10 reasons you know you’re a tourist in Barcelona

We’ve all been there and some of us may have made more of these gaffs than others. The fun part, if you choose to live in Barcelona, is to learn and adapt and then watch other newbies make the same mistakes you made a year ago.

Here it is, our top ten tourist quirks when in Barcelona:

1. Sit down for a meal on Las Ramblas: You end up paying the highest price, for the lowest quality, in the worst setting. It’s a lose-lose situation.

2. Get really drunk on your first night: The excitement, plus the rather cheap alcohol goes to your head on the first night, and usually ends with you getting robbed by one of the pickpockets in the city center.

3. Walk around with your bag unzipped or sit at a terrace with your wallet and phone on the table.

4. Order Sangria everywhere you go, even at a bar Manolo: A bar Manolo is the Spanish term for an old man’s pub. Ordering a Sangria here is the equivalent of walking into an old man’s pub in the U.K and ordering a sex on the beach.

5. Get sunburned on the first day: Maybe you fall asleep on the beach, or maybe you slapped on the body oil and intentionally sat down to fry, either way you spend the next few days glowing a nuclear red and trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt. This is followed by the week in which your skin gently sloughs off like large brown snowflakes.

6. Take forever to walk down crowded streets or get on or off the metro: You politely stop to give way to others and then find yourself taking the best part of an hour to walk down the street, as the entire city shoulders its way past you.

7. Start a night out at 8 p.m and finish by 12 p.m.

8. Dress up for a night out. Short dresses and six-inch heels are reserved for certain clubs and for certain ladies of the night.

9. Go to Burger King, McDonald’s, or KFC, or Starbucks or even Hard Rock Cafe.

10. Buy and wear a Barca football top while walking around town.

So, confession time. How many of these have you done in your first year in Barcelona?