Let's meet at the Zurich!

This is one of the most usual sentences among the locals!

And this is the ritual: you get to Plaça Catalunya by underground or railway, go up the stairs and see if you are the first to arrive. If you are, and you have to wait, there is nothing to worry about: waiting couldn't be more fun.

The Zurich is our cafeteria, and has been forever, and it is been like that for so long that we often take it for granted.

Next year it will be 150 years since its opening as the bar of a train station, the liner that went up Balmes street, although ti was then called la Catalana and was a kind of kiosk that gave service to travelers.

During this century and a half, it has stood there, witnessing the beating heart of the city. Demonstrations, rallies and celebrations, assaults and persecutions, building works and alterations, recordings and concerts, even wars.

But above all, people arriving. People waiting. People looking. People finding people. People getting there and away. Above all, people.