For my first trip to Europe, I had expected to visit Paris in France or Rome in Italy. However, for some reason, I came to Spain, a country on the verge of “bankruption”.

Despite this unexpected accident, I was not disappointed at all because I always expect all the unexpected things in my trip. The difference this time was that the unexpected thing happened before my trip started.

In a visit to the old town in Barcelona, we came across the ancient fortress of Roman style still standing in the street. At the first glance, this relic seemed to have preserved its original charm, but giving a careful observation, we found on the wall “the footprint of time”. In some parts that had been severely eroded, batches of dents constituted holes in density where hundreds of pigeons had made their nests. Fighting its way in full chase out of rocks, vines are spreading a sparse green skirt on this old wall. It seemed to me as if those rocks taken by Romans from nature had returned to nature over such a long time.

We encountered many similar unexpected experiences as well. For example in arts, as I supposed that the most renowned artist in Barcelona should be Picasso, I just planned to visit Picasso Museum alone. Nevertheless, when I was traveling in this city, another name is more frequently heard—Antonio Gaudi.

Though I had learnt that European shops are closed on Sunday, I still felt quite surprised when I witnessed this in my own eyes. As a descendent of a hard-working people, I could hardly figure out their reason for giving up money that is so easy to earn. But according to their logic, since even God takes break on Sunday, nobody should be allowed to work. To them, faith is beyond everything else. They even made legislation for this sake and prohibited some special profession from overtime. In a word, they safeguard their people’s leisure by means of law.

As far as we can see, to get rid of economic crisis could be difficult and easy as well. The government could have absorbed foreign investment to bring those beautiful villages into industrial cities one by one and make a fortune out of the unexploited nature. They could have modified the law so as to increase working time to ensure taxation and to reduce social welfare. They could have sold the public resources to their citizens so that those in need are obliged to afford more labor force. However, all above are only possible in Chinese people’s theory and absolutely impossible here because all of them are against their voters’ will.

Today, thanks to advanced science and technology, we can fly to the other side of Europe-Asia continent overnight by means of airplane and fleet. When you arrive there, you will find the world is not as small as we imagine. Here there is a totally different way of living, a totally different mode of culture and thinking and numerous unexpected things.

Amateur Musicians in the Street

Ronda, a city on the cliff