Grácia: the barrio of Dreams Come True

spending the weekend in barcelona, i had a feeling.

a feeling for the neighbourhood (=barrio in spanish) that i used to walk around in.

i used to walk around in this barrio, thinking about the crisis. LA CRISIS. la crisis that everyone talks about. 

i used to wonder, how with this crisis, how could all these tiny establishments survive?

there are hundreds of them in the barrio of Grácia and they are all tiny and cute and marvelous. i marvel at the magic of the crisis wonders. but i wondered. how?

but then i realised, standing there in the rain, under the dusty umbrella. i realised, that these establishments are all little dreams come true.
"la casa de cuentos" on ramon y cajal, for example. it's a little shop filled with stories. "the house of stories". here, you can listen to stories, take workshops in how to tell stories, and buy and borrow and swap stories. you can look, feel and breathe stories. you can be inside the story of someone's dream. it's a dream come true. it's a real story. 


or what about this other dream come true. "orxateria asturies" on Carrer D'Asturies. a lesbian couple running this ugly, simple but oh-so-amazingly-refreshing-drinks-establishment. horchata (almond-milk-drink) and granissada de limón (crushed-ice-lemon-drink) that are just the exact right perfect thing in the summer heat. 


they might seem like little non-profit-making businesses. they don't ever have the possibility or potential to grow large, and probably never mega-successful (€-speaking).


But they are someone's dream come true. A dream in a little shopwindow. A dream to live. Enough for Happiness. 


Live your Dreams, don't Dream your Life.