My point of view #27

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MY POINT OF VIEW 27 (by Tatiana Sisquella)

There are times when it isn't the hotel you chose or the people you met or the meals you enjoyed that make a trip memorable. Sometimes, that which has really made a trip worthwhile, or not, is no more than an anecdote .That fleeting and transitory moment can seal the fate of a stay in foreign territory.

This is why today I would like underline the importance of anecdotes. Those which we share, those which we experience alone, those which mainly go unnoticed, those which we never relate, those which we repeat at every dinner party…today I am dedicating these few lines to all that which deserves the category of anecdote for somebody.

In our everyday lives, caught up in dull and monotonous routine, we run the risk of becoming beings impermeable to the sensitivity that many of the anecdotes that surround us everyday require. Because, even though you are likely to come across 8 or 10 anecdotes everyday, when you arrive home and you're asked: “So, how was your day?” the best you can come out with is “mm...., same as always”.

Moreover, this situation gets worse when we're on holiday in another city. Because the newness, the expectation and the excitement are all elements that increase our perception of that which is likely to become an anecdote. A consequence of this is that when you come home from a trip it seems that so many things have happened to you that wouldn't usually happen to you at home. This could be true in part, but it could also be due to the fact that we go around with our eyes wider open, our ears more alert and our nose as clear as a whistle.

When you travel you look at the streets as if they were something you'd never seen before, you watch the sunsets as if you came from a planet that had no sun and you smile with an ease that makes you look as if you've just been paid every time you show your teeth.
Every situation is a potential anecdote; every conversation goes through the sieve of that which we want to relate on our return, everybody we meet is portrayed in our memory, so that we don't forget when we get home.

This is why I am suggesting today, that once you get home (that is, if you have finally decided to come and say hello to Barcelona) you keep hold of that same attitude with which you enjoyed your holidays. Treat your work colleagues or fellow students with the same interest as that provoked by people you have just met. Try to experience your city with the same intensity as you have experienced ours and then, in turn, you may eventually form part of an anecdote that somebody else takes home with them.

QUESTION: Why Barcelona?
ANSWER: Because if you lift up a stone, you will find an anecdote underneath.