Trassssssssshy!

Any city has different types of nightlife. Everyone knows that going out on Crescent St. in Montreal is different than getting a drink on the Plateau. When you arrive somewhere new, discovering what happens where after dark is an important part of getting to know the city.

And I think after last night we can conclude that Calle Iturribide can be classified as trashy. (Not that trashy is necessarily a bad thing, either. Just wait.)

We're not talking red-light district herion addict trashy. (You can find that in the San Francisco neighbourhood of Bilbao.) Iturribide is a narrow, cobblestoned street that winds uphill for what seems like miles from Plaza Unamuno in the Casco Viejo. It's bar after bar the whole length of the street, with alcoves, alleyways and dimly-lit staircases snaking off to either side. As is typical in parts of the Casco Viejo, it's Medieval meets Industrial.

The atmosphere could be described as 'the night before the apocalypse.' Hordes and hordes of young people in groups overflowing out of bars, drinking and carousing in the streets. Some take their pints out from the bar and form impromptu terrasses on the street, while other just hanker down with their two-liter bottles of homemade kalimotxo ( red wine and Coke!) No one on the whole street is over 30. Even though every single bar on the street has a bathroom, every 5 metres there's some guy peeing against a wall. There are broken bottles and garbage everywhere. Total chaos.

If there's one thing to be said about Iturribide, it's that it's utterly un-pretentious. Those too preppy, classy, or old for the street' form of grimy hedonism party elsewhere. And though I'm glad to have experienced what Iturribide was all about...in the future I think I will too.