Our Whirlwind Adventure in Barcelona

After spending nearly 10 cloudy & rainy days in Brussels and Hamburg, I was happy for the change of pace upon landing in Barcelona, where we were welcomed by beautiful, sunny weather. We spent little time soaking in the sun, however - no time for siesta after landing! Our small group went from the airport straight to the Parliament of Catalonia, where we met with its President, the Honourable Ernest Benach (pictured below with Barcelona AMMF's). The Parliament is responsible for managing the government of the state of Catalonia and consists of 135 members.


This was the first program for the Barcelona leg of the Marshall fellowship run by GMF's partner organization, the Patronat Catalunya Mon, whose mission is to promote the internationalization of Catalonia. Barcelona is the capital of the region of Catalonia, an autonomous community within Spain of ~7.5 million inhabitants that has its own directly elected authorities and official language (Catalan).

I was not exposed to the extent of Catalonian nationalism during my first trip to Barcelona 9 years ago. A history professor we met shared with us that the EU understands they cannot deal with Spain as a single territory, and he believes that Catalonia will eventually break away from the main country of Spain. It was difficult to get a true sense of how the majority of Catalonians feel about this issue as it seems to be a sensitive topic.

Most of our meetings here were formal: we met with prominent Catalonian figures (from the President of the Parliament to leaders of science and technology research clusters to council members of Lleida, a rural area about 1.5 hours outside of Barcelona by high-speed train). My favorite was our visit to the US Consulate, where we met Todd Robinson (pictured below with Barcelona AMMF's), a career member of the US Foreign Service. Todd was very personable and had his hands full last year when there was unprecedented interest in Barcelona surrounding the US elections. Oddly enough, one of Todd's new summer interns graduated from high school with the daughter of David Howard, an AMMF from Charlotte, North Carolina. Small world.


Though our itinerary was packed with many meetings, we did manage to get a few sightseeing activities in, including a boat tour of the Port of Barcelona to view the planned area of expansion (AMMF's on boat pictured below), a concert at the beautiful Modernist building Palau de La Música, dinner in Barceloneta for delicious seafood paella, and a brief visit to La Sagrada Família (I cannot believe how long this building has been under construction!).


We were all exhausted by the end of this trip, but I am grateful to the Patronat for giving me a deeper understanding of the Catalonian society and government. Who knows, maybe I'll be back here in a few years as a b-school student at IESE?!