Chapter 9: Somewhere above Barcelona

A secret rave somewhere in the hills, a hungover day in Montserrat and a Sunday in the park.

by Karl

The nice thing about my lows is that they usually don't stay quite that low forever.

So I got myself up and started another day.

Apart from the usual Spanish class, I didn't have much of a plan. I ordered something through Too Good To Go and decided to stop by the sex shop to visit a certain little elf at work.

On the way, some flowers caught my eye. Bridget's sister had her birthday that weekend, so I spontaneously picked up a bouquet for her.

Possibly a present for me as well, because honestly, is there a better feeling than walking through sunny streets carrying flowers?

I still had my second salsa class later that day, but the more interesting plan was waiting for the evening.

I rushed home afterwards, showered and got ready to meet Lucie and Viviana and some of their friends.

Apparently, there was a secret rave happening somewhere in Barcelona that night.

And, importantly, they had the location.

It took us a while to find the place.

Secret Place

We walked there with a beer I actually kept the label because I thought it was ridiculously cute and, more importantly, my beloved Takis.

Seriously, eat Takis.

We kept walking further and further into the less built-up parts of the city until we were following a road uphill and suddenly turned straight into the bushes.

From there it was over rocks, through shrubs and past cacti, along with what felt like half the people in Barcelona looking for the same rave. At one point, roughly 200 of us were effectively trampling through the front yard of a man living out there, which felt slightly absurd.

Eventually we reached a reasonably flat patch of ground hidden from view by an old wall.

A small group had set up a DJ booth, and people were already dancing wildly in front of it.

Apparently, we had found it.

The rest of the night was less of a story and more of a blur of dancing, drinking, smoking, looking out over the city and conversations that somehow got deeper and deeper.

There wasn't one big moment to tell. We were just there, somewhere above Barcelona, for a few hours.

I stayed until somewhere around three or four in the morning, which, at 27, I consider a perfectly respectable effort.

The rave was still going when I left, but I was done for the night and started making my way home.

Montserrat with a hangover

The next day was considerably quieter.

I was hungover, mostly on my own and very happy to let an audiobook do most of the talking for a while.

I actually tried to get to Montserrat earlier, missed the train, went back, did some work and tried again later.

Second attempt worked.

Montserrat

I spent the afternoon walking around the mountain, looking at this and that, getting slightly lost on a small path, watching climbers and taking photos.

At one point, I spent 37 minutes deciding how to photograph a sloping street: tilt the camera with it so the street looked straight and the photo technically crooked, or keep the camera straight so you could actually see how steep the street was.

Important decisions.

Most of the time, I had an audiobook playing in my ears and just kept walking.

It was a very relaxed day. It didn't ask much of me, which was probably exactly what I needed.

In the evening, I met Carli and we went dancing.

We were both happy to see each other again, and after a day spent mostly alone, that was a pretty good way to end it.

Flow Star in the park

Bridget had been away for the weekend for her sister's birthday, so we had planned to meet in the park on Sunday afternoon.

I spent the morning catching up on some work I'd left behind, then headed to a park I already knew from dancing there before.

When I arrived, Mo was just about to leave. We only had time for a quick hello and a photo before he headed off.

After that, Bridget and I mostly lay in the grass, talked and tried not to get burned by the sun. She had brought her Flow Star with her and showed me how to use it, so we played around with that for a while and took some photos. I showed her a little bit 21of dancing too.

It was simply a nice, slow afternoon in the sun.

Gran Clariana