Catalonia Street Art

Today, I didn't have much planned but wanted to do a walking tour, so I figured I would participate in the tours organised by the hostel. The strategy was to get a tour while also meeting people from the hostel. The strategy was sound, but the execution didn't go as planned as only 3 people (including me) participated. Meaning I only met two other people from the hostel, both of whom I would never see again. This is made slightly worse because there is the expectation that you tip more when there are fewer people to ensure it was worth the tour guides time. Sometimes, if they're nearly empty, they will cancel them, but given she didn't, I felt obliged to tip more than I normally would have. To make things worse, I didn't realise they were themed, and I signed up for the street art tour. Although it was interesting, I was looking for a historical tour. Luckily, she still gave bar and restaurant recommendations that helped throughout my time in Barcelona, but I would really like to know more about the history of a town. Either way, it was really interesting to see how the city was allowing for competitions between street artists to occur before eventually sanctioning specific artworks in certain popular spots around the city. This leads to a series of competitions that allow for different arists and artworks to be represented every few weeks. Not only this, but even the unofficial art locations require some etiquette to be followed. Generally speaking, the artists wait a few weeks before spray painting over old artwork. This leads to thousands of layers of spray pain that has created nearly an inch of elevates surface level from the actual wall (see photos). She then showed us around El Raval, the most dangerous part of town, but told some interesting stories about different pieces of artwork, similar to an open-air museum. There is the cat of El Raval, that was a temporary piece of artwork that became part of the communities image, and so when they tried to remove it, citizens protested and slept in front of it for weeks until the government agreed to leave it. She then finished with a story of a young man, who was a gay rights and human rights activist for the city back in the 90s, but was killed by police after a minor altercation. This led to the city creating murals, artwork, and a garden in memory. It also led to distrust of police that is heavily present to the current day.

The tour finished back at the hostel, and I relaxed for a little before walking back to explore the Gothic quarter. I came across a small market out the front of a cathedral, but continuing walking, I found the Mercado de La Boqueria. This is the main market of Barcelona, and it is also massive. It sold so much cool stuff that I couldn't believe it. Fruits, juices, seafood, meat, cheeses, alcohol, pastries, deserts, coffee, everything. It was awesome. With the crowds, it took quite a while to get through it all. I was spoilt for choice and wasn't sure what to get for food. In the end, I paid 3.5 euro and got a crispy wrap thing that was amazing, I wish I got a photo. It was similar to an aranchini ball. I then wandered around and discovered the amazing number of op shops that are present in Barcelona with heaps of cool shirts. I could have spent hundreds of euros, but my budget and bag would not allow for that. This was the end of my day as I then headed back to the hostel and had some beers with random people from the hostel. I met some Australians who were going to a rave and figured I'd join. But by the time I went to buy a ticket, it was sold out, and the rest of the hostel had left for the pub crawl. As such, I figured I would just head to bed and try again tomorrow night. It was still a very fun night of drinking at the hostel and getting to meet people. In hindsight, I should have joined the crawl. It was much cheaper, and I would have seen more of Barcelona. But there is always tomorrow night.Weiterlesen