Equity Point Hostels

MY POINT OF VIEW 16 (by Tatiana Sisquella)

While walking around Barcelona, perhaps the more observant among you will have noticed that the city’s fountains are empty. There’s no water in them. It’s the same with the artificial lakes, the public swimming pools and all the other places where the water doesn’t have a vital and essential function.

Don’t go thinking, though, that this is because we are as tight-fisted as all the clichés make us out to be. The reason is much more serious and worrying than that: it’s due to the serious drought that we’ve been suffering for far too many months now.
 

MY POINT OF VIEW 15 (by Tatiana Sisquella)

Today I want to take you on an excursion. Yes, that’s right, just like the excursions we used to go on when we were kids. So get out your lunch-box, put on some strong shoes and hang your camera around your neck, because we’re going to the mountains.

Barcelona has two big mountains: Montjuïc and Tibidabo. What’s more, these two mountains (depending on where you’re looking from) are face to face with each other, challenging and motionless, although in fact they’re constantly changing. They have both aged in different ways, and have shrunk more than a little (one at the top, and the other at the bottom). Years ago there was a fun fair on each of them, but, as often happens when two things are too much alike in the same city, it’s difficult for them to live in harmony. And no, I’m not talking about the Espanyol and Barcelona football clubs, although I could be, but that’s another subject. Let’s get back to strong emotions.

MY POINT OF VIEW 14 (by Tatiana Sisquella)

Roses, books, books, roses, people, roses, books, people, books, people, roses, books, books, more roses and more people…

Because today no other words are needed to talk about this Catalan tradition: Sant Jordi's Day. If you want to know why we celebrate it look it up in Google, because I want to talk to you, describe, explain what happens on our streets for a few hours on April 23rd.

 
Very early in the morning, when it's still so dark we should really call it night, the florists who sell flowers wholesale at the 'Mercat Central' flower market, have everything ready to receive the last rose buyers. We say last, because the professionals have done all their work days before. This day, and there are a lot of people (particularly young people who want to make some quick money) who spend the day selling red roses together with an ear of corn and a ribbon with the 'Senyera' (the flag of Catalonia). To enter the market you need a special permit, but I can tell you from my own experience that at around 7 in the morning they let everyone in... and the sight is really worth seeing!

Once the flowers have been sold, it is a joy to walk around any of the streets, let yourselves be carried away by the smell of roses and stop at a bar to have breakfast while you watch people putting up the stalls of books and roses that hours later will be immersed in the crowds.

Every year, on April 23rd, all the streets, squares, alleyways and roads around the city will be bursting with people looking for a book for him and a rose for her. On this day there is no rose more beautiful than another or book better than another: there is your book and the rose that you give or the rose you receive and the book you give.