1) Summer is less hot than in California; 2) Looks like you were here only as tourist - locals just avoid touristic restaurants, there's a plenty of good resta

1) Summer is less hot than in California; 2) Looks like you were here only as tourist - locals just avoid touristic restaurants, there's a plenty of good restaurants in Barcelona; 3) Barcelona has a lot of really exceptional architecture examples, not just "old church" buildings like in all other cities of Europe. "Really tight together in the center" - 4.75 meters sidewalk on the each side of the street, it's numbers for Eixample district, center of Barcelona. If all you saw was Gothic district ("old town") - it's just small district of the culture legacy; 4) It depends on skills. Salaries here are good enough by Spanish measures; 5) Pure lie. Really, you want to say you measured air pollution levels? Or you can see transparent gases? Try to check your map next time - maybe you'll see huge source of the fresh air - sea. See some photos of the streets to argue about "extremely dirty". One criteria is against OP: it's not a cheap city, definitely. Most expensive in Spain, one of the most expensive in Europe. https://instagram.com/p/BgYt8jwAiAp/ https://instagram.com/p/BgYt8jwAiAp/ https://instagram.com/p/Bh_gZkcHRvf/ https://instagram.com/p/Bh_gZkcHRvf/ https://instagram.com/p/BgJJQlWA_mJ/ https://instagram.com/p/BgJJQlWA_mJ/