
Barcelona is an absolutely beautiful city. Sitting down by the beach tonight I realized this. The ocean waves crashed upon the shore as the sun set on an overcast evening. People wandered about the beach, enjoying their lives, going about what they wanted to do. I saw the many people who live here most of their lives, who call Barcelona home. What a place to call a home. Where is a home in a city like this? Is it in the city? Or is it in the many small neighborhoods that make up the city, such as Gracia, the neighborhood I live in? The urban influx of all pulls and flows across the landscape, calling people towards it as a perfect haven. All are one, but one is all. A society is built up across the barriers, forming a place.
And I have become a part of this place.
At first I was reluctant. I was simply an observer, only watching, contemplating, taking it all in. But slowly I became a participant. I bought the food, rode the Metro, and enjoyed the nightlife and daylife. I still had longings for home, but I felt welcomed in this place, as a citizen, and simply not as a sightseer. I went to the beaches, the outlying towns, got a feel for the rest of the area, and the people who live here. I call this city home. It is a part of me now. I know the neighborhoods, the people who live there, the types of cultures that exist, and great of all, I not only know this, but I participate and actively shape it. Because culture is not passive, it is constantly evolving, always demanding new and respecting old. And I am a part of that new, that new that has come in and changed, mixed, and absorbed into the old.
Who knows where I will go from here? Barcelona has earned a place in my heart, much like it did with George Orwell back in the 1930's. The feelings I have had, the mixes of the good and the bad, the best and the worst I have seen, it all comes together to form my experience here, and what it means for not only me, but for you who read it.
I thank all of you for reading my blog up to this point, and I thank you for keeping with me in this wonderful journey. I posted in a video a quote from The Grateful Dead: "What a long strange trip it's been", and you, my reader, have hopefully gotten a small grasp of what that is and how it has actually been a great trip and a wonderful experience.
As I walk down the platform towards the airport tomorrow many thoughts cross my mind. The city flies by me as I race around the roads to the airport, the point from where it all started. The point from where a magical view of all Barcelona was presented to me from the window of a taxi, and my eyes were as wide as saucers as I took it all in. The city will fly by me again, out the windows of a bus this time, as I contemplate it, the culture, and the people who reside here, and once again, my eyes will be filled with wonder as I depart this amazing place for home. As the plane takes off, who knows what will cross my mind as we soar to thousands of feet, but I know that the city will leave me behind, and a new, and familiar realm will welcome me with open arms.
This whole experience is closing like the end of a book, and I know it will have a happy ending.
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