Beach in Barcelona

Last weekend on April 16th, 2010, my friends and I decided to take a trip down to the beach. When we originally came to Barcelona, we were under the assumption that it would be cold for a little while, but that there would be plenty of time where we would be able to make trips to the beach. However, for the majority of our trip we have not been very fortunate in terms of having great weather. In fact, at one point it even snowed here which was certainly not a very common occurrence in Barcelona. So when the opportunity arose, we had to take advantage of it. When we finally got to the beach I was extremely excited because I had been looking forward to it all semester. The weather was perfect to just lay out and relax in; although it was not warm enough to go out onto the beach. After laying out on the beach for the while, it became apparent that the beach atmosphere where we were was much different than what we were used to in the United States. At the beach in the United States, it is a generally relaxing environment, with people in the water or maybe tossing the football around. However, at the beach we went to off of the Barceloneta metro stop, there were many different aspects. One of the things that stood out to me was the amount of vendors that were out there trying to sell stuff to us constantly. While it was interesting to see how the beach culture was different here, after a while the frequency of vendors approaching us got a little annoying. However, despite the vendors being a little annoying at times, one doughnut vendor was the highlight of the day. This individual caught all of my friends and I’s attention as he sprinted along the sand with a tray of doughnuts on his head while singing some song. I was pretty impressed by this display of balance and comedy, so I decided to buy a doughnut even though I did not want one. Another aspect of the Barcelona beach that differed from the United States was that there were plenty of nude individuals spread out all over the beach. While in the United States it would be shunned upon to be naked on the beach, it is not considered a big deal here whatsoever. There were plenty of males walking around completely naked, while almost half of the Spanish women I saw were topless. All in all, the beach day was one of my favorite days here. I thought the beach was really nice here, and I really enjoyed the setup along the boardwalk. There were plenty of places to eat, ranging from fancy sit down restaurants to quick food stands to get food. Overall, the day was a great one, and the only problem was that there could not have been more of them.