Silly people...

I found this on my Tumblr dashboard earlier today:

When I Hear the Name "Barcelona"...

I think of every single player on that team
Heart Rate Speeds up.
Light Headed.
MESSI.
Red and Blue.
In Love.
Greatest thing on this planet.
Greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
THE GREATEST TEAM.
There’s no definition for the love i have for Barca.

Okay so.  Let me begin by saying no one is wrong here.  I feel like I should make that disclaimer because, well, I like to say people are wrong a lot (sorry in advance...and in retrograde).  But that's not what I want to talk about here.

Because I'm just going to say this, I am a culé.  I do support FC Barcelona as my football/soccer team of choice.  I do.  But here's the thing.  Barcelona is a city, not a football club.  Sure, it has a world-class football club and a world-class football stadium that is amazing and enormous and beautiful and everything else.  It also has another football club, which may not have the renown as their cross-town rivals Barça, they have a very loyal fanbase and a legitimate claim to the city (yes, I'm talking about Espanyol).

Here's the thing though.  When I hear "Barcelona", or when I see it written on bags and elsewhere in print, I think of the Passeig de Gràcia, the Torre de Collserola, the Passeig de Sant Joan.  I think of the metro station at the Estació de Sants.  I think of the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Liceu, Casa Batlló, the Sagrada Família.  I think of Sants (featured at the top of this post), I think of Poblenou, of the lower Dreta de l'Eixample.  I think of the time I got lost on the tram and ended up in Sant Adrià de Besòs and ended up not caring because I was lost in Barcelona.

This is the city I first fell in love with in 2004 when I saw the Sagrada Família for the first time in my life, when my family walked down the Passeig de Sant Joan till we got to the Arc de Triomf...and then walked back to the Sagrada Família where we'd parked our car.  It's the city I fell in love with again in 2008 when two friends and I spent five days there, and again in 2010 when I spent six days there by myself.

This city is magical, and not just because of the football club.  Yes, I'm a fan, but this city means so much more to me and the people who live here, who go through every single monotonous day in this city.  I feel like all this blog is a defense of Barcelona and how much I love it, but who cares.  This city has changed my entire life.  And yes, FC Barcelona is a great club.  But it pales in comparison to the greatness of the city that houses it.  Because that's what's really important here.  It's not the club, it's the city.  It's the great city of Barcelona.  Let's not forget that.