Nine out of ten times that I walk out my door here in Barcelona, the first destination I go to is my local metro stop. I live close to two metro stops; the main one I use is called Marina on the L1 line and the other one is Bogatell on the L4. I live a quick five-minute walk from the Marina metro stop which in three stops (about 10 minutes) takes me to the center of Barcelona, which is also where the IES Abroad center is. The other stop, Bogatell, is also a five-minute walk and in just 10 minutes the metro can take me to the Barceloneta beach. The transportation system in Barcelona is very well designed and accessible, as there is a metro or bus stop close to anywhere I would like to go within the city. It is also very cheap, efficient, and safe.
The best purchase I made when I first came to Barcelona was a T-Joven card (pictured below). It was 100 euros which sounded a bit pricey to me when I first bought it, however it is incredibly worth it and I would recommend it to anyone studying abroad in Barcelona. It is a 3-month metro pass that comes with unlimited rides either on metro, bus, or even the TRAM. I think one of the biggest benefits of the T-Joven card is that it also allows you to take the metro to Barcelona El-Prat airport without any extra charges, which has saved me a great amount of money considering an uber ride to the airport is almost 40 euros. You can also use the card to get to the outskirts of Barcelona for free. Last weekend, my friends and I decided to go hiking at the beautiful Montserrat mountain range. It is about an hour away on the metro so we were shocked at the fact we did not have to pay anything and could just use our T-Joven cards to get there.
Navigating the transportation system in Barcelona is very easy and convenient. There are rarely any metro delays, which is something I am going to miss when I return to living in DC where I sometimes have to wait 15 minutes for the next train to come. In Barcelona, you almost never have to wait more than 5 minutes for the metro. I also appreciate that on Fridays the metro is open until 2am and on Saturdays it runs 24 hours (in DC it closes at midnight every night, which means I never take the metro on the weekends). Overall, I have taken an uber or taxi very few times in Europe because the public transportation systems here are a much more efficient and cheaper way to get around the city. America, you need to step up your public transportation game.