FYI—May need to show proof of flight to enter some airports in Spain

I'll be in Spain for a week in October. Looking forward to your report. We haven't made definite plans yet, but as of right now we'll spend a few days in Zaragoza and a few in Sitges before flying home from Barcelona.

Yes they do check at Barcelona - i just showed my boarding pass on my phone.

Thank you. It’s nice to know.

Finally! Great decision.

No one asked me to show anything when I entered the Barcelona airport about 10 days ago, but good to keep in mind.

It might be a good method to keep the "ordinarios" out of the airport.

Enric, perdón, I just learned a new word and good chance I am using it incorrectly!

I experienced this when departing from Madrid's Terminal 1 earlier this month, having arrived by Metro.

Pulling up the reservation information in the Delta app (I was on the Delta MAD-JFK flight) sufficed to let me through.

@ekscrunchy, I am afraid you must be... I have no idea what you mean.

That is, I know why the airport is enforcing this new rule: to keep pickpockets and vagrants out of the terminals here in Barcelona.

But the word "ordinari" -in Catalan, the local language, (or "ordinario" in Spanish)- makes no sense (to me at least) in this context.

Ordinari = ordinary in English. It has two meanings: something very common, of no special value and also someone who is vulgar in manners. None fits the description of pickpockets nor vagrants, I'd say.

Enric: I think it must be an Andaluz term for the persons such as you describe.
I did check this post with a person from Andalucia who told me that it made sense. To her, anyway,

I had learned the term just yesterday when I was describing a woman who was harassing shoppers in and outside a Lidl in Barbate. I related my interaction with her to a person born here in Medina Sidonia and she told me that "si, hay muchas tipas ordinarias como ésa que se ve en las calles en Barbate." She also used a name for an ethnic group which I believe might be a bit racist so I will not write that here but that I am sure that you get my meaning.

In my neck of the woods we might say something like "malcreaditas," or the coverall :"drogadictos," whether or not that person is actually a drug user; all this only reveals how fabulously interesrting different language variations can be from place to place and even within the same country.

For your amusement, or your disgust, I present several phrases that I learned last week from Catalan persons:

"todo es de coña"

"ostía tío!!"

"me metí en unn lió"

If you have a huge amount of time, it would be great if you could confirm what these mean, so Ii do not find myself in "un lío" someday soon.

@ekscrunchy

Ah, no, that's different, saying "...tipas ordinarias", it means vulgar people, as in loud and outspoken. But it has nothing to do with vagrants or thieves, I mean, some might be, but others don't, so using the term "ordinario" to refer to the people who are being prevented from entering the airport (for the reasons explained earlier) wouldn't be linguistically accurate. At least in my shores :)

The expressions you ask, you might have learnt them indeed in Catalonia -there's a large Spanish migrant community here- but these expressions are not local (Catalan), but Spanish. Keep in mind, not everyone living in Catalonia is Catalan, much like everyone living in NY isn't American -even if they also speak English ;)

"todo es de coña" ('e', not 'a') : it can have two opposite meanings, depending on the context: either "everything is good" (or more accurately "everything’s awesome") or it can mean "everything is a joke" (or "everything is bu11$hit").

"hostía tío!!" (with an 'h'): "hey! bro" or if you're a bit older, "dam%, dude!"

"me metí en un lío" (no accent in 'o'): simply, "I got myself into a mess" or "I got myself into some $hit"

I speak a few languages, but I usually steer clear of slang in most of them. If you don’t really, really master it, it’s way too easy to misuse… and you can end up in hot water with a native speaker, thinking you’re saying one thing when you’re actually saying something else. And when slang is in the mix, sometimes there might be a bit of provocation or even an insult baked in, so if you use it wrong, you might end up offending someone without even realising it. I’ve messed it up myself a few times in the past, which led to some awkwardly funny situations. LOL!.

Language is a strange beast. It’s not just words, it’s layers of culture, context, and unspoken rules sitting underneath. You can memorise vocabulary and still miss the meaning, because what really matters is intent, tone, timing… all the invisible stuff.

PS. Sorry for the weird characters earlier; the forum’s profanity filter wouldn’t let me post it otherwise. I figured it’s better to translate it with the same intent so you actually get the tone.

Your post is a treasure for me. I cannot thank you enough. I would never, ever use those terms with someone I did not know well, and even then, I would rather ask them the correct use and to show me how to use in a sentence. I absolutely love learning these expressions. I will not be surprised to find that when I return to New York and say them to my local Latin American friends, they will scratch their heads and have no idea of the meaning. I even find that a Dominican has so many different words for the same thing than a Puerto Rican, no less my Bolivian friend...

This has fascinated me since I was a child and have no idea why. I grew up in a home in the suburbs of New York, with parents who were first- and second-generation in the US. Although I do have relatives in Argentina and in Mexico, and my parents had many close Dominican and Cuban friends, I am not really sure where my affinity for different languages and cultures actually stems from...but a topic for another time...