Posted by Philip Challinor Link: Continued
on November 1, 2009, 21:33:37
Within the cannon of Spanish-nightlife jargon, one often comes across the word ‘El After’. This little bon mot refers to those bars that remain open long after the standard bars (which already stay open pretty late) have pulled their shutters.
Now to refer to Chez Popov as an ‘After’ would be doing it an injustice. Chez Popov was the last-resort oasis that would welcome you with open tentacles when all other watering holes had dried up and you were too drunk to know better. Chez Popov only began to hit full swing when the street-cleaning machines were hitting the streets. Chez Popov was in essence the ‘After’s After’.
Please note that any difficulty I may have in describing the place is not due to a lack of expressive ability on my part but more down to the fact that when there, I was never, ever even remotely sober. So pray, cut an old drunk some slack.
The bar was located down a litter-strewn, urine-marinated back lane which ran parallel to the Ramblas. One would never guess while sitting during daylight hours in the charming and civilized Café de L’Opera that right behind your bar, another far seedier one sat waiting for night to fall.
So you’re on the streets of the Raval in the wee hours of a Sunday morning after having been slung out of some overcrowded drinking pit. You’re enjoying the oxygen-rich night air, working very hard in the field of optical focus and trying desperately not to have your pockets picked by the local North African entrepreneurs. What to you do? Well heck, you decide to have one for the road, don’t you? This is because you are a moron.
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