Protesting

The Hotel Melia is situated on the edge a large park and beside the river “Nervion” and opposite the Gran Via, or main avenue of Bilboa. As we began our stroll across Dona Casilda Iturrizaar Park, there were a series of loud bangs and pops. Being ‘Merikans, our first thought was gunfire. Our second thoughts were fireworks, as we were in close proximity of the Futbol stadium. Soon after the loud bangs began, we witnessed a short but lovely display of fireworks, emanating from the roundabout at the headway of the Gran Via over the beautiful art deco buildings. Ahh, Futbol, we are in your land.

Crossing the tranquil park thru meandering paths alongside fountains, playsets and an abundance of trees, a soft chanting began in the distance, growing louder by the minute as we neared the Gran Via.

“They must have won the game,” says I. “Who ever they is.”

Nope. Not quite. Not by a long shot. As the Gran Via came into sight, a large protest line became apparent. By large, I mean at least a couple of thousand people. It was an impressive number of well-mannered people, waving red banners. Mostly young. The police were escorting the crowd in the lead and in the rear.

I love a good protest, and I was thrilled to see one so well attended, as the protests I usually attend in Florida were anemic at best.

There are always dumb asses in a crowd, and those dumb asses were setting off fire crackers in this crowd, though no one seemed to mind.

We filmed, we photo-ed, we laughed and we definitely could not figure out what the crowd was protesting because it was all in Basque. At that point, we needed to get across the crowd to get to food and wine. We debated for several minutes the etiquette of crossing the line. It wasn’t a picket line, so did those rules apply? We noticed other pedestrians weaving thru the crowd, going their merry way, so porque no?  Our journey thru the crowd began. As we entered the mass, I noted new police arriving, via the sidewalk. We were midway thru the crowd. Suddenly  was an incredibly loud bang, compared to the firecrackers and a huge amount of smoke began to rise from the direction of the police.

The crowd surged manically. My thoughts drifted to how to treat tear gas and where was our quickest exit. H grabbed the back of my coat, hanging on for dear life, as I began to push thru the crowd like I was heading for the stage at a concert. Folks were darting left and right looking for side streets, there were screams for a moment or two. It was an every woman for herself type of situation. Reaching the other side of the wide boulevard which took an hour or just a minute, I turned back as the crowd began to settle down. Some stupid ass, must have thrown a smoke bomb when the extra police arrived. Oh anarchists! After the initial panic subsided, we felt the crazy laughter rise up from our throats. Cackling as we proceeded, we found fabulous pintxos, wine before the bars became filled with thirsty and hungry protestors.