Up All Night

Sometime around four in the morning, when Richie Hawtin ended his marathon, uninterrupted DJ set for a crowd of several thousand people, I found out why Barcelona truly is one of the coolest places on the planet: when I asked a hip-looking Spanish girl next to me if the party was truly over, she told me "no-no-no, in Barcelona, the party is *never* over, ok?" People say that about a lot of places, but as I found out in this exhausting weekend, it actually applies to this crown jewel of a city. It's also especially true right now, when the week-long Fiestas de la Merce have eight different concerts/events/parties going on simultaneously, every night until the sun rises. There's kind of a downside to this: I rarely slept this weekend, but I still feel like I've missed a lot. For instance, Friday night I accidentally missed out on a free show by rock/electro giants Primal Scream, and on Saturday I inadvertently skipped a ceremonial parade where everyone stampedes through the streets while spraying fireworks all over the place. Currently, I'm fighting the temptation to blow off class altogether so I can catch as much of the festival's events as possible.



It didn't help that I did much of said-partying with the roommates of my buddy Evan, who has the liability/advantage of living in a piso that is itself a never-ending party. Like me, he lives with a diverse group of foreigners (a French guy and girl, a Honduran girl, and an Italian dude) except they all drink like fish and constantly pressure anyone who goes over there to drink with them. Where as my piso is friendly yet tranquil, his is perpetually loud, dirty, and full of people, some who live there and some who don't. They're all quite nice (the Honduran girl even made me some Honduran coffee, which was just as delicious as I remember it from my volunteer work there), but I barely survived two nights going out with them, and I fear for Evan's liver if he actually plans on living there for a year.



Camil, his French roommate (above, left), also had two of her friends visiting her for the weekend named Julie and Maielise (above, to my left and right, respectively) and the whole lot of us went out on Friday night. As is prone to happen with that crowd, we were all far too drunk before we even left the apartment, and thus it took us close to an hour to find our destination, a bar called el Obeja Negra (the Black Sheep). Beautiful Julie and I had been flirting all night, but at some point I became a little too intoxicated and she started mocking my inability to remember things she had told me five minutes beforehand. By the time we arrived at a nearby dance club, I was so frustrated at being continuously shot down by Julie that I randomly began dancing with shy, pretty Maielise, who I was told is her best friend. We began dancing rather close (a rarity in this country) and before I knew it we were making out while everyone else (Julie included) gawked at us in shock. Needless to say, all of Evan's roommates drunkenly made fun of me for the rest of the weekend.



Despite all that debauchery, the highlight of my partying was undoubtedly the massive, outdoor, state-sponsored rave featuring Richie Hawtin and two other phenomenal DJ's I've never heard of. Just the spectacle of seeing so many people dancing, cheering, and jumping up and down for a DJ was enough to give me chills, and being in that crowd, feeling the bass thumping deep in my chest, was unforgettable. I inevitably got separated from most of my friends, but once I just gave in to ebb and flow of that teeming sea of bodies I had an even better time meeting random Europeans from all over who had come to Barcelona just for the festivals. I met a surfer from Belgium who told me where the best waves are in Spain. I met a French guy who DJ's at an indy dance club near my house. I met an Argentine dude who talked to me about the Pixies. I met some pretty girls from Amsterdam who told me where I could find the best underground afterparties in the city. It was a blast, and I finally understood why this city is so mythologized - it embodies a transnational sense of community where people from all over the planet can converge and celebrate the mere fact that they are together - and alive.