When it is All Mindset - March 2025 in Barcelona

March in was not strolling in the warmish sunsets, enjoying the street musicians and the buzz of people chatting, children playing, youngsters giggling taking the vibe of the city in.

Barcelona was not hanging out on the balcony at sunset, nor was it the sun in our faces while walking to and from all the art and all of the people.

Barcelona was not even chilling on a new plaza (almost) everyday, smiling and taking pictures.

And there were no beach days and no escape days to Montserrat or other epic hikes.

For 21 of our 23 days in Barcelona it was raining. We got sick, and felt exhausted. The dogs got sick. We had a lot of work to do and a lot of inner processes to handle.

Here is what it was, though - and here is a story of mindset and of trusting the process, two of the most irritating hippie-spiritual mantras that are both true which makes them even more annoying in moments of life where negative ego energy gets hold on you and the real context seems to not cooporate.

It was an apartment with a view to La Sagrada Familia, and a beautiful kitchen living room layout allowing for big kitchen projects in a city where we easily could get all the special stuff for the new adventures we did in the culinary world. While glancing at the sagrada familia.

It was a morning run to and around the same church, and most walks took us past it, when we ventured out for people or culture,defying the weather. It was a deep dive into what this is - not in an academic way, but in a living with it kind of way. The beauty, the craziness, the years, the story, the tourists, the opportunist street hustlers with good and bad (mostly good) ideas, the guys playing petanque in the park across the street from the construction site.

It was the local gym, building muscle and taking part in an internationally present culture we have never understood, and now actually enjoy. It does not all have to be traditional dances, language studies and art. By buying gym card we learned a lot about something we had mostly been judgmental about before, reinforcing the rule: All presumption negative judgment comes from lack of knowledge. When you have knowledge, you don't need the judgment. When you have been taking part, even if just on the side, ego steps out of the center, and real existence takes over. It was different, and it was fun.

It was the Barcelona marathon and our humble running challenge. By the kind of chance i don’t believe to be coincidental, the Barcelona Marathon was on, while we stayed and by a stroke of something divine it was on a morning with no rain and a fairly blue sky. The sound like waterfall of all the running shoes moving through the city was SO uplifting from the fast runners in the front with their flag of estimated time to the more regular running a pace you can at least dream of to the last guy in his seventies with the whole cleaning team stressfully only 25 meters behind him (what an accomplishment to not give up) they were all heroes and part of something strange and beautiful in the human psyche.
Of course it made me want to run a marathon, just like I wanted it 10 years ago when I was declared cancer free. So now I celebrate my 3km accomplishment from the running challenge with a different mindset. Can I do it faster before the summer is over? Could I do ten before the year closes its doors?

Kindly reminding everyone who wants to read about our travels and hence got this far, with a lifted index finger and all my years of experience - yet another mantra to put on a note on the fridge: Health is wealth. The strongest currency there is.

Moving on.

Barcelona was long walks in challenging weather. Once we realised the daily price for public transportation would surpass 20 euros we decided to walk. We walked by the aforementioned church under construction, and we walked to the beach, we walked to the Montjuic mountain to see the national gallery and to the city center to see the museum of the history of barcelona and the picasso museum and the exhibition on Botero. We walked in Poble Nou to hunt street art, and we walked to the dentist a few times. We walked to visit friends for conversations and lunches, and to get the treats we know from our favorite places in Gracia.

Barcelona was some street artists, as we did walk anyway. It was Flowceona, a dance group with no license, with an absorbing show. It was the traditional catalan dance and music on saturday afternoon. It was very talented young musicians to be counted on more than one hand, and one very much NOT talented guy I had the honor of listening to for an entire hour while on the dog watch outside a museum.

It was new friends based in Tarragona, annoyingly just a noch too far away but at the same time grateful to find matching souls for our tribe in one more spot on the planet. We love it when that happens.

It was taking the time to do a lot of planning of the coming road trip and worldschool popups, and it was learning about the history of Greenland and of Catalonia and of art in general. It was getting the van fixed with the help of several friends.

As we arrived in Barcelona our fridge cord melted, and since Krakow in November our distance sensors have been not functioning plus the AdBlue system was broken (again) - so the fact we did not have to live in the van gave enough time for the workshop to fix the electricity and for the mechanic to wait for parts to fix the other things. Perfect.

Barcelona was also getting to know the city, with its dirt and smell (it is actually really bad). Observing the life of every generation. Noticing the many many little independent projects and workshops and shops. Visiting different neighborhoods enough times to understand what is up with them, and taking in parks and architecture and habits of the city life.

The last few days we did get some sunshine and felt blessed as the following month we will be based out of the van. We managed to pack up everything peacefully and beautifully organized in four hours, while Jesper was taking the train out to get the van.

Another mindset thing was in play in that labor intensive process. Just get it done and do it right combined with trusting the process and not allowing for ANY stress to enter the scene, we wrapped up all the stuff. Washed all the clothes, organized all the boxes and bags to perfection, and were don 35 minutes before we had to. The host arrived, we had a chat, and said goodbye in the sunshine.

Beautifully we could drop off the children with their new friends in Tarragona, where the mother - bless her - had offered to cook for all of us, so that Jesper and I could adopt a new strategy: Just getting it done and right in the first take - we drove the van out to a big commercial area and parked with lots of space around the van, started the French Jazz Cafe playlist on Spotify and did the tetris, the cleaning, the fixing, the putting everything back where it belongs for four solid hours, before we bought a box of strawberries and arrived with divine timing the moment dinner was done to enjoy an immensely wonderful evening with friends until way too late in the night.