September 11 - Diada Nacional de Catalunya

As most of you probably know Catalonians are very patriotic. Or at least many of them are. And a region that has its own language, flag, songs, football teams and more does obviously also has its own National Day. 

What is a bit ironic is that they actually are celebrating the day when they got defeated by the Spaniards in some war 1714, but anyway this day was chosen to be the Diada Nacional de Catalunya in 1980.  

A Catalonian day might not be what you first have in mind when you think about the date september 11 but indeed, this is the day (apparently president Bush misunderstood the celebrating of the Catalonian people and thought that they went out on the streets to honour the people that died in 9/11 the year after the events in New York)

The main celebrations were held by Arc de Triomf (yes Barcelona also has one, but it is somewhat smaller than its French version) and contained of concerts and performances in this language called Catalan all day long! Young, old, rich and poor, city people and small town girls and boys had gathered together. Many of them wrapped in a Catalonian flag.

Obviously FC Barcelona is a huge part of the Catalonian pride.

Hip Catalans. 

Many of the young girls in Barcelona have beautiful long hair!

And many of the boys have this hairstyle!  Yeah, in Barcelona it is not unusal seeing people (mostly young men in their early 20is) in these sort of 80es-Eastern European-like hairstyles! Why? Where does this come from?! We are really curious about the whole thing so if you have an idea please let us know!

Raval-Character I (Italian Prostitute Client)

The first time we went to Raval, we walked straight to one of the two main streets where the prostitutes hang out. One of them is the territory of the Eastern European girls, and the other one is the territory of the African and the South American girls. 

We tried to talk to a Romanian girl who was sort of friendly, but in a careful way. After a few minutes of talking, she said she didn't want to talk to us anymore, and walked off. The other girls just looked at us with suspicious eyes and didn't really say much. Although there was one girl who was also called Emma, and she sort of half-smiled to Emma when they realised they had the same name. 

Then this guy came out of one of the grafitti-sprayed doors. He sort of barged out of the door, half-stumbled, and then caught himself back up to standing. 

Covered in sweat, his skin was gleaming. 

His pants were still unbuttoned, and he made an attempt at buttoning them, but didn't really succeed. 

We started talking to him, and he was definitely willing to chat.

More than willing. 

Too bad we couldn't really understand what he was saying!

He was high, drunk, and had just had sex with a girl. Or two, actually. Or so he sort of said. Mumbled. Babbled. 

He was posing for the pictures we took of him, and he came so close to the camera that the spit from his mouth, that freely cascaded from his overactive mouth, covered the camera-lens. 

We tried to ask him questions, but got no answers. Just a steady stream of information about sex, prostitutes, Raval, drugs.. Actually, drugs.. Any drug we wanted, he could get us. and in fact, if we wanted to try the pleasure of "being" with him, he would gladly "help" us...

I kept taking pictures of this colourful character, as he kept talking to Emma. He litterally chased her, and she had to duck to get away from his sweat and spit. 

But we laughed a lot. My god. 

autumn comes to Barcelona, too!

Of course we know it will hit Barcelona, too, but it is still rather shocking to wake up to a cold spell of around 13°C after living in 30°C for a few months. 

This was a few days ago, and we can happily report that the autumn now has turned into a golden, fresh light, warm and sunny, but with a fresh twist, so desperately needed before. 

Beach? OH YES!!! 

Raval - one step off Las Ramblas

Face the water and take a right on las Ramblas and you will end up in Raval. As being a home to many of Barcelonas immigrants Raval is a diverse area where you will find people hanging out night and day. Many people seem to have nothing to do but just spending their times on the streets and in the small bars. We spent a few hours here talking to some of the characters living here and to feel the ambience.

By MACBA, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona, we found this Mexican guy (or did he find us?) telling us about his marijuana plants. He was really eager to sell us some - so if anyone is interested Linda has got his number. 

This man was standing by the street where you will find some of Barcelonas prostitutes. We have tried to photograph them a couple of times but they spit, shout and threaten to destroy our cameras as soon as we go near them (we are working on it though...) Anyway, we asked this man if he was interested in buying one of the girls but he just kept giving us offers. He was willing to pay quite a lot for a girl like us he said but we nicely declined his offer and moved on. 

This guy got really fond of Linda and followed her for an hour or so. 

Waiting for customers but bevaring the police. According to field study in cultural geography Raval has until recently been one of the most densely populated areas in the world. However, as in many of these kind of neighbourhoods in the world's bigger cities gentrification is happening. Everytime we have been in Raval doing research we have been surprised about the amount of police men being there. In Spanish they call it esponjament which means "mopping up" and it has been going on since the late 80's. University buildings, fancy hotels and a new police station have been some of the things in this development. Right now it is not illegal to sell sex but according to some information we have found online Catalunya is going to start fining both prostitutes and their byers by next year.

On Calle Robadors we met these three men from Chile who were very talkative and we spent some 15 minutes or so speaking to them. The man with a moustache told us he was a very famous professor in philosophy. None of these people live in Raval but are spending a lot of time here just drinking beer on the street and meeting people from their home country. 

Lets say this guy´s name is José. He was also from Chile and was talking a lot about the life in Raval. Maybe we will meet him for a cafetito one day to get to know more about the South American communities in Barcelona. That is what he wanted to do anyway.