Lack of Morality
The Spanish Mediterranean is known for sun and fun, especially among young people from the colder, more serious north of Europe. As when I was a teenager in Boston, and high school seniors and college students went to Bermuda and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for spring break, so charters of young adults from Britain, France, and Germany come to the Balearic Islands and coastal towns of Catalunya. If the locals back then complained about those students unleashed upon the innocent population, so do locals here now complain about the youngsters from the north.
Some have wandered the streets naked in all their glory in the center of Barcelona, others have had to be picked up by the garbage men in Magaluf and sent to the Emergency Room in an alcoholic coma, and others have had to be picked up by the coroner after jumping into the pool from a sixth floor balcony and missing the water. This last practice is called balconing, and is an Anglo-Saxon adaptation of transforming a noun into a verb. It involves people jumping from balconies into a swimming pool, or climbing over barriers to go from one balcony to another, sometimes on a different floor. And every year some kid who thinks he is invincible no matter what he does, and that he will live forever, dies in a fall anyone could have predicted.
It is a terrible thing when a young person dies; when they die because of a stupid action such as this, it's even worse. But this stupid action stems from many different stupid actions that have local people yearning for the cold winter months. Apart from the fact that many centric apartments are being taken off the long-term market and changed into short-term, tourist rentals, and thereby sending up the rents of people who can't afford it, too many towns are being invaded by people whose only idea of vacation is to drink until they pass out, or just break social rules they wouldn't dream of breaking in their home towns. Because of this type of tourism, which simply devalues the area where it is practiced, a platform of fed-up locals have started a campaign.
It is, in effect, black humor, and is intended to have people see the sarcasm. They are putting up posters in some streets of Barcelona, that say, "Dear tourist, did you know balconing...? -Prevents gentrification. -Improves neighbors' quality of life. -Reduces the risk of heart disease. -Is LOTS of fun. #BalconingISfun." There's even a Twitter acount set up, Balconing IS Fun, with some tweets, such as, "Did you find a drunk tourist laying on your entrance door? Be polite, take him to his balcony. Alcohol will do the rest." Another, "Do the balconing!...but remember to pay your stay first."
In Barcelona, where this campaign originated, neighbors of the Barceloneta neighborhood are extremely fed up. Some tourists are even camping out in the parks, setting up tents to sleep in. Drunks will defecate or urinate in any corner, including doorways; pickpockets, drawn to the crowds, roam, and outsiders are warned by servers at outdoor cafés and bars to watch their belongings. Drugs abound at night, and the local beach has plagues of rats and cockroaches.
The problem is the incivility of those who consider the world their playground, and where they can do whatever they wish. Yet, the world is where other people live, and if those who come here don't like to have visitors that defecate on their lawns, or scream, drunk as a skunk, at five in the morning under their windows, perhaps the people in the places they visit don't like those things, either. It's a symptom of the decay of morality, where the most important thing is what you want and desire, and that is all that matters. I mention the northern Europeans that come here, today, but we have our own home-grown idiots here, too. We haven't been doing the job well, if we have failed to teach our children the rudiments of morality, and that they are NOT the most important things in this world. We've mostly failed with our children, how about making sure our grandchildren learn this lesson?
Some have wandered the streets naked in all their glory in the center of Barcelona, others have had to be picked up by the garbage men in Magaluf and sent to the Emergency Room in an alcoholic coma, and others have had to be picked up by the coroner after jumping into the pool from a sixth floor balcony and missing the water. This last practice is called balconing, and is an Anglo-Saxon adaptation of transforming a noun into a verb. It involves people jumping from balconies into a swimming pool, or climbing over barriers to go from one balcony to another, sometimes on a different floor. And every year some kid who thinks he is invincible no matter what he does, and that he will live forever, dies in a fall anyone could have predicted.
It is a terrible thing when a young person dies; when they die because of a stupid action such as this, it's even worse. But this stupid action stems from many different stupid actions that have local people yearning for the cold winter months. Apart from the fact that many centric apartments are being taken off the long-term market and changed into short-term, tourist rentals, and thereby sending up the rents of people who can't afford it, too many towns are being invaded by people whose only idea of vacation is to drink until they pass out, or just break social rules they wouldn't dream of breaking in their home towns. Because of this type of tourism, which simply devalues the area where it is practiced, a platform of fed-up locals have started a campaign.
It is, in effect, black humor, and is intended to have people see the sarcasm. They are putting up posters in some streets of Barcelona, that say, "Dear tourist, did you know balconing...? -Prevents gentrification. -Improves neighbors' quality of life. -Reduces the risk of heart disease. -Is LOTS of fun. #BalconingISfun." There's even a Twitter acount set up, Balconing IS Fun, with some tweets, such as, "Did you find a drunk tourist laying on your entrance door? Be polite, take him to his balcony. Alcohol will do the rest." Another, "Do the balconing!...but remember to pay your stay first."
In Barcelona, where this campaign originated, neighbors of the Barceloneta neighborhood are extremely fed up. Some tourists are even camping out in the parks, setting up tents to sleep in. Drunks will defecate or urinate in any corner, including doorways; pickpockets, drawn to the crowds, roam, and outsiders are warned by servers at outdoor cafés and bars to watch their belongings. Drugs abound at night, and the local beach has plagues of rats and cockroaches.
The problem is the incivility of those who consider the world their playground, and where they can do whatever they wish. Yet, the world is where other people live, and if those who come here don't like to have visitors that defecate on their lawns, or scream, drunk as a skunk, at five in the morning under their windows, perhaps the people in the places they visit don't like those things, either. It's a symptom of the decay of morality, where the most important thing is what you want and desire, and that is all that matters. I mention the northern Europeans that come here, today, but we have our own home-grown idiots here, too. We haven't been doing the job well, if we have failed to teach our children the rudiments of morality, and that they are NOT the most important things in this world. We've mostly failed with our children, how about making sure our grandchildren learn this lesson?
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