williamwataru

Day 7 – Nice to Barcelona

Today was our travel day from Nice to Barcelona, and it was far from smooth.

We started the morning with one last meal in Nice before hiking up to a beautiful viewpoint we had been looking forward to seeing for months. 

From there, we went to the airport, where things started to go off track. There was a delay entering the airport because of a bomb threat, our flight was delayed by about 20 minutes, and when we finally arrived in Barcelona, we accidentally entered the wrong area of the airport and had to backtrack.

Uber wasn’t available, which took us a while to figure out, so we reluctantly took a more expensive taxi into the city. We had tickets to an FC Barcelona match that evening, and with every little delay, I could feel myself getting more anxious about whether we were going to make it in time. Eventually, we arrived at our hostel, dropped off our backpacks, and rushed back out the door. We ended up missing the first few minutes of the game.

Despite all of that.. 

We had a delicious last meal in Nice. 

We made it to the viewpoint we had been looking forward to for months. 

We had a fantastic lounge experience at the Nice airport. 

And because Uber wasn’t available, we ended up meeting a taxi driver I wouldn’t have spoken to otherwise.

I worked up the courage to talk to him in Spanish and asked where he was from. He told us he was Catalan and from the Barcelona area, and immediately started gushing about how much he loved the city. My Spanish is bad, so Google Translate became part of the conversation. He gave us recommendations for food and places to visit, told us a little about the history of the area, and seemed genuinely excited that this was our first time in Barcelona.

If our flight hadn’t been delayed, and if we had been able to get an Uber, we probably never would have met him.

If traveling has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you just have to let go of the wheel and trust you will end up where you need to be. 

And then there was the FC Barcelona match, which ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the trip so far.

The culture inside the stadium was unlike anything I’ve experienced at an American basketball, football, or baseball game. I think part of it has to do with how deeply football is integrated into daily life here. When so many people genuinely care about the sport, and have grown up caring about the same club, it changes the feeling of being inside the stadium. You aren’t just surrounded by people who bought tickets to a game. You’re surrounded by people who seem emotionally invested in what’s happening on the field.

There were a few small things that made the experience feel especially different from NBA games in the U.S.

For one, there were no giant screens constantly demanding our attention. No instant replays after every big moment, no commercials, no graphics telling the crowd when to cheer. At least from where we were sitting, it felt like there was nothing competing with the game itself. When something happened, you either saw it in real time or you didn’t, and I liked that.

The stadium also felt surprisingly relaxed. At NBA games, especially once the game starts, security usually keeps people from entering sections where they don’t have tickets. Here, people wandered down closer to the field to take photos before the match, during halftime, and sometimes even while the game was going on. The stadium workers didn’t seem bothered, and some of the security guards were even watching the game.

Maybe I’m romanticizing it, but it gave the stadium a strangely communal feeling. For such a massive club, parts of the experience somehow felt less controlled and commercialized than I expected.

My favorite part was the group of supporters directly behind the home goal. They were on their feet for almost the entire match, waving enormous flags and singing chants that spread through the stadium. Every time Barcelona scored, everyone around us jumped to their feet at once. For a few seconds, the entire stadium became one enormous wave of noise and movement.

I didn’t know the songs, I didn’t know most of the players, and I couldn’t understand much of what people around us were shouting, but I could feel it. 

By the time we walked back into our hostel at 1am, absolutely drained, all of the delays and mistakes from earlier in the day felt less like things that had gone wrong and more like part of how we got there.