Researcher, academic writer, and curious observer of everyday life. I write about Spain, culture, travel, food, and the small moments that often tell us more than famous landmarks ever could.
The first time Javi asked if I wanted a frankfurt, I didn’t think about hot dogs. I thought about Germany. More specifically, Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurter sausages. German food. Growing up in Silesia, those associations felt completely natural. German names, recipes and culinary traditions never seemed particularly distant to
Before I started spending so much time in Barcelona, I thought I knew what might surprise me. Late dinners, perhaps. The heat. The usual things that appear in countless articles about Spain. It turned out that the things that caught me off guard were much smaller. They were words I
For several days before the solar eclipse, there seemed to be considerably more eclipse than there was ever going to be actual eclipse. There were traffic warnings. Roads that might be closed. Car parks that might fill up. Advice to arrive early. Questions about where to go, when to leave
Some weekends seem to belong to three different cities. On Friday evening, we were at Parc del Fòrum for Brunch Electronik Festival. It was brutally hot, even by Barcelona standards, but Fòrum has a particular kind of energy that works remarkably well for a festival: all that concrete and open
“¡Qué calor!” I don’t think I’ve heard any other Spanish phrase more often during the summer. It’s what people say in the bakery, at the pharmacy, in the lift, at work and to complete strangers while waiting to cross the street. Not as a complaint. More as
I had seen parts of this landscape before. First, on the way to Zaragoza the previous year. Then again while travelling to Valencia. Later, on two separate journeys to Madrid. At first, I barely questioned it. Spain beyond the Mediterranean coast simply looked different from the country I had imagined
The first time I noticed InPost in Barcelona, it was not a parcel locker. It was a Punto Pack sign outside a local tabac, squeezed between signs for cigarettes and Catalan lottery tickets. The yellow logo was instantly familiar, even though the setting was not. I took a photograph, naturally.
At first, I photographed every Osborne bull I saw. Some appeared suddenly on a hill in the distance, black against a vast blue sky. Some emerged from behind dry fields and low mountains. Some were so monumental that they seemed less like objects and more like presences — as if they
I bought this T-shirt for my mum and only later realised that it was basically a complete Spain starter pack. Sun. Sangria. Flamenco. Bulls. Paella. Windmills. The Sagrada Família. None of it is wrong. It is simply not the whole story. After two years of living between Poland and
The hotel looked exactly like the kind of place where you expect a perfect breakfast. It stood somewhere on the road to Zaragoza, built of warm stone, with heavy wooden doors and thick walls that had probably witnessed decades of travellers coming and going. From the outside, it felt almost
Does it still make sense to start a blog in a world where most people would rather scroll through TikTok, watch Reels, or click on another list titled “10 Free Things to Do in Barcelona”? I think it does. Not because the world needs another travel blog. Not because Barcelona
News
This is The Second Home, a brand new site by barbraorzel@gmail.com that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content