BCN, 3:00 AM

And suddenly, I am deciding to take a bus and get close to Plaça Catalunya. It's 3 o'clock, and a few clouds make this evil hour more or less bearable. I thought the whole downtown would be slightly less than under siege, and there would be police cars everywhere. The doors of the shops would be full of eager merchants and dependents, waiting for a customer to come in, only because he was frightened by the terrifying environment, I thought, was to rule on the street. Not really. The only ones on the doors of the shops are employees who smoke, the cigarette of rushing after the lunch break. Everything is completely normal. If people do not buy it because they do not want to. 

In the center of the square there are hardly any such flocks of pigeons (is very bad to say that bother me, but I say it), and curiously not locate or positions where they sell food for them, along with sweets and junk food, or the perennial seller balloons on the hunt for parents with little waist. But nobody cares about them, this is a micro black bohemian who does not bother politicians. They worry about El Corte Ingles and Inditex Group stores. 

Indeed I have entered to the square entry that is facing one of the gates of El Corte Inglés. Banners and posters everywhere, all very homemade. One of them announced that retired and elderly people are welcome. Do not give me the hint. It seems that the poster does not have much capacity to convene. People camping at that time, it is mostly young: as much on the average thirty. Already, remember city, where and when we spoke, tourists taking photographs. Tourist buses depart going through the city less than 20 meters from the center of the protest. Way between the posts and I saw, to my chagrin, that everything is more or less as expected. Dreadlocks and piercing everywhere , even a snack bar, tattoos (I keep wondering who would rely on the security health of a tattoo done in these conditions.) Maybe I was there in a tattoo is better than a shirt. Diversity of races. Some people sleep, it’s 3 am and this is Barcelona, every good catalan it’s cold after having lunch. In a bar prepare a brew to recover minerals offered in recycled bottles, but my interest does not even to discuss whether free or will exchange. In other offer nothing, there ask raw material for preparing food, asking that other all materials, computer related, which shows they are planning to stay for a while. Calling modems. There piggy banks where you can make money for the cause. Several stalls collect signatures for various purposes. If you get beaten the day of cleaning, here the legal service. If you want to change any law or order any resignation (Felip Puig is the complete number 1 in this ranking) signs and wait patiently, your request will one day be served. There are tents closed (no posters do not disturb), and stores open, no doors. Many are from Decathlon. A sort of tent houses several groups of people sitting on the floor, here three, beyond six, four people there. In one of these groups someone playing a guitar. I'm afraid that group, I'm afraid to be singing Great is the Lord, or one of those horrible camp songs. There are notebooks and netbooks, webcams and what looks like a radio station, of course alternative radio. I do not know if you would to Radiohead, who recorded for Parlophone. Everything is posted on these boards characteristic brown, hastily scrawled with a marker, and with a curious domain of the spanish language. 

A poster criticizes nationalism, talks about Catalibania and Capitalunya. I'm surprised I had not fallen in the pun. Everything is very global. 

Just talk to a person, a Finn with blond dreadlocks and face smeared with blue, who speaks barely a word of Spanish, Catalan let alone. We chose English. I ended sitting next to a bank where he intended to put some order in my ideas, but ask (polite as I try to be) if you do not care if I sat there, the conversation has emerged gradually. Obviously nothing to do with my initial plan to interview several people and ask them questions about their situation and their daily existence in the camp. So he tells me there are no leaders, that this small outbreak of existing organization has sprung up spontaneously. That is not far from their land (in his native Finland I doubt I could stand barefoot as it is here beside me), because their land, their home, it may be, at this very moment, just those square meters where they are encamped. When I tell him older people I expected to see more (he should walk in his thirties) told me that maybe if I stay a while later to see if other people come from age. We shake hands at parting. I do not know if he trusts me or not. My looks relatively posh, especially in that environment (jeans, white polo, suede shoes carrying a time without being cleaned), I may not have seemed that of a policeman in civilian clothes, but certainly not that of a person willing to stay there, immediately. I grabbed my book of Kapuscinski, to acquire cache and hoping to find some crumbs of his inspiration. 

Now think about the type and I think I will take him a copy of what I write, as I spoke of the reason I had been there. It is still my first interview. 

If this movement is really headed in regards to camping in Barcelona, ​​do not know.There is a table behind which people craft also carries some credentials that identify them as personal communications. Spokespersons, leaders, representatives, whatever.I remember that I have spoken to the Finnish about Spanish word caudillo and the little that I liked. I remembered the Falange support this issue and it would be shocking to see here one of those guys with the blue shirt. I doubt that would fit this curious magma that has been generated. I heard, I think, a bit of reggae. The atmosphere is the dominant aesthetic movement squat, that curious amalgam of punks and hippies (completely unorthodox mix: punk was a response to mediocrity hippie symphonic rock roll and endless solos, 25 minutes). I do not know if they fall into this apparent inconsistency. I see no drugs, not just snuff, maybe some beer. Everything is as neat as a facility of this kind can be. 

I am disappointed. I expected to see something more diverse and I found a sort of theme park squatters' movement. I hoped that other less stigmatized stereotype was the dominant element here, or at least a perceptible element. If it is, not what it seems. In one house hung a sign saying Anger is a gift (Anger is a gift) and one poster read that 11-S was a lie. I do not think that's the road. On the other hand I wish this could get something positive, but, with or without visible leaders, I see our abominable political class negotiating anything with them. No, certainly, in any case in a hurry to return to their flats in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi to shower and change their suits, not the furry thing that they have been infected. 

As I said, at that time in this climate that falls into the summer, some of the campers sleep lying on their makeshift beds. Others serve, without great enthusiasm, the positions where they are. Offered and curious demand services, from languages ​​to courses of all kinds. It seems a fair, not of peoples, but those that are made to promote certain sectors, but unlike attractive stands and stunning hostesses dressed in uxury labels, which is a kind of ephemeral, everything here seems about to crumble. Many things and some people. I do not know who can give them strength, the anger can be a gift, but it makes you tired. 

As I leave, I have come across a guy wearing a shirt, some wear, the latest Indiana Jones movie. Hollywood is everywhere. 

Across the street I see this huge sign (perhaps 6Q made is right there). It seems appropriate, foreboding, but its only intention is to sell you a car. 

Walked the way back home and then I go into the first bar, and ask for a Coca-Cola.