A night on one of Barcelona's banned booze routes: "This is Las Vegas, bro."

BarcelonaAnd suddenly, when they least expect it, a bucket of pixum falls on them. It's the height of the night; the alcohol has completely uninhibited them. But suddenly, they're soaked and smell bad. The shouting and chanting they've been doing in the middle of the night in the middle of the street has astonished the neighbors, and the response makes one of them lose his temper: he breaks down the door of the building and goes upstairs to look for the culprits. He can't find the apartment in question, and his friends—those who haven't been splashed with urine—talk him into reason. He leaves the building he's vandalized and continues the party, for this is Barcelona and the night is young.

This week the City Council of the Catalan capital has announced which will ban the drunken routes that have long strained the city. However, in Ciutat Vella they have been banned for years.The city council's goal is to avoid scenes like the one initially described, which recently involved Belgian tourists and residents of the Gothic Quarter, who are trying to coexist with the incivility, filth, and nightlife. The tourists were members of the same drunken tour that the ARA (incognito) booked this Thursday. For fourteen euros, you're guaranteed access to three different bars and a nightclub in Barcelona.

The disappointment was immense when, 20 minutes before the meeting, the plan was canceled. There was a set time, place, and itinerary, but everything fell through just as we were almost at the first venue. The reason for the defeat is "the new regulations" in the city, the organizers tell us via a WhatsApp group with hundreds of people. Quickly, those who are most eager to party get organized. We sign up for another of the dozens of tours that still accept tourists. Looking for "pub crawl "Barcelona" on social media, you'll find several options with the same goal: drinking alcohol from bar to bar and having a good time. A tourist guide to the nightlife.

Once you pay the entry fee, you receive an email with the address of the first bar. The rest are unknown in the hands of the organizers, who are nervous about the regulations and closely monitor who signs up. The meeting is at 10:30 p.m. at the Royale Café, on Escudellers Street, in the Gothic Quarter, where, on paper, the pub crawls are prohibited. Between the smoke of the catximbes, a group of 15 men, some already drunk from home, who will be our companions for the night, are discovered. Inside, there are no Barcelona residents, just other people like them eager to party wildly.

Discreetly

When something is prohibited, it takes composure and few twists and turns to execute it. That's why the time is set. Chakib, the tour organizer, informs everyone, one by one, that they have five minutes left to change bars. But Chakib is uneasy. He asks more than necessary, and doesn't dwell on your profession, but rather on details that don't interest him: he just wants to check that you're not an infiltrator. He asks you where you're from, your name, what you do, how your business is going, which hotel you're sleeping in, and he even looks at the backpack you're carrying. "Why are you wearing a backpack to go out partying?" he asks. "Aren't you going to bring a camera?" he asks shortly after, forcing the zipper open to check that there's nothing suspicious. No one has said that filming isn't allowed. It's not even midnight yet, and each bar involves a drink or two, combinations that are not very popular in the country, like a tequila and soda.

The bar changes, which are never more than fifty meters apart, are punctuated by the hubbub of about fifteen men who expect (and make it explicit) that the next stop will not only be men, but also suddenly, as Chakib stealthily guides us from a distance. He wants to pretend that the noise is coming from a group of drunken men he doesn't know. From a bar on Escudellers Street, we move to Plaça Reial. It's less than five minutes on foot. In the middle of the group is Merlin. Being Dutch, blond-haired, and quite tall, he camouflages himself among the tourists who have dressed up in search of strong emotions, but, in reality, he is the other organizer of the drunken route. He admits that, before Tuesday's announcement by the City Council, groups were 60 people minimum and 150 maximum, and that each establishment gave away a free sip (now they don't encourage people to drink, they just guide them to do so). Given the increased controls, he admits they're trying to circumvent the ban by being more discreet. They continue to make calls through social media, maintain agreements with hotels to sell their products, and the agreements with bars are still in place. Merlin is a student and earns extra money by getting others to go out partying. He says he goes out too.

Local tourists

The aesthetic of the bars in the square, dark but illuminated by brightly colored lights, is repeated. In the era of reggaeton, the music is English-speaking. You're not allowed to drink wine or beer under half a liter. You have a poorly calculated half hour in each bar to down (more hurriedly than calmly) a generous and strong drink. The doorman at the bar asks you questions in English, the man selling perfumes in the bathroom asks you for a tip in the same language, and the waitress, surprised, says she's never heard Catalan in that place when you ask for two beers.

The second bar is called Karma and the third is Roma, both in Plaça Reial, arcades that over time have become a theme park. It's strange to feel like a foreigner in your city, and Moritz, a young German from Frankfurt who also participates in the drunken route, confirms this: "Barcelona is more like me than you," he jokes. When you tell him you're from Barcelona, he wonders in amazement what you're doing there. The Barcelona native is the party tourist in his city. And the natives are foreigners who don't aspire to visit anything the next day—"we'll see how we'll get by," says Moritz—because they're just looking for a happy hour A week in the city. It's not yet 1 a.m. "What's their goal? Alcohol and girls," says more than one person. "And if they don't get lucky, just drink for the sake of drinking."

The Germans sweat, in contrast to the immaculate Italians, who opt for open shirts that become increasingly unbuttoned as the night progresses. Andrea, one of the young Italians, He complains that every time they arrive at a bar, it's empty, and just when it starts to fill up with girls (he doesn't use this name to mention them), the organizers order them to move to another location. He's "disappointed" with the route. It's the agreement the organizers have with the bars: priority entry, but not during rush hour.

Chakib and Merlin try to get those on the route to get to know each other. When the men don't know what to talk about, they end up talking about football. Dyba, a Frenchman, is a PSG fan, and Moritz is a Bayern Munich fan. They're not in Barcelona, but in "Barça." Jonnhy, born in South Korea, raised in Costa Rica, living in New York, and alone in Barcelona waiting for his friends to land the next day, eventually gets fed up with it: "I'm not here to socialize with men, but to find my woman." He, an American from the Queens neighborhood, a technology employee, compares the city of sin with Barcelona: "This is Las Vegas, bro, what happens here stays here."

The route welcomes new people, mostly girls, who are disappointed when they enter the club (50 meters from the last bar, also in Plaza Reial) and see that it is empty, and that they will have to wait longer because the two of them are the entire group of drunk guys. a club at the other end of the square. Chakib gestures for the attendees to line up, and Merlin is already more into the party than work. Andrea when she shouts, in the middle of Plaza Reial, "And I want a pussy". The nightclub bouncer looks at him and, shortly after, with characteristic seriousness, declares the city council's new policy: "Their propaganda for the city is: 'Come and get drunk.' It's idiotic that they're banning it now."