Without a Traceroute

I took a train to Barcelona, it was a slow regional train that took five hours to cover the 350 km between Valencia and Barcelona. I’m not a big fan of the hostel that Danny and I are staying at. It’s way outside the center of town, one stop from the end of the metro line. Also, the desk clerk last night was kind of a huge dick, he kept yelling at people for being too loud and threatening to call the cops and have them thrown out (even after they had quieted down a lot) and refused to let Danny use the kitchen to make food (because of noise?). We chose this hostel because it has laundry, and we need to wash our Tomatina stuff, but I think I’ll check out today.

I stayed up to watch Obama’s acceptance speech along with an Irish guy from Cork. Bizarrely, the desk clerk guy was nice later, he gave us several free beers and actually cooked us a Spanish omlette (?!). He kept talking about how he was “just doing his job” by yelling at people. Then during Obama’s speech he went on a long rant that I didn’t entirely follow about how bullshit politics is and how I shouldn’t care about politics but should spend more time worrying about fast motorcycles and girls. Not that I don’t think motorcycles and girls are awesome, but there’s no reason that should preclude an interest in politics.

Anyway, I got a tip from one of the Dutch hackers about a hacklab that’s here in Barcelona, so I think I’m going to try to check that out today, and also try find a better place to stay. I think I’m getting sick, too. My nose has been kind of stuffy and I’ve felt dried out with a sore throat for a day or so.

There was a big protest march in Barcelona yesterday. They passed down Las Ramblas which is the biggest tourist drag in town. There were quite a few demonstrators. The ones in the front of the march seemed very militant. They were shouting slogans and throwing flash-bang fireworks (you can see the smoke from one in the first phot below), but the march seemed orderly and not violent. There were some demonstrators wearing masks and sunglasses who were tagging buildings along the street with spraypaint. The police were following the march in vans but weren’t interfering, even to stop the vandalism. By later that night, almost all the grafitti had been cleaned off.

As near as I can make out from talking to a few of the protesters and searching online, Amadeu Casellas is an anarchist who robbed banks in the 70s and 80s in order to finance labor demonstrations. He was sent to prison and has been there for 22 years. Some of the sites claim that 20 years is the maximum allowed sentence for his crime. In any case, Casellas has apparently been on a hunger strike for the last 70 days and this demonstration was in support of him/his freedom.

On the one hand, a convicted bank robber seems like a lousy choice to rally around. On the other hand, 70 days is a freaking long time to be on a hunger strike. I’d be curious to learn more about the situation, but all the information online seems to be pro-Casellas propaganda, so it’s hard to know what’s really the truth.