Fasaa
Rey
an
dilin
WHAT ABOUT
BARCELONA?
So it's the fall term of my junior year at
Dartmouth College, and I am living in Barcelona
on a foreign exchange dealy-bobber. These pro
grums are generally a huge score, an easy work-
load, beautiful places and all-around cool stuff.
just one catch-it's in another language. We had
our weekends free to travel anand and check out
the country and this is where I met the freshest
bunch of skaters ever. The skaters in Barcelona
almost literally live at the train station Plaza de
Sants. I never once dropped by when at least a
handful of these kids weren't hanging out. I
would stop by during the week and make it a
point to be at the station for a few hours before
scholastic excursions."
De Sants is, like almost everything else in
Barcelona, an enormous work of modern art,
The fountain that served as the most skarable
terrain was basically a bunch of pipes coming out
of the ground with sloped steps in all sorts of
directions to catch the mist that the pipes let out.
though they only turned them on once in a while
so the steps provided most of the fun, as I can
only imagine the pipes were the other source of
fun during the summer with the old-school sprin
kler and underoos routine. There was this
mousey linle kid people called "Pito. which is
baby-talk in Spanish for "lil wanker" who had
a crazy old-school, freestyle. Per
Welinder/Rodney Mullen style. He would do
these huge fingerflips (duet taped) and wheelie
about a hundred yards before kickflipping into
the fountain. A super nice guy and he could
juggle like no man's business as well.
I had seen these cats around for about two
weeks when I came across an ad for a skate
contest in Lerida, a small province about two
hours away. The Foundation Super Co was spon
soring the contest in this dusty, shithole of a town
that's only known for "really fresh fruit and
what passes for a Skatepark in Spain. What
better way to spend one of my free weekends? I
introduced myself to Chico, a kid with a huge
grin, the kind of guy that when he's not smiling.
he's giggling about something. He was hitting
some lines on a series of marble tables and was
sweating like a whore in church, a pretty good
sign he'd been skating for a while. I asked him
about the competition in my sorry excuse for
Spanish, and he smiled and casually introduced
me to the rest of Team Sants. I freaked when I
found out that one of the guys and four of the
70 TASH
Wero Smith's at the Plaza de
Sants in beautiful Barcelona.
girls huddled around a mound of bark-
packs were Americans. I could tell they
didn't mind me hanging out with them.
an interesting point I'll talk about later.
The American kids were from prep
schools like Andover and Exeter and
weren't any better at Spanish.
than I was. I could tell my
new Spanish friends
were laying down the
smooth moves on
the American girl
all about the
international
language.
I started hang-
ing out with Wero,
which basically.
means "Whitey" and
with bleach blonde hair.
fair complection and krish
na-style, sandlewood chokers he
could have passed for anyone at a Strife
concert. He was from Mexico City but
how he ended up in Barcelona is still a
mystery to me, with alot of English and
some broken Spanish I am glad I man-
aged that much. He had started a
-traight-edge movement among the
skaters: Slapshot, Vegan, Food Not Boul
the whole nine. He was only one of a few
though, the rest just smoked alot of
dope. It's decriminalized enough so you
can roll a hash joint on the street
and do it in public.
The competion
started
Saturday and
Primus was in
concert on
Friday night.
Someone made
the executive
decision to stay
out all night and
take the red-eye
straight to Lerida
and just sleep on the
train. Stanford Prison
Experiment opened for Primus.
and luckily for me the idea of a pit with
big, beefcake jocks with cooler Airwalks
than me hadn't quite caught on. Alot of
pogoing and rocker style head bobbing
and some die hard. hair slinging but that
was the blunt of burden. I was just glad
Above: Carlos catches a kickflip at Lerida Park.
Below: Public art is everywhere in Barcelona. These street
signs (below left) show up in parles and alleys all around the
city. Their placement seems to suggest that small children
should stay away from these locations.