Macro Botellón

So part of the student culture here involves “ir de botellón,” which is intimately related to “ir de fiesta.” The latter means literally going out to party, and generally means going to bars and or discotecas(dance clubs). The former, however, just means going out and drinking. It means not in the bars, but rather buying liters of your favorite alcohol for consumption at home with friends or possibly even in a park or somewhere public. This brings us to the Macro Botellón which means exactly that…huge groups of people with copious amounts of alcohol. They don’t know how it started or who organized it, but through email and text messaging, many cities across Spain had a Macro Botellón last Friday the 17^th. In Granada it ended up being consented by the Government and 20,000 people showed up and partied without major incidents. Salamanca was a different story. The police heard of the plans to meet in two major sites and blocked off entry ways refusing entry of those with alcohol. Plans foiled all was quiet until about 2:30 when I guess the police found out that there were about 500 drunk people on the Roman Bridge. When they tried to break it up they had glass bottles thrown at them. Then they found another 1500 people in the Plaza de San Justo where the same thing happened. Throughout the city miniature riots had started. 11 of the cities trash and recycling bins were destroyed by exploding bottles of alcohol. Injuries and other costs are estimated to be about 24,000 euros for Salamanca. 16 people were arrested. In Barcelona it was worse and 68 people were injured and 54 arrested. I’m just lucky I guess. Friday morning I had left for Madrid to meet Madge. If there was a Macro Botellon in Madrid, we didn’t notice since we went to bed at 10:30 (yes on St. Patrick’s Day). However, it would explain the amazing number of sirens going all night long helping to keep me awake in the hostal.