Giving up the party on Saturday night for early morning was not a sacrifice for the young people who had set the alarm clock yesterday with the idea of ​​making some money selling roses. It was worth the small effort to enjoy a Sant Jordi Sunday that has set a record number of people in the streets full of Barcelona residents who decided to stay in the city and crowded with visitors.
Those who had won a place in the Plaça Francesc Macià , one of the most requested areas of the city, in the municipal raffle for sales stalls, started the day with surprise. More than twenty stalls were gathered around its perimeter, where almost all of them had bought the roses at 1.20 euros and shipped them for between 4.5 and 5 euros, as a starting price. The discounts would come depending on how you progressed a day in which the endless queues to obtain the signatures of the most successful writers would only have a parenthesis at lunchtime, when the marabunta moved to the most central restaurants.
At the confluence between Francesc Macià and Calvet, Alexia Gazo and Cristina Villanueva, first-year high school students at the Highlands school in Esplugues, were collecting for a summer volunteer project; the sisters Gala and Mireia Torres and Claudia Arcas, colleagues at Pompeu Fabra, had yet to decide what they would spend the profits on, but they started the morning scared to see so many stops, almost stuck. “A rose for the most beautiful?”, an IQS student let go of a walker from a neighboring place. On one of the central sidewalks of Diagonal, Martà Alsina, a primary school teacher in a charter school in Terrassa, was selling roses for 30 euros. “They are kokedamas, natural plants that are grown by hand following a Japanese tradition.”
A few meters away, on the other side of the square, several stalls with different charity sales, from fresh roses and second-hand books for the Hogar de Maria to paper flowers made in occupational workshops for the oenagé Family from Hetauda, ​​Nepal.
Bracelets with the flag, a lollipop for the purchase of the second rose, or the possibility of participating in the raffle of a stuffed dragon were some of the claims among the many sellers who need to attract attention somehow. “Do you like water?”. We read it on the sign at one of the stops and asked Julio Durán, a law student at Pompeu Fabra, the reason for this claim. “Provoke people to stop and ask”. We suggest that if you haven’t considered inviting to make responsible use of water in these times of drought, pick up the glove, delighted. The money he collects will go to visit his girlfriend in Madrid. This is the second year this student has set up a site with a friend, who arrived late today because he worked late last night. “Last year we were hailed and we were lucky that in a furniture store they gave us shelter in front of the window, which was covered.” This time they’ve crossed their fingers that it won’t rain and bought half the roses, just in case.
Very close to her place, on Diagonal, Maria Ãngeles Recio runs errands while three of her children eat a sandwich next to her. The fourth has stayed at home, in Santa Coloma, where she works as a cleaner in an employment plan. “Since before the pandemic I didn’t sell roses for Sant Jordi, but things are complicated, everything is very expensive, and this time I didn’t hesitate.”
Maria, Valentina, Ariadna and Ãgueda, friends of Joventut les Corts, from basketball, have won 150 roses in an Instagram contest, for which it was necessary to tag a lot of people. They did not fall short and took this extra to add to the 300 flowers they had already bought. Now the point is to sell them all, and if you need to cover a plastic dragon that they have lent them on which Ãgueda pretends to ride, that’s it. A few meters away we find his sister, Miriam Badia, who shares a table with some friends from the Infant Jesús school. They expect to sell everything this Sant Jordi, which was already announced as a record by mid-morning.
The old morning trick to “enjoy” the book and flower stalls just set up and without people stopped working yesterday. Ask the Venezuelan MarÃa Elena, who left Poblenou at eight in the morning, “blessed”, thinking she would be the first in the queue of her favorite authors. “What a mess. I couldn’t even get close enough to see their faces. I ran away from the Ramblaâ€.
The same Guà rdia Urbana de Barcelona acknowledged to this newspaper that it was practically impossible to calculate the number of people in the center. One of its managers on duty and with many days of books and roses on his record assured this newspaper that the day unfolded very calmly and without incident. The 112 was practically silent and the vast majority of pedestrians had opted for the option of public transport to get to the centre.
Some places had the sign of an affiliated florist. Like the one run by Mariona Gentzen, on the corner of Aribau and Provence. His roses cost 7 euros, “but they are of quality and very well presented”. He explains that after the pandemic the door was opened so that everyone could sell it and, although there is a 50 meter protection perimeter for members, I don’t say anything to those who get closer.
Most of the sellers, young students, had their sights set on their summer trips: from those who will decide between Ibiza and New York based on what they earn, to those who are preparing an Interrail route or, like the friends of the Creu del Sud Group, from Nou Barris, are already dreaming of camps in Germany. Others, like Custo Herrero and his friends from Leinn (where they study entrepreneurship and innovation) did not hesitate to apply their learning and in the middle of the morning they changed the offer written on a blackboard, “a rose 4 euros, 3 for 10 euros”, for another that has been much more successful: “For spoons, 3 euros; for parakeets, 20 euros”. In a few minutes they had all been sold.
