I may not be the last American in Barcelona, but it certainly feels like it.
Months have passed since Spain entered a national lockdown that would become one of the strictest in the world. For eight weeks, residents were forbidden from leaving their homes except to buy essentials. Those who broke the rules faced severe fines, some even prison time.
My life in Barcelona came to a screeching halt in less than 72 hours. On a Thursday evening, I met friends for drinks after work as usual. We even made plans to go out that weekend, blissfully unaware that these drinks would be our last social interaction for months. It wasn’t until noon on Friday that a nationwide panic began as news of the pandemic broke. Within hours, supermarket shelves had been stripped bare. The city was mostly shuttered when I woke up on Saturday, the few bakeries that remained open so desperate to get rid of their pastries they were giving them away for free. By Sunday, Barcelona had become a ghost town.
Of course, the lockdown didn’t last forever. The Spanish government finally began easing restrictions in mid-June once positive cases had dwindled. Within a few weeks, life almost felt normal again, just with masks. But as residents began to reemerge, there was still one thing missing: tourists.
Speaking of bad rep: I personally believe many tourists, despite their origin, behave badly any and everywhere. It's not something nationality related and not necessarily age related: many feel entitled to do things they wouldn't normally do in their country and a share is by hearing that laws or local traditions allow for it.
Trying to create another term for exactly the same thing is bad. The media and politicians put a negative meaning on the word, because they are racists pieces of s***. Let's not play their game and be proud to be immigrants ;)
And so funny the comments of Americans here angry that you apologize for being American. I mean, you have no choice of where you were born, buuut Americans have done (and still do) so much evil in the world that I completely understand.
Rather the opposite. Those board-short bedecked Americans spend significantly more money per day and per stay than any other group of tourists, and stay longer than any other major group of visitors (according to the Catalan tourism observatory - https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/turisme/sites/default/files/capsula_2_-_iaotb19_2.pdf). They're also more likely to speak Spanish and even some Catalan.
If Barcelona wants higher quality tourism, it would be a good idea to entice more Americans to come instead once Covid is over instead of insulting and misrepresenting them.