Maxime from Sweden

Name: Maxime Persdotter Wallström
Age: 19
City and country of origin: Gothenburg, Sweden


1. When, where and for how long did you live or have you been living in Barcelona?
I moved to BCN the end of June this year, stayed for 6 months, went home for Christmas and I’m planning to get back in January and stay until late spring/early summer. (But it feels bad to leave then too, when it´s getting warm again, so...)
So, I stayed in an apartment in Raval, at Carrer de Guifré, the street with the big neon heart. An expensive, small but kind of cosy place. Crowded and with loud neighbors. But even so, I had a great time there.


2. What made you move here?
I was really bored and didn´t have a job after my graduation. I was planning to do a course in the university, literature science, because I thought that it would be different, then I realized that it wouldn´t be as different as I wanted. I had also started to dislike my city and all the people in it, was bored with night life, friends of friends, old routines and so on. And then a friend of mine had sent in an application for a job in the city, so I did the same, got it, bought a ticket and one week later we were in BCN.


3. What made you leave / stay?
From the beginning the plan actually was to get back to my town in September to study, but the time was too short so to speak, so I stayed. Then I thought I would go home at the end of October, but I stayed. After that, the plan was to get back for Christmas and start working or something after the holidays. But because of the economic crisis and blabla there were no jobs. So I´m getting back to BCN in a few weeks not only because I really like the city, but because I don´t have anything else to do.


4. What you like the most about Barcelona.
I like that people are out in the streets. Now, when I´m back in Gothenburg, the streets are empty, it´s almost spooky. But in BCN people are living outdoors, doing whatever and chatting with the neighbor meanwhile. I like the climate, it´s perfect. I have never gotten used to the cold in Sweden. I like that you´re always close to the ocean. That you can choose between lying on the beach between fat Germans or going to some small village outside BCN and almost be alone. I like that the night life starts when I´m used to go home from the clubs in my town. I like La Boqueria, and that you get 3 fruit juices for 1 euro when you go there right before there closing. I like that the old man whom I´m buying vegetables from is calling me “mi vida” or “mi reina”. I like that there are green parrots in the parks, where there´s usually only pigeons.
But most of all I like that I know street names, and have favorite bars and restaurants, that I know how the metro system works, the fastest way to the beaches, and all the people I gotten to know. And so on.


5. What you dislike the most about Barcelona.
That have to be that you can´t go home alone at night, even though I have done that and nothing really happened, you can feel that´s it´s not the smartest thing to do. And also the guys that constantly want your attention by screaming (or whispering vulgarities in your ear as you pass them), or even grabbing things they’re not suppose to grab..


6. Name a special place in Barcelona.
Our street, under the neon heart, La Boqueria, the first favorite bar at Carrer de Mercé, the village Sant Pol de Mar outside BCN because of the beach and the smallest church ever, a bar on Rambla de Raval called La roughe only because of the lamp made of small liquor bottles and the best sangria de cava. The street C/ Sant Ramon because it´s so far away from home. Only to name a few.


7. Name one word you would relate to Barcelona.
“Sexy beer, my dear?” has to be it (in lack of something more serious and exact...).