A Strange New City: The Students Leave Barcelona

As I write this the students have been in the air for 45 minutes, flying to Frankfurt for their connection to Los Angeles, and I’ve been awake for 24 hours. I wanted to get my initial impressions down now when I’m in this state.

I think we can say that this Study Abroad trip was an unqualified success. We were incredibly lucky with these students because they really were amazing. A lot of the students emailed me right before they left saying that this was the best experience of their lives, and while I really hope they have better experiences in their long and fruitful futures, I am really happy that I could play a part in this experience for them. There were a lot of tears, of course, as the students boarded the bus to go to the airport, and what was interesting is that many of the students who told me mid-term that they hated Spain or were really homesick were the ones crying the most. It underscored for me that this experience really is a process, and that the students really don’t have one experience, but a series of experiences that allow them to experience a wide range of human experiences and emotions.

I realized when I was talking to the students last night that I, too, had gone through a process. Sometimes the students pissed me off, and sometimes they were incredibly entertaining, but ultimately I became part of the same community that they were creating, and I felt very warm and grateful to them for allowing me to be a part of it.

But also as I sit here, I realize that my 50 best friends in Barcelona just left the country, and that I now know no Americans in Spain, that I’ve just crossed a major line in my journey that started on February 7. After a few more days of grading, I will no longer be working for 15 months, and for the first time in a long time I will have no specific responsibilities that I have to fulfill besides taking Spanish classes, which hardly seems like a responsibility. The future seems large, gaping, and scary; the city seems new and different. And for the first time in a very, very long time, I’m not sure what will happen at all in the near or medium future.

I think I will miss the students terribly, not only because I like them, but because they gave me purpose here in Barcelona. And if they’re reading this, I wish them the greatest success and happiness humanly possible.

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It’s been 4 hours since I wrote that last bit, and except for some editing for grammar, I haven’t changed a thing, and I find that I agree with everything I said. It is very, very strange to be in Barcelona right now. Knowing that the students and Marcus and his family have left, makes the city seem larger and more foreboding, not because it’s changed, but because I know that there are very few people in Barcelona right now who care about me in any way. I’m really behind in my blogs because of the end of the semester, so I haven’t been able to write about the people that I’ve met here in the last few weeks, so I don’t want it to seem like I’m all alone and lonely. I’m really not. But it is true that I am much more like an immigrant to Barcelona now than I have been so far – alone and trying to find friends and a support system.

I am going to go back in time in the next few blogs to write about my experiences since Switzerland, but now I want to write about the last few nights.

Thursday we had our farewell dinner in a restaurant in Poble Sec, and once again, we all got to experience the hassle of trying to get 52 people to do something at the same time. But once the dinner was over, one of the Enforex guys, Raul, suggested we go to a bar in El Raval, and so we went. I had a great time talking to students and just relaxing, and I wondered why I hadn’t done this earlier. I mean I know how to drink responsibly, so there was never a possibility of me doing something un-teacherlike, but for some reason I thought I shouldn’t go out with the students. Note to future Study Abroad teachers: really you can. If they want you there, go out with them. After the bar, we went to the Harlem Jazz Club – finally – and watched a Spanish cool jazz band. It was fun.

The next day I graded all day, and I had promised the students that I would go to the airport with them. One student, Lindsey, invited me to go with her and her roommates and others to see the fountain show at the base of Montjuich near Plaza Espanya, and honestly, it was a great way to end the trip. There were about 8 students and me, and the show was great, and you could look out from the top near MNAC (a museum) and see the entire city: Tibidabo, Sagrada Familia. It was an amazing view of the city, on that night, the students’ last. Then after, we went to their local dive bar, and Alec played music, and we drank beer and ate some tapas. Angelica started eating the food off some guys plate; and he seemed completely okay with it.

Then we needed to be at Don Quijote at 3 to go the airport, and off we went. I hadn’t slept since 8 Friday morning, and I thought I would be exhausted, but I really wasn’t. And after the students were gone, and after a coffee with Carolina, our onsite coordinator – who was amazing, by the way – I came home and wrote the stuff that starts this entry. And then I tried to go to sleep and couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s the coffee, or the anxiety of being here still, or the sadness about the students leaving, but I can’t get my brain to stop going, and although I’m tired, I’m not exhausted.

But tomorrow, my new life begins. I’m meeting a woman I met here at MNAC to go to the museum, and then that afternoon Carolina, whose birthday is tomorrow, and I, whose birthday is Wednesday, are organizing a little fiesta with everyone we know in Barcelona, which is about 7. It should be fun, and I think it might be a nice symbolic beginning to this new, exciting, and terrifying phase of my life.