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BarcelonaAs a lover of Gonzo journalism, I take advantage of the fact that the newspaper's deputy director is sending me to "cover" (what a beautiful verb) the demonstration in Barcelona to take a detour. I have only recently become a driver (so recently that I have a provisional license and I still can't go to Andorra, which is one of my next goals), so I will do what everyone would advise against: I'm going to see the demo by car. They say it starts from the Jardinets de Gràcia and passes through Còrsega street. I turn on the voice of the woman who doesn't judge me when I miss exits, and she really should, since she mispronounces the word "passeig" and says "passet". She makes me go towards the "branch" and then says it will take me almost an hour from my little village.

On the Meridiana, however, a few Guàrdia Urbana officers have blocked traffic. They have blocked us. Since those behind don't see it, that we've been blocked, they start honking. "Beep-beep", one goes. "Beep-beep-beep", the other goes then. They all catch on and it's fun to hear, because it's a protest that leads nowhere. They divert us to the right. The voice has gone crazy and tells me to change direction, but then retracts and makes me go towards Jaume Pinell street, who I'll have to look up to see who he is. The Hipercor looked half-open and, on the other side, a store full of many colors, Primaprix, was too. I drive around a few times and find myself, I don't know how, in front of the officers.

This time I pay more attention to the voice and head down a street of low houses, very neat and beautiful, a vestige of other times. I see signs for Sabadell, where am I? Barbers, fruit sellers, bazaars remain open, far from the center. Nothing seems to indicate that it's a day of demonstration. Well, well. I see a street that sounds familiar. The voice says to go down, but I turn right and, by those quirks of fate, I return to the point with the officers. I think of that short story by Pere Calders, about a surveyor (when I read it I didn't know what a surveyor was) who travels on horseback and, to make the return home more bearable, plays at imagining that at every turn he will find his house. And at every turn he finds his house.

The officers, however, when I was about to turn right again, clear the way. Everything is going well for me. The temperature is perfect; the steering wheel, round; the radio is playing in stereo. I move forward at ten per hour towards the ethereal “center”. I arrive in Gràcia, don't ask me how, and I see a P for Parking. I think: “Quiet; you park, you watch the demo from inside and you go home”. But behold, in Gràcia everyone is walking in the middle of the street, with very homemade cardboard signs, and I find myself on Torrent de l’Olla street at the height of Còrsega. A local policeman stops us. The demo is passing right in front. A man, when he sees my intention to move further ahead (to see it well), rebukes me. He makes an eloquent gesture with his hands that means: “Are you going to the right or to the left? Well, choose!” I apologize in such a heartfelt way that he smiles. To our left there is an open bar. The Arlequino bar. I stop (I do everything I’m supposed to) and I ask the local policeman if we have long to wait. He tells me that until everyone passes we cannot move. Families with strollers, many locals from Gràcia on bikes (on the side), young people, many men with caps. And they go very slowly and very spaced out. In Catalonia, with the whole Process, we are used to very dense demonstrations. Here nobody is sweating.

I go to the bar and order some croquettes. “We have no fear, this isn’t Blocus,” the waitress tells me. I am about to make my first McDrive. Next to me, a car driven by two men (one of them, tall and lean, is called “Príncipe”) carries a locksmith’s sign. I share croquettes with them and ask them if they are heading to an emergency. Yes. “And how come you’re coming through here?” It seems it caught them by surprise. They did know there was a strike, but not really who was calling it or who it was against. There is a neighbor waiting for them to arrive, sitting on the stairs.

The protest moves forward, the drivers are putting down roots and only I, with the unexpected and libertarian “L” (learner plate), smile and dust off the steering wheel with some wet wipes I bought (and which must be incredibly polluting). I take notes and take notes, but I too am starting to get tired. If they take as long as a race, we will be here for hours, at home they will worry. We hear a firecracker, in the distance, and the smell of gunpowder. There is applause. On the sidewalk, a woman watches the protesters as they continue to pass by. I roll down the window (and what a pleasure it is, for a novice driver, to roll down the window) and ask her what she thinks of it. “I don’t like this strike,” she tells me. “Don’t you agree with what they are asking for?”, I ask her (and I turn down the radio, with a happy gesture). “It’s like asking for world peace. Sure.” I smile. The words “worker”, “union”, are difficult to pronounce today with normality. But shouldn’t this be the youth’s strike? In this section, there aren’t many. People walk, without much hope, with the minimum of conviction. I say goodbye to her and close the window.

And then, when everyone was already losing patience, something happens. An ambulance, behind us, sounds its siren to ask for passage. The traffic cop, then, stops the protesters and lets us all pass, because that way we will let the ambulance pass. We cross the Rubicon! The ambulance overtakes us and two meters further on turns off its sirens. I look at the traffic cop, but he doesn’t look at me. Is it a trick? Has the ambulance served to let us pass without it being noticed? All of us continue our personal protest, the one that will take us, one after the other, to a specific place; perhaps, like me, home.