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Catalonia is not Spain or France.

What is this place anyway? I'm really confused. Stop telling me what this place isn't si us plau, por favor, please, s'il vous plait ... too much negative energy.

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Due to a move and Telefonica’s ineptness I have been without internet for over a week. I won't bitch anymore, since bitching about Telefonica is so commonplace it's actually a cliché, and there's probably enough clichés in this blog already ...

Anyway, I’m back.

I noticed Iberian Notes has accused me of hostility towards tourists. That is simply not fair. I was a tourist once … not anymore. But I will say this:

I don’t hate tourists. I just seem to feel better when they’re not around.

John at Iberian Notes obviously doesn’t live in the center. I no longer do, fortunately, but I did drive down the Ramblas last Saturday and was appalled at the amount of tourists gawking and stumbling around.

You can hardly drive, let alone walk that drag. It’s a money-making machine for tourists. Luxury liners arrive so often you could set a clock to them. Easyjet and Ryanair constantly roar in and out of El Prat with bleary-eyed stag and hen parties …

I wasn't sure what subtitle to use: Lost Highway, The Road to Perdition, or Beer and Loathing in Lloret. Take your pick.

The center of Barcelona is almost exclusively comprised of tourists, especially this time of year. So anybody looking for the world’s biggest drunken Erasmus party can start on las Ramblas, then move on to Lloret. Good luck finding Spain.

The solution is simple: build an Easyhotel on the Forum site, construct a small world version of Spain complete with animatronic bullfighting and flamenco, and hype the encantos of “Chernobyl beach" (which is right next to a giant water-filtering plant, a short walk from the Forum site). Send all the tourists there. After a week, ship them back out …

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The view from my terrazita, 9 stories up (sobre-sobre atico). Paz.