There are many different types of tourists, as many as there are tourists. And many types of tourist observers, as many as those who do not go on holiday.
The city, acquires a "no-mans-land" tone, as if suddenly the United Nations had gone mad sending half of Mankind on a peace mission. The other half, which receives the tourists, squints with glee on seeing the hoards disembark from the modern invaders which kidnap, on a small scale, all in their path.
Barcelona is a party. The lions of the Colón monument, the salamander of the Gaudí Park and Snowdrop are the most portrayed animals of this catalan Babel Tower, with the difference that any charity organisation would be prepared to protect Snowdrop and, however, who would prevent the Colón lions from getting a disc hernia from all those tourists backsides sat on their backs every day? Who will fight so that those scaly mosaic tiles that dress the salamander will survive yet another year of the myriad of tourists from Eastern Europe?
Greenpeace should take a hand in the matter and, it wouldn,t be superfluous if Unesco declared the tourists the Heritage of Mankind...
...They bring a meaning to our lives for a few days. To see them stretched out on the grass of the Catalunya Square, sweaty in front of the Sagrada Familia, excited in the Pedrera, open-mouthed in the Ramblas allows us to travel free to the most remote confines of the planet. Without realising it, they bring out in us the boy scout that we all have inside and we show them, before they ask us, the direction they should take when, with the street map upsidedown, they can,t find the building they are looking, which is right behind them.
...the tourists are one of the most "fun fauna" of this everyday more "fucked-up" planet.
Joan Biosca
Barcelona 1998
