Sometimes it's not easy to penetrate into the local culture of a foreign place, either because it's just too foreign, or because, like Barcelona, the tourism industry is so overbearing that many neighborhoods in the city are designed entirely to cater to the tourists who crave the familiar (Starbucks), or a stereotypical version of local color.

Visiting Japan had been my lifelong dream; throughout my 30s, I envisioned the trip to Japan happening to celebrate my landmark 40th birthday. Not only did that not happen, but 3 months after I turned 40 we moved to the US, i.e. in the opposite direction. My sweet family, to make it up to me, simulated a trip to Japan on the day of my 40th birthday in Barcelona: they decorated the house with Japanese paper props, made a Japanese dinner, and even sat me in a chair and made me close my eyes and pretend I was on an airplane headed straight to Kyoto.