WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAYXAMPLE AND EIXAMPLE?

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This is a very easy question for any gay guy living in Barcelona but I have realized that people who come to Barcelona may have doubts.
So let me tell what is what.
EIXAMPLE is a very big long extension of land inside the city of Barcelona. At about 1850 Barcelona was still surrounded by medieval walls. The city was too full so they planned to expand the city bringing together Barcelona and other towns nearby. The area in between, just countryside, was divided in a lot of squares (squares with six sides to be truthful .. ) so that the new Barcelona gained a lot of new land which look like a chess board. This is what we call Eixample. Eixample is a Catalan word and eixamplar, the verb, means to widen. Because all this new land widened the old Barcelona.

More than a century later, a little part of this big Eixample began to have gay bars, etc. This is the part that is called Gayxample or Gaixample. It is called Gaixample by the gay community. But it is not an official name!
I do not know how the name was born but the "ay" from "gay" is pronounced like "ei" in "Eixample".
In Castilian we also use the word gay. Some people pronounce it like the English people but others pronounce it like an "i". In Catalan we have the word gai and for that reason you can say Gayxample or Gaixample. The word gai comes from Occitan. Let's remember that the English word gay comes from the French.

I could not say exactly which are the borders of Gayxample as it is not an official quartier but let me tell you some places you find there: Hotel Axel, Punto BCN, Dietrich, M69, ...