nightlife, redeemed.

I followed the map straight to the water, oddly enough the bit of Barcelona I hadn’t even seen yet.  The bus pulled up and an odd mix of people climbed aboard, all of us excited to see the lineup of the evening.

We rode down the coast a bit, through a series of shipyards on the left, cliffs to the right.  A tiered graveyard cut out of the rock was what stuck with me - having a grave with a view kind of messes with my mind.

We cut back into the mainland and drove on through a vast wasteland of an industrial park.  I wanted to jump off and wander around these monstrous shells of manufacturing, storage, and transport – that is, until the bus let us off in front of a mammoth.

The lot of us were on the first bus out and it would be an hour still until they let us in.  I love how universal the behavior is during times like these – everyone looks for the nearest convenience store and starts drinking.  Luckily there was a gas station across the street, so I stocked up on tall cans of beer and another bag of my newest weakness: jamón potato chips.  Meaty science was never so crispy!

After a failed conversational attempt with a red-headed Irish couple I spread out in the soft grass and watched the sky open up above me.  To my left were two guys doing lines off of a mirror, discussing the mafia’s involvement in the South American drug trade.  Hey, at least they were topical.  To my right was a large group switching to English whenever they wanted to exclaim something.  I wasn’t sure if they were doing it to include the rest of us or if yelling in English is just more fun.

The doors eventually opened and I wandered around this vast open complex appearing to be the size of a full-on sports field.  Well, a sports field with three stages and BUMPER CARS!

I had a fantastic time, transforming my whole outlook on this festival.  Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem were both high-energy and incredibly fun, me and another tall dude kept wanting to “take it outside, out-side, out-side” (Hot Chip lyrics leading to a fake fight), a few Spaniards asked me to solve a bet about where I was from (FOR THE LAST TIME I AM NOT A GODDAMN GERMAN) which led into her dismissing my fears about her hometown Ibiza and him letting me sip WHISKY from his flask!!!  Downtime conversation was wonderful thanks to a new friend from St. Petersburg who single-handedly got the band Air to start smoking again.

The crushing crowds eventually returned but there was no sense of posturing this time - everyone was there to dance first, be seen second.  I was drenched and exhausted, the last sardine packed into that 4am bus – making it through the string of disinterested prostitutes, a fun interaction with a frail old man, and back to my room.

Tonight: Jónsi, a second sighting of the Fuck Buttons, and rising up from the grave of my musical past The Chemical Brothers.

I get it, Barcelona, and I love it.