The Drury Mirror

Issue date: 3/12/07 Section: Abroad

Barcelona, Spain serves as a pleasant retreat for study abroad student Allison Ault. The city's famous pickpocketing problem posed minor problems for students.

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Barcelona and literally just witnessed my friend's purse almost get jacked. It was sitting on the floor beneath her chair and as I turned around - for no apparent reason but instinct - I saw a man reaching behind her, his hand two inches from her bag. Barcelona is famous for its pickpocketers. Less than twenty-four hours and we were almost victims of thievery. In this moment, I can say that I am officially visiting Barcelona.

The city is beautiful. I have been to Italy and France on previous trips to Europe and Barcelona is a pleasant mesh of the two. There are narrow streets where cars cannot drive with balconies overlooking the shops below. On these streets there are countless small cafes and musicians. The city is rich with Mediterrean culture. People sit outside restaurants in the sun eating tapas and seafood. A warm 75 degrees though is a mild winter for Barceloneans. Everyone is still wearing their winter coats, stocking hats and scarves while my friend and I are sporting summer dresses and sandals. While the sun, the warmth and the beach are welcome sights I find myself missing certain things in London.

Good friends and good food define a place that I call home and last night I can say that I felt like I was at home in London. I never imagined that I would become so close to people that come from so far away. In our friend's flat, only a few blocks away from school, Angela - who is from Albania - and I whipped out our domestic skills and batched up a home cooked meal for eight of our friends. We made pasta, buschetta and other dishes from her country. Together in the flat we were two Americans (one being myself), an Albanian, two Spaniards, a German, Philipe from Sweden, Max from France, Sophie from Denmark, and Rama from Jordan. We sat around a table together and ate a proper family meal. It also made me miss home in Missouri and my family and friends there, but I am glad that I have found family here in London. Finding friends in Barcelona, especially with the language barrier, may be as difficult as warding off the pickpockets.

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