The other places

When I travel to a city for the first time, I always try to evaluate whether or not I could see myself living there. It's very difficult to know after a few days spent sightseeing, staying in a hotel: everything is different once you actually live in a city and have a day-to-day life and a job. But still, you can get a sort of snapshot of the daily life of people when you just walk around the city, take the metro, eat at small local restaurants that are not filled with tourists (we had the pleasure of trying a very cute little Catalan restaurant while in Barcelona, thanks to the recommendation of a native Catalan girl I work with - that's where we saw how Catalan people drink wine, through the long narrow sprout of this carafe, looking totally cool and professional doing it - I stuck to pouring it into a glass as I am sure I would get it all over my clothes if I tried).



Where was I before I got distracted by amazing wine-drinking techniques? Oh yes, where I was going with this is the fact that there are so many beautiful places in the world - I love traveling so much - and some of them are great to just visit for a few days but I know immediately when I leave that I wouldn't want to go back there while some I really connect with and want to go back for more. In the past year or so, I have been to some beautiful European cities: Porto, Stockholm, and now Barcelona. I really liked all three (except for the dreadful winters in Stockholm) but particularly Barcelona. Maybe it's just because the memories are so fresh and the weather was so perfect and I had such a nice time that I am saying this now, but I really could see myself in that city. Except for the tiny insignificant detail of not knowing Spanish and very few people knowing English there. Yesterday, I went to Barnes&Noble and bought a beginners teach yourself Spanish book... we'll see.



As I am sort of nearing the end of my PhD - everything is relative, it's nearer than it was 2 years ago - I have been thinking more and more about the next step. In general, I go back and forth between trying to plan and think about the future almost obsessively and then trying not to think about it at all, saying that plans never really work out the way we planned them so what's the point anyway. Well, I do need to have some ideas, otherwise I am gonna be in trouble when the long awaited day of graduation does finally arrive (if ever?). Then of course plans change and that's fine, the excitement in life is that we don't know where it's heading (sometimes a rather scary realization, but I am starting to get used to the idea that maybe I will never have a very clear image of the place where it's heading to). The world is so small today and it's open to us all, there are no more borders and we can really do almost anything we really want to within the confines of our talents and circumstances. And this includes living anywhere: but how can I chose between so many wonderful places while there is also the question of where home really is?! I have so many friends in similar shoes, living in between two continents or two countries in a way and I was talking to one of them about my trip and about how wonderful Barcelona was and how difficult it is to decide where to settle among all these wonderful places. This friend is a vagabond like I have never know one before and he said, when talking about home, that no matter where you go and where you decide to settle down, home will always be home and it's not going anywhere. So true! I will always have Budapest, my family, the friends I have there, the familiar streets and cafes and even though it's sometimes a little gloomy and difficult there, it's still home and will always be.



But, let me get back to Barcelona again. Some of things I really liked there: art and the architecture that is impossible to compare to any other place in the world. Gaudí was a genius of imagination, creating the most beautiful and awe-inspiring buildings I have ever seen. The way my Mom put it after visiting "Casa Batlló": "I just couldn't stop laughing as I was walking through the house and looking at it." Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house that made you laugh all the time?



I loved how easy it was to get around the city: the metro was nice and clean and fast and there were almost as many lines as in NYC. And then there were the bikes! Almost every road we walked on had a bike lane and so many people used them too! And they have this great system of pick-up and drop-off bikes called bicing, and this is what that looks like:



The city lies between the Mediterranean Sea and some mountains, so there is a little bit of everything: beaches, nice climate, climbing, parks, lots of palm trees, ahhh!!



And then there are the street musicians, Spanish guitar - oh so beautiful, almost like in Vicky Cristina Barcelona - and some unidentifiable instrument that gave the most calming sounds!





Last but not least, the usual European obsession with football reaches new levels there:



For now, I have to find the beauty is grey gloomy New York, but who knows what the future holds, there are so many other places in the world I want to see and live in!