My first night in Barcelona after having spent a week traipsing around the coast of Costa Brava and rambling through the vineyards and isolated, mountainous villages of Priorat without encountering many tourists, indeed many humans, was a bit of a shock.

Back in this big, busting, beautiful city, cars honking, people everywhere, construction at every corner – this city of Gaudi dreams which I first visited as a youth in the early blush of romance with travel.

My first night back in Barcelona after several years away was a member’s invitation to Soho House, today’s communal answer to the village square and where the cool, trendy and beautiful set of the world gather everywhere they flit around the world. On the rooftop, a DJ spins her music while gorgeous folks sip cocktails against a stunning backdrop of gleaming yachts on blue water at Port Vell Marina.

Feeling as out of place as a snow goose in a desert, I nevertheless soaked in the moment and reflected on how global the world increasingly is – I counted on the website 42 Soho Houses around the world – and how old world and new world are colliding in ways that it’s hard to decipher where the old ends and the new begins.

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