THE WORLD
Barcelona |
Valencia |
Madrid
Updated Sunday, 9May2021-09: 20
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This midnight Spain lifted the
state of alarm in
force since October, and Spain decided to go out to celebrate it.
In many regions the end of the state of alarm also meant the fall of the curfew that had prevailed for months.
In Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Salamanca and many other cities, the excitement to get out of the state of alarm led thousands of Spaniards to take to the streets to celebrate.
"" I was up to the balls of not being able to go out, I have felt frustrated, tied, without freedom, "shouted a young woman from Madrid last night.
Party last night on the beach in Barcelona.REUTERS
The 'interruptus' warmest day of the year in Barcelona
GERARD MELGAR
Perhaps it was up to the stars that the
end of the curfew
in
Barcelona
coincided
with the hottest day of the year, with temperatures that in some areas of the city reached 24 degrees yesterday. It is not surprising, then, that, without bars open from five in the afternoon [today is the first day in
Catalonia
that they will be able to do so until 23.00h], the beach and some squares were taken during the evening hours by thousands of people, a scene that, after the end of winter, has been common on weekends.
But the particularity of yesterday's day was "those two silly hours" that broke "the good vibes on Saturday," as Efrén, a 29-year-old young man explains, after eating in a Galician restaurant with his father and sister, He spent the afternoon with a group of friends on
the busy Lluís Companys promenade
, next to the Arc de Triomphe. He does not live very far from there, so he explains that, "after having dinner a little at home", he would go back to the street after twelve simply to go for a walk with Ruth, his partner, who no longer remembers the last time they did it. at night. The avenue, which had been practically empty at the stroke of half past nine, was once again recovering the bustle of the afternoon.
In
a kind of postponed New Year's Eve or early San Juan festival
, the midnight time point has been celebrated with firecrackers, various chants and horns of motorcycles and cars in Gracia. Also with some boo to the patrol cars of the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Urban Guard that circulate guarding the area. Cécile, who arrived in Barcelona a little over two years ago from Lyon (France), had planned to spend the night with several friends of other nationalities in the Virreina and other squares in the neighborhood "drinking a few beers." The group knows that this is not allowed, but what it does not know is that, despite the
end of the state of alarm
, there is still a limit of six people for social gatherings, which they far exceed. Although, in reality, with so many people the boundaries between groups have already become a fuzzy concept. In the midst of shouts and refrains in English, Cécile explains that she had
watched "with envy", for months, "French parties in Madrid"
.
In the nearby
Joanic square
, the jarana gives way to sport. While two boys play table tennis with great motivation, another five throw a round with a ball and a bicycle is also seen a few meters away. Among the football fans, Isaac, who wears an RCD Espanyol shirt to celebrate the mathematical promotion of the club to the First Division achieved in the afternoon, comments:
"We can finally be out on the streets at night and not feel like criminals
.
"
As the morning progresses, the level of joy recedes a few decibels, but at times the sirens are in charge of remembering that
the police device prepared in the city is similar to that of New Year's Eve
.
Municipal agents are already trained from Friday to Saturday night, in which they had to evict 1,320 people from public roads, one of the highest figures since the implementation of the curfew.
It is clear that
in Barcelona there was desire at night
.
Efrén and Ruth agreed months ago that on the first day of 2021 that they could go to dinner at a restaurant, they would reserve a table on a terrace.
It's your plan for this Sunday.
In this case, she does remember when it was the last time: in August, for her birthday.
Full terraces last night in Valencia. THE WORLD
Valencia: The party, for next weekend
NOA DE LA TORRE |
INMA LIDÓN
the end of the state of alarm has caught Valencians ... at home.
The paradox is that on Saturday the curfew was still in force from 10 p.m., which only relaxes and begins at midnight this first Sunday without a state of alarm.
"Auntie, I hope they would close later,"
Nerea replies when asked how she lives the last hours of a few unpublished months that have had adolescents like her confined at home without a Saturday night.
Neither has there been this last weekend, which has meant a before and after in much of Spain. The
curfew
has meant for Valencia a profound change in the way they (not) live the night. Nerea and her four friends have gotten used to buying beers in one of those small shops in the central Carmen neighborhood where tourists used to gather looking at souvenirs and
young people raiding the shelves of the drink
.
Today there are hardly any tourists in Carmen and the
bottles bring
together a small group of students in the afternoon mode. The historic neighborhood of Valencia has ended up being forcibly transformed into that, an area of late or almost exclusively due to the curfew. Waiters who used to approach foreigners in the middle of the street with dinner menus, this Saturday can only offer
"shots and gin and tonics at six euros
.
"
It is 9 pm. How is your day? "Normal". And he raises his eyebrow and twists his mouth.
Because,
can a Saturday without a night be normal?
The hoteliers have been asking the Valencian Government for a long time to be able to extend the hours to serve dinners.
The terraces of a neighborhood used to staying up late are full, but only with people drinking.
Just eating a few bravas.
Roteros Street is the image that sums up the mood of a city hit by the pandemic.
In just a few meters, the famous Gallina Negra and Mattilda restaurants are closed.
The one from Roteros 3, with the 'for sale' sign.
And that of Volare, with that of 'for rent'.
Its owner, Karina, complained in February that with so much restriction she had not worked for almost a year.
This Saturday was not, of course
.
Ruzafa is the other trendy neighborhood to go out and stay up late.
Or it was in pre-pandemic Valencia.
Because from the afternoon on the terraces you go to the party at home.
At 9 pm there were already those who were preparing in the supermarkets: ice bags and drinks.
"We are going
to continue at home
. From 12 o'clock it is legal for us to be ten. Of course, we will have to extend until six in the morning," joked a group of friends.
And if with this of not leaving we have gotten used to getting up early, at least the first Sunday without a state of alarm brings good news: the first popular race that the Valencian capital has hosted since the start of the pandemic.
The party, for the next weekend
.
When Saturday has night again.
Thousands of Madrilenians last night at Puerta del Sol.REUTERS
Madrid or the new year's eve of the alarm state
JUAN DIEGO MADUEÑO
Marco yells at the cars that were driving down Gran Vía from a balcony.
The drivers whistle to the group of people who applaud in Callao.
The Schweppes poster lights up Spring New Year's Eve at the stroke of midnight, the Iberian Times Square
through which the pandemic levee was broken on the early morning of May 9
about two years ago.
Madrid celebrated the end of the state of alarm in a spree lined with corners, squares, flats, hotels and private rooms.
As in Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao or Valencia, the other cities in which the first minute of Sunday broke the spell of the BOE and allowed the post-writers, the
outlaw
of the drunks, to circulate freely again.
It is room 330 of the Regente Hotel, a three-star hotel accessed from Mesoneros street, which was sensed behind the boy who was recording passers-by with his mobile from the third floor. Together with three friends, Guille, Sabi, and Álex, all 18 years old, and two French exchange students, Solene and Marie, 21, they were
celebrating "the end of the curfew" and a stroke of fortune
. The four arrived "at four in the afternoon" from Arganda del Rey "to see what was happening in the city." At 10 pm they bet 100 euros on number 6 on the roulette wheel in a downtown casino. "My birthday. I said put six as my birthday," explains Sebi, "and look, look. This is more than 3,000 euros."
They scatter the greenbacks on the bed.
The girls don't seem surprised.
"They are nice," they say.
They were approached on the street.
" We
needed a charger. They offered up to his house and told them to bring the charger to the hotel.
The receptionist told us we could not do parties
. And we have brought
laj
guiris".
-You, you, they know Spanish.
Solene and Marie light a cigarette.
"We have made a fix," Guille points out to the ceiling: they have covered the smoke detector with newspaper.
According to the Regent's worker,
"it is common for groups of friends to appear on weekends
who pay for a room to spend the night."
Between the four they have paid "70 euros".
When you get out of the elevator you can hear the music.
Colored lights wriggle through the crack in the door.
[Read the full chronicle here]
Full terraces last night in Seville.GOGO LOBATO
Seville stays up late again on its crowded terraces
TERESA LÓPEZ PAVÓN
|
A.GARCÍA ROMERO
Nightlife is
once again at night in Seville
and some bars and clubs, which had adapted their schedules and customs to the 'late', open at night with more fear than confidence that the reopening has come to stay. The staff has packed the terraces this Saturday and, at times, turned the Plaza de la Alameda into an improvised dance floor.
Andalusia decided to give relief to hoteliers and businessmen of the night by approving the most lax hours in the country: 12 at night for restaurants and 2 in the morning for bars and discos. In practice, the last curfew was consummated on Friday because, on Saturday night, it has been extraordinarily allowed to extend the evening until 12 o'clock, coinciding with the end of the state of alarm and the recovery of freedom of movement. . Juanma Moreno has spared Andalusians (those eager to take to the streets) the absurdity of that
'ghost hour'
of transition that was actually a call to insubordination.
At 11 o'clock in the Alameda, one of the obligatory spaces of the alternate in the city, the staff has spontaneously burst into applause.
No more running like Cinderella.
Others have toasted as if it were New Year's Eve, following (probably without knowing it)
Martita de Graná's recommendation
.
Little by little the enthusiasm grows and the center of the square, always bustling, begins to liven up with
choral singing and dancing
.
Here you also live
the Madrilenian way
.
In the other hot spot of the night, the Paseo Colón, after 12, the high tables of the outdoor terraces of the Bribón, el, Monkey Piper, Kepler, Dada or Colón 5, are packed.
Masks are hardly seen among customers, not even among those who, although not many, drink indoors.
For now, the dance floors are prohibited as long as the alert level 1 is not lowered, but the staff feels the desire to move their body and the loud music is a provocation. In Chile, the access control prevents us from entering because
the capacity is full.
At the Terraza Casino, it is just after 12 when they are already evicting the last customers. Juan Antonio Cano kindly explains to us at the door that they have decided to close before to avoid having problems at the last minute. "There are places that are also advancing the closure and we do not want all the personnel to come here." "We are going to try little by little."
Early morning groping
.
Clients and establishments are measured forces.
If we continue downstream we reach Alfonso, Bilindo and Líbano, next to María Luisa Park.
The last drink must be scheduled in advance because it is just after one o'clock and entry into any of them is no longer allowed.
The bars are closed although there are still a lot of customers inside (outdoor terraces).
Several local police patrols make the rounds in the vicinity to ensure that the closure is fulfilled at 2. Practically all these establishments have been working in recent months despite the restriction of hours.
[Read the full chronicle here]
The radicals 'heat up' a night of kalimotxo and reggaeton in the Basque parks
JOSEAN IZARRA
"Murderer, torturer, zipaio, txakurra ...", the young man from Ernai (gray padded vest, black pants, black mask)
faced
the rest
with two young ertzainas
in plainclothes. The two policemen shared a bench in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca in Vitoria in front of the PNV headquarters. Accused and booed, they endured the jerk, the jerk first, and left two minutes later. Four hours later, without a
state of alarm
and in the same place, three hundred young people booed a Local Police patrol that had dared to ask for the music to be turned down from a loudspeaker that had turned the emblematic Vitorian square into a nightclub. reggaeton.
And the thing is that the chimes at 12 o'clock on Saturday night
threw thousands of young
Basques
into the squares, parks and streets of Euskadi
. "Happy New Year!" Noa shouted along with Oihana and Maitane five minutes after the end of the curfew. The three of them, on bicycles, were celebrating the beginning of a strange night. A 'happy new year' in May, with almost thirty degrees and overflowing with joy as they circulated in front of the Ajuria Enea palace, the (almost) empty residence of the Lehendakari Urkullu.
The night in Vitoria was overheating after an afternoon turned into the best aperitif for a "gaupasa" (party night) that was left halfway through.
"We go out for sure, but where?"
Sara, Iñaki and Koldo shared after 9:30 p.m. with hundreds of young people milling around at the crossroads between Portal del Rey and Nueva Street Outside Vitoria with the bars already closed. The masks in the massive groups of young people were the exception, the bodies were tightened and four friends contemplated a boy vomiting at the entrance of the 'Pinto'.
At 300 meters, and in the heart of the city, the youths of the abertzale left placed leashes and dog muzzles in front of the photograph of Urkullu, the deputy general of Álava Ramiro Gonález and the mayor of Vitoria Gorka Urtaran placed at the door of the PNV headquarters. After insulting the two plainclothes policemen and applauding a plea in favor of the "struggle"
the young people dispersed through the center of the city
. The 'curfew' of 10 pm was still in place and, after midnight, there is no record of any incident of Ernai with the Ertzaintza.
The launching of rockets, and even fireworks in some Basque towns such as Bermeo, gave way to the comings and goings of gangs that, without bars or discos, took over benches, sidewalks and stairs. On the wide wall of José Erbina street in Vitoria, next to the Renfe tracks, hundreds of young people shared bottles of Coca-Cola mixed with cheap red. A
'kalimotxo'
hand in hand with their legs dangling with shouts while from a nearby apartment a dozen young people shared two balconies and sang the 'Yellow submarine' with a guitar.
Between them, stuck to the side of the Renfe station, three uniformed ertzainas kept silent, glued to the van with the Basque Police badges.
After more than an hour of revelry, the most anticipated night had just begun and the order was to hold on.
16 arrested in Palma after a rally against restrictions
EFE
The National Police have arrested 16 people tonight for causing altercations in a concentration in the
Plaza de España in Palma
of about 200 people contrary to the preventive restrictions of the
Covid-19
.
Around 11 p.m., when the curfew began, which is still in force in the Balearic Islands with the endorsement of the Superior Court of Justice, many young people concentrated in the central square of the Balearic capital
chanting slogans against the Government
, the restrictive measures, the masks and the closure of the hospitality industry.
The police ordered them to disband on several occasions, but the concentrates ignored the orders and threw objects at the agents, including some stones, sources close to the police station have informed EFE.
Faced with this situation,
a police charge
was carried out
against the protesters, who dispersed in the streets surrounding the Plaza de España destroying urban furniture such as wastebaskets and benches.
The agents carried out 16 arrests of young people who acted with violence or repeatedly disobeyed their orders.
The incidents went on for about an hour.
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