Do you know the phases of love theory? First it is a strong fascination and only positive emotions and in the next phase, you start to see your lover in more realistic colours – you discover their bad habits or some things that annoy you. It is very similar with ESC project, after the first hiperexciting part, you start to connect more with the reality.
So today, I wanted to write about how I started to discover more ‘real’ Barcelona and more ‘real’ life in here. It starts from small things like…food. Ok…for some people food is the essence of the life. I am not really a foodie, but still after 2 months in Barcelona I started to miss polish dark bread, ‘pierogi’ (polish dumplings) or cucumbers.
For the first months I was not focused so much on my comfort but now I started to miss having mores space in the apartment or living on my own. This is the aspect you need to accept when you go for your ESC project – you will share a flat and your privacy habits will be changed. You’re going out of your comfort zone!
Although I really love the people that I have met here and appreciate all the time we’ve spent together I started to miss friends from my hometown. Nowadays, it is easy to connect online and that is very helpful, but the real, physical meetings are different.
And last but not least…I miss my dog so much. Sometimes I have such a strong ‘doglust’ that I need to cuddle to cats or dogs of my friends in Barcelona – for my luck the owners are very tollerant 😊
So, that’s the reality phase – you discover some inconveniences, small things that sum up for your life. But I am not writing it because I want to complain. My experience in Barcelona is still wonderful – I feel more and more connected with the people here, yo entiendo more and more Spanish, I started to distinguish easily the difference between Spanish and Catalan language, I’m learning new things especially about task management and project management only observing how FCV is working. During past months I developed graphic design skills, led the online seminar, which was a challenge. I feel that I’m not waisting any minute of my life – and that is wonderful! I have a feeling that I would like to get involved more in social work and social topics and do something for others not only as a marketing support – a great discovery after this firsts months.
All in all, the reality phase or the reality check during your ESC is necessary and natural part of the project so I’m only writing it for you – future volunteers or people who are now on their projects to share this experience ans ensure you – it is 100% normal to go trough it. I’m not sure what is the next phase, but I feel that it can be very enriching as well. So let’s keep in touch and see what’s up after next months!
Iwona