Spain any hookup's?

[casper51_50]

yo. im packing through spain, mostly madrid and barcelona. im lookin for locals on venues/shows/foodnotbombs/squats/kickitspots/cheap travel???
and also is hitchhiking still relatively legal or practical?

 

[stove]

legal yes. Spain and Italy are the two European countries KNOWN for being most difficult. Check out hitchwiki for details, or PM me with any specific questions. LOTS of squats, just show the symbol to some punks and ask.

 

[sullenmisty]

What symbol is it?

 

[casper51_50]

what ereas of town would you be most likely to find punks, can you narrow it down at all? its a big place.
thanks either way.

 

[stove]

Dude, not to be a dick, but go search out some punks in spain and ask them? You said that you are quite experienced (9 countries) in traveling around Europe, surely you've been able to find squats and punks in other places? Besides, a bunch of posers hanging out at a typical punk place is probably a dead end...just find some gutterpunks drinking on the sidewalk like you see in every city, and hit them up....

 

[casper51_50]

hey, also not tyrin to be a dick but i meant more of if you were going to london i would tell you to got to camdentown to have the best bet at finding kids, or to manchester you would go to the south end, or to prauha you would go to the west end. all i wanted was a region of town to narrow down the search.
as i wouldnt go to WALL STREET to find punks in ny. im know what im doin'. just lookin for a piont in the right direction.
thanks, i do appreciate it, Casper.

 

[nitepeepole]

if you're in granada there's the caves. a ton of peeps live in the caves. some even got them converted into modern living facilities with door and windows. they're right across from the alhambra

 

[axolotl]

in barcelona go to "plaza tripi" (named after lsd, tho it´s officially called Plaza George Orwell) behind the Plaza Reial for gutter punks

or usurpa.squat.net for addresses and events calendar of squats

 

[beermilkshake]

I would stay away from Plaza Trippy at night time. There are no squats there and thats where a lot of addicts hang out. Check out Barrilonia in La Rambla Raval right near Las Ramblas. They are good people but try and speak spanish to them. There is also the squat in front of the Gaudi park. There are a couple on the Gran Via too. They are everywhere in Barcelona so just keep an eye out.

Hitchiking is hard as shit if your more than one person (even then its hard) except for in Andalucia. Near Almeria on the Southern Coast is a squatted beach called San Pedro. Its like a 5 mile hike from a little town called Las Negras (you can take a bus there). Its beautiful, the people are hit or miss though,

 

[axolotl]

(rant):

not sure what kind of addicts you mean but at tripi most of what i saw used were hash, psychedelics, ecstasy or speed. i don´t use hard drugs but some of the most open and interesting people i met were there. sure there´s a local population of homeless alcoholics. my experience with homebums in barcelona is that there is a tighter community than in some other places, if you hang out and show you´re decent, you´re in, and nobody will let you go hungry (or thirsty, if that´s what you´re looking for).

the ajuntament is launching some nasty battles against what they call "itinerants," waking up anyone they see lying down in the street, making benches designed not to let anyone lay down, street drinking´s just been banned, etc. the newspapers gauged peoples´ reactions and they got a lot of letters saying stuff amounting to "keep the scum out of sight" or "i´m moving my family to a more civilzed place like paris where they don´t have to see homeless people." if you´re into politics i think raising your voice on this kind of issue might get more impact than the countless demonstrations of european youth supposedly raising consciousness about faraway injustices but i suspect the authorities and populace just get more and more used to ignoring hordes of what they see as frustrated youth.

anyway a lot of travelers also pass through plaza tripi, people who live like it seems a lot of people from this forum do, busking or spanging, hitchhiking, sleeping rough, etc. not uncommon to be sitting around with 3 people and between you you´ve been to like 50 countries, i think there´s a lot more potential for networking with potential road mates than in squats.

i don´t spend money when i can help it so i don´t go to punk bars or concerts. there are some nice workshops in some of the squats though to be honest i found catalan squatters very exclusive and unfriendly, which partly is an attitude shared by many catalans - please don´t take me as a racist, of all the people i got to know living in barcelona, be they a squatter, hobo, worker, or student, not a single one had a catalan friend.
the other issue i have with the squats, not just in barcelona, but all over europe wherever there is a "strong radical scene" is that this scene in reality has minimal dialogue with citizens at large who might benefit from sharing ideas, knowledge, and resources, and instead the squatting scene is a haven for young, well-off lifestyle anarchists who stocked up on leopard-print clothes before leaving their hometown for the big city... where they can create an pseudo-autonomous zone of different houses to play in and not have to deal with society. i don´t know, i´ve spoken with a lot of foreigners, more the typical "immigrant" than the typical "punky" (who nevertheless share many of the same ideals and have skills and dedication useful in a squat) who have had a lot of trouble finding a place in a squat because of the inevitable social politics that occur in any large group but which squatters, who have the opportunity to reexamine their interactions, often don´t...
if i show up in a new city i don´t automatically go looking for squats because house members are often mildly suspicious of newcomers or travelers and unless i want to stay long term i don´t usually have the energy to convince whoever is walking by on their way to the kitchen or whatever that i´m worthy of occupying (already highly contentious) space in their okupa.
and if you´re looking for an interesting conversation i find it a lot more stimulating to go to one of the de-facto squats filled with 3rd world immigrants who have no organization, just put up some planks for their bedroom walls, and get by collecting scrap metal, than going into a typical squat where most of the people already probably share your background and opinions on many things, but when you go in, you´re not going to talk politics or life stories or big ideas with anyone, you´re just going to be sitting on their couch as they all go about their daily life concerns. if you want to share that life with them you have to stake out a place in all the decision-making battles and crisscrossed alliances and feuds.

so i´m aware i´m going on a long and boring disgression which probably didn´t belong here, and while i would be interested to hear other people´s opinions on this, this is definitely not the thread, i got carried away.



(useful info


for those who don´t have my qualms:

a lot of the squats in barcelona do have a lot of cool activities for free, like yoga, capoeira, screenprinting workshops, films... all on the usurpa schedule.

there´s a free shop usually open mon, wed, and thurs evenings, or whenever the people running it feel like it, at la carboneria i think it´s called, big painted building in the roundabout at sant antoni metro

also an artist squat (called artkatraz, directions in usurpa) where they have movie nights and put on a circus theater thing

and another in the neighborhood, you´ll have to ask someone but it´s called la makabra, where every day except sunday they´re open to the public from 11 am til 10 pm with a gym where you can lift weights, use circus ropes, stretch, etc, sometimes there´s classes and you can also sit around on couches in the entrance talking to whoever´s there. if you don´t have a place to shower you can ask them.

if you´re sleeping outside or even just walking around with all your belongings, be aware that there are a lot of professional theives and amateur opportunists in bcn, don´t let your bag out of your sight unless it´s in the hands of someone you trust.
if it´s small enough and you want to leave it somewhere for a few hours, the bigger libraries have lockers.



elsewhere in catalunya, like an hour north from sitges in the mountains there is supposed to be a squatted village, very rustic though, i don´t know what they do for food, water, energy. there are a bunch of newly squatted villages in spain actually, you´d have to ask around though.

for all of spain, sindinero.org and blog sindinero.org - Sin dinero : ahorrar, trueque, bancos de tiempo, ocio gratuito, formación gratuita, viajar gratis...y mucho más. have news and info about anti-capitalist events, freegan tricks, etc


i´ve been thinking about going to the south of spain, is san pedro warm in winter? and what were the people like?