It rains in Barcelona

[dropcap letter="I"]

This spring, it rains from time to time, yes, in Barcelona! Or so they say: many days I'm engrossed in my work and don't even notice, until I see a series of loud tweets that start a round of correspondents and explain, neighborhood by neighborhood, how the downpour is going. Then I look out the window and see that, indeed, it's raining: for once they haven't slipped me a fake news.

The years that drought is not among the "ranking of the main problems of Barcelona residents," rain is more of an externality, an unwanted side effect. A drag, really, that hinders our strenuous daily race to nowhere. Here it's not that the rain doesn't know how to rain, it's that Barcelona residents don't know how to live with the rain, and the manual of seny i rauxa—that sanity and promptness that Catalans consider natural to them—says nothing about how to get wet. Galicians, not even umbrellas, listen! When it rains in Barcelona, bad mood prevails and drivers let out (even more) insults. It doesn't matter if the water washes away the crap from the windshield, a downpour means curses and bad temper. Suddenly, buses get sardined and smell of dampness, metro platforms flood—from leaks, and some wise person pours sawdust and it all ends up in a muddy mess of chap-chap. There isn't a single taxi and trying to walk to places is a guarantee of arriving soaked like a duck and chaining sneezes the next day. A nuisance, really.

In the center, the rain means the tourist bus puts up its awning and the Japanese take out those flashy raincoats they bought at Eurodisney: square as they are, they’ve carried them all day because their iPhone recommended it. The dozens of Pakistanis who, punctual as snails, appear as soon as the first drops fall selling umbrellas for three euros, must also have checked the weather online first thing in the morning. The tourists who have thought ahead, sport the courtesy umbrellas from the hotels—Melià, Hotel H10, gigantic and unnecessary, creating even more traffic jams and collisions in the already small streets of the Gothic Quarter. However, in the Raval, the prostitutes and pimps of Pau Miró end up completely soaked. You know that girl is hipster by her transparent umbrella, you know that neighbor is local by the bag on her head protecting her perm. The flip-flop seller in Plaza de Cataluña yawns, aware that today she won't make a killing—wet streets, dry cash registers. They will only make money at the shoe store next door, as those who were wearing flip-flops now rush to put on normal shoes. In the Burger King restroom, a shrimp mother tries to dry her son's socks with the electric dryer, as her little prawn is crazy about stepping in puddles. If the astral alignment has called for a gale, the trash cans will fill with crippled umbrellas that have not withstood the battle, and if it has been a heavy downpour, the bars will make a killing for a while, between the Voll Damms of those who take it easy and the huffs of those who look at their watch because they are late for who knows where.

Fortunately, the rain in Barcelona doesn't last long, the duration of this small drill. Soon we will put away our umbrellas again—and inevitably leave them everywhere, and the terraces, suddenly emptied, will come back to life: a waiter will shake water off tables and chairs, some elderly gentleman will lament a slip, and everything will return to its place.