Sacrificed one more day of walking to spending one more day in Barcelona because being here is more than a childhood dream come true. However, I must say goodbye as my bus to pamplona leaves bright and early. I have made a short video of my time in Barcelona but it doesn’t come close to portraying the true joy being in this city has brought me. If you search best skateboarding cities in the world Barcelona will come up first and for good reason. The architecture here is made for skateboarding and sometimes even on purpose. For the most part, Skate parks are simply integrated into the city landscape leaving me asking “is this a skatepark? I mean they put metal coping on all the ledges but it looks no different than any of the other plazas.” Thus, instead of feeling like you are in a cage you feel a true connection with the city landscape which is one of the most centric, if not the most centric reason that I love skateboarding so much. To me, it feels like having an authentic relationship with my environment. The U.S. doesn’t seem to quite understand this idea. In our society we stigmatize loitering or simply hanging out in the city without buying something or going somewhere so it is no surprise that we are not accepting of those of us who see the city as practically a playground. I have noticed that as Bill once put it in seminar, Barcelona is a “city for living”and I argue that the landscape and policies from a skateboarders perspective can say a lot about this. Also, I experienced for the first time the true cross cultural element that skateboarding has. Since Barcelona is practically a skate mecca (talk about pilgrimages) in the two days I have been here I have met skaters from Germany, France, U.S.A, Brazil, Japan, and Canada. I skated for hours with a woman who knew only Portuguese and while we exchanged almost no words I felt a connection through a shared passion. This is what is beautiful about skateboarding, the arts, and ultimately in passion that you may have. It has the power to cross languages and cultures and experiencing this previously known truth has brought me a lot of joy and optimism for this world.
P.S everytime I see footage of Barcelona it is of very famous modern looking plazas so I was pleasantly surprised to see the plethora of old winding narrow streets and alleyways. Why doesn’t anybody film that stuff?????????