Although I had been fairly ill since coming back to Barcelona, I was well aware that my two month sublease expired on October 1st, less than one week away. I searched through www.loquo.com, where I had found the current flat in less than three days, but this time I had no such luck. Every place I looked at was a disaster zone, everything from potential housemates who were not interested in knowing my name to shoe boxes with no windows and remarkably child-like wallpapering montages (to keep the water from seeping through too quickly).
By October 1st I had not found a new place yet, so I called around a few friends in Barcelona to see if anyone could put me up until I had sorted a new apartment. One friend, Phillope, responded almost immediately, "Well, of course you can stay with us, but also know that there are eight other guests staying over besides you." Eight other guests? When I got there, it turned out that Phillope lived in a huge, three story building with a backyard and nine permanent housemates. They had rented out the building not only to live there, but to also create a social centre for arts and cultural workshops in the garden out the back. the people in the house came from all over the world; from Japan to Argentina to Germany. There was communal cooking and a lot of music and philosophical/ Left win activist talk (reminded me of Confest). One of the housemates and three of her guests had just returned from a ´Ladyfest,´which is a feminist festival that travels all over Europe largely promoting the empowerment of women in the arts. Another group were journeying to the South of Spain from Germany because they wanted to escape the Winter cold. Another group still were headed to Berlin from the south of Spain because they had run out of money and wanted to find cheap accomodation and work for the Winter. There were vegetarians and eco-activists, anarchists and socialists, street performers and disability/social workers all rolled into a single, run down old building. Everyone was very busy with their own personal projects, but had plenty of time to talk and share information, travel tips and funny stories. Finally: after months of wandering around Barcelona, I had found what I was looking for: one of the places where Barcelona´s famous countercultural creativity is fostered!
