Before long we entered the Basque country, which apparently is called "Gascogne" in French. I wondered just how much of a Basque separatist movement there was in France. They've had problems with Basque separatists in Spain for decades, and they've made a lot of concessions to allow them to preserve their unique language and culture. In France, though, all the signs were in French, and there was really nothing other than what amounted to a "state line" sign to let us know we had entered the Basque region.
I'm not sure if it was part of his punishment or not, but one of those students of Paul's who had been in the wrong place after hours came up to the front of the bus and spent much of the afternoon chatting with José in Spanish. While most of their conversation was pretty much the same stuff I had discussed with José in Chenonceau, it was still interesting to listen in on things. What's more, it amazed me how easily I understood what José said. When I was in Spain in '85, it struck me that everyone I spoke with was mush-mouthed and swallowed just about all of their words. By contrast, I found Mexicans much easier to understand. While he had some classic Castillian speech patterns, José spoke as clearly as a Mexican. I was always able to get the gist of what he said, and a surprising amount of the time I understood every word.
One thing that was noteworthy about José was his cap. He always wore an adjustable baseball cap that said "Grand Canyon" in English. Apparently some relative of his (I knew at the time, but don't remember exactly who) had been there on his honeymoon (which in Spanish, by the way, is literally translated "luna de miel"-moon of honey). so it was the equivalent of those "all I got was this lousy T-shirt" souvenirs.
I learned a French word as we drove along. The road we were taking, while still four-lane was not limited access (sort of like most of the new Avenue of the Saints in Iowa), so there were periodic intersections. There was one sign that showed an exclamation point on it (the standard "caution" sign in Europe), and below was a small sign that said "CARREFOUR". I recalled that as being the name of the big supermarket we kept going past in Merignac, and it intrigued me that the word apparently meant "intersection". (I recently entered it into one of those on-line translators, and it confirmed the meaning was "crossroads".) That seems like kind of a strange name for a grocery store, but then I can only imagine what visitors to our country must think when they see stores named "Piggly Wiggly".
Again most of the traffic was trucks, and it struck me that most of the drivers were younger than their American equivalents. José was 42 years old, and that would probably be toward the older end of the drivers on the road here.
I noticed something else that had changed since I had been here before. It used to be that if a European vehicle traveled outside its home country, it had to have an oval-shaped sticker by the license plate that identified where it came from. French cars said "F", Spanish cars said "E" (for España), German cars said "D" (for Deutschland), and so on. Well the advent of the European Union has brought the end of those identity ovals. What's more, as people renew their licenses, they plates themselves are changing. The new plates all over Europe feature a small EU flag (a circle of yellow stars on a blue background-much like the U.S. President's flag) at the left. It intrigued me that Europe would go for single licensing throughout the continent, while we have left that entirely to local authorities.
We went through a variety of weather zones as we drove southward. Near Bordeaux the corn fields were irrigated, but the further south we drove the wetter it got. In the Basque Country we drove through old growth forest with ferns at the foot of pine trees. Before long we made it into the Pyrenees Mountains, the rugged natural border between France and Spain. We were barely five miles from the Atlantic coast, so the mountains weren't all that high, but they were definitely rugged. It was obviously a major work of engineering to push the autoroute through here. It was absolutely gorgeous country, and again it surprised me that most of the group on the bus was asleep.
Again we paid for the privilege of driving on a good road, though here the toll seemed a bit more reasonable than it had up north. For cars, the rate was €3, though I assume we paid a bit more than that. Again José tried to scan his credit card, but this time it wouldn't work. Eventually an attendant took the card, went to a nearby booth and came back with one of those old pressure-printed receipts you got from a manually operated slider machine. José signed it, and we were on our way again.
We passed one more urban area in France, the twin cities of Bayonne and Biarritz. Apparently this is a major resort area, but from the autoroute we saw little more than industrial parks. The most interesting sight in Biarritz was a warehouse for Intermarché, which is apparently a department store chain. The warehouse had a sign on it that said "Les Trois Mousquetieres" (the three musketeers). I have no clue why; perhaps it was owned by three brothers or something. It was interesting to see, though.
We reached the Spanish border late in the afternoon. José and Cristina had indicated that there should be little or no border formalities, and indeed that's what appeared to be happening in most of the lanes at the border. Cars with EU license plates slowed down, but then they were literally waved on before they reached a full stop. It would be harder for Americans to enter California (where they do agricultural inspections at the border) than it is for Europeans to enter Spain these days.
Apparently José and Cristina were expecting virtually the same treatment for our bus, and they were both surprised when we actually had to stop. A jovial young officer came aboard and spoke briefly with José and Cristina in Spanish. He clarified that they were Spaniards and that the rest of the group was made up of American tourists. He then said "Passports, please" in English and went down the aisle looking at people's identification. That presented a small problem, because one of the girls had stupidly left her passport in her suitcase-which was now underneath the bus. Cristina explained the problem, and José offered to open the storage area and get out the suitcase. The officer assured them that this was unnecessary, but he jokingly threatened to send the girl to jail-which, of course, he had both the authority and the reason (albeit a technicality) to do.
As we pulled away from the border, Cristina and José commented that they had never seen such an inquisition at the border. Cristina apologized over the bus microphone and commented that she thought security was heightened because the European heads of state were meeting this week in Spain. She may have felt it was heightened security, but it was certainly less than we had in Spain seventeen years ago-which was still nothing compared to getting into the Soviet Union.
Remember Cristina's cell phone that was too expensive to use in France. Well, within two minutes after we had crossed into Spain, Cristina got out her "movil" and proceeded to check her messages. She chatted with a friend for a while, and she also called the hotel where we would be staying tonight to confirm that they would have dinner waiting when we arrived. Between here and Madrid both she and José would also receive calls on their cell phones-in fact on at least seven different occasions the phones rang while we were driving. It intrigued me that apparently the standard way to answer the phone in Spain is by saying "sí" (yes). That doesn't strike me as terribly friendly, though it probably does beat the Mexican "diga" (talk).
Before long we passed our first Spanish tollbooth. In Spain they have sensors that detect what kind of vehicle you have, and the toll you need to pay appears on a digital readout. Our toll was €1.46-and all the tolls in Spain were equally strange amounts. I suppose they must have been even amounts of pesetas that were directly converted into euros. We didn't pay €1.46, though. The tollbooth was supposed to be manned, but there was nobody in it. Instead the control arm was locked up, and a handwritten sign that said "SIGA" (proceed) was taped on the booth. José did proceed, and we saved about a buck and a half.
The drive through the Spanish Pyrenees was absolutely breathtaking. I remembered Spain as a very dry country, but here in the extreme north it's lush and green. The mountains rise abruptly, with quaint little houses scattered here and there among them. It looked remarkably like pictures I've seen of Switzerland. It certainly was much more "European" in appearance than anything in France, and it was far and away the most beautiful landscape we saw on the entire trip.
We drove past the Atlantic port of San Sebastian, which also carries the Basque name Donostia. Unlike in France, Basque is one of half a dozen official languages in Spain. (That's a big change from the Franco era, when it was illegal to speak anything but Spanish.) All the traffic signs in the Spanish Basque country are in both Basque and English, and elsewhere in the country destination signs for places in the Basque country always show both languages. From the looks of it, Basque would be absolutely impossible to learn. "Donostia" has to be the simplest word in the language; most of them seem to be all consonants, and they go on for five syllables. Fortunately, the two people I actually spoke to in the Basque country spoke perfect Spanish.
San Sebastian was the first Spanish city we passed, and it was immediately clear that Spanish cities were completely different from French cities. Except for a few remote farm houses (like those ones halfway up the mountains), there is literally no such thing as a detached single-family home in Spain. Spain has suburbanized a lot since I was here before, too, but the Spanish suburbs are mostly made up of high-rise apartments. The closest thing to single-family homes you see in Spain are brand new rowhouses like the condos you see down in Ankeny. The Spanish word for this is "chalets", but they're definitely not cottages in the Alps-they're rowhouses in the suburbs.
Rowhouses and apartments take up much less space than detached homes, and accordingly the Spanish cities are much more compact than their French (or American) counterparts. San Sebastian, for instance, is bigger than Des Moines, but it covers no more land than Iowa City (not even counting Coralville) or Dubuque.
The Spaniards do a better job of controlling industrial sprawl, too. Every city has a "polígono industrial" (literally an industrial polygon, which is probably more descriptive than calling such places parks). The polygons are densely built up, and-with the exception of the region just south of Madrid (where the "polígono" is larger than the city of Madrid itself)-they don't sprawl nearly so much as the equivalent areas in France.
While we'd see a notable exception to this tomorrow in Madrid, on the whole the Spanish cities were noticeably cleaner than those in France. There was much less graffiti, and what graffiti we did see was on the sides of bridges and similar places. In France there was graffiti on the fronts of occupied buildings-something I couldn't imagine the owners putting up with. There was also less litter along the highway.
Even though we were right on the coast, we passed through major mountains west of San Sebastian. We went through a series of tunnels and soared over valleys on some of the highest bridges I've ever been on. It is absolutely gorgeous country here. I'd love to come back and just spend time here, as opposed to the more traditional tourist destinations further south.
We passed another tollbooth and were again greeted by a raised control arm. This time the digital readout said "SIGA" instead of displaying a price. We found out later the tollbooth workers were on strike. This was the beginning of a nationwide general strike that we would shape our day tomorrow. For the moment, though, it was actually a good thing, since José was saving money by not having to pay any tolls.
We made a "parada de pi-pi" (a toilet stop) at a service area near the city of Bilbao. Service areas in Spain are called "areas de servicio", and they are not nearly so nicely appointed as the French "aires". This is probably because Spain has much more exit business of the type we have on American interstates. In France there's rarely much of anything at the exits (sometimes a hotel or two, but almost never gas or restaurants), so the service areas are more important.
It was immediately obvious at the service area that Spain is a much less expensive country than France. Gas, for instance, is priced in the 80s in Spain, with diesel in the 50s or 60s. In France gas was invariably over a euro, and diesel was in the 80s or 90s. I mostly bought magazines at the convenience store in the service area, and they were unbelievably cheap. For €2 - 3 you got not only a magazine, but also some come-on that was intended to make you buy it-usually some sort of CD or computer software. Pop was also cheaper, selling for €1 in machines here, as opposed to the standard €2 in France. Part of the difference is that Spain's value added tax (IVA) is less than half that of France (around 8% as opposed to over 17%). Even discounting the tax, though, prices would still be lower in Spain. I had read that one of the purposes of going to the unified euro currency was to highlight price differences between countries. It certainly does that clearly. Spanish wages are also lower than they are farther north, but I think that with the differences in prices you'd still be better off in Spain.
We mostly tunneled under Bilbao. That's probably as well, since guide books compare the Basque capital to such British industrial centers as Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool-none of which is exactly known for its scenic splendor.
We did pass through a corner of suburban Bilbao at ground level, and it was interesting to see the streets crowded with people going "de paseo", promenading through the streets on their traditional evening stroll. We slowed down for some of these people as we rounded a traffic circle and switched from one expressway to another.
As we entered the new expressway, José explained the difference between the roads called "autopistas" and those called "autovías" in Spain. An autopista, which is what we took across the Pyrenees from the border to Bilbao, is always a toll road. They are also always limited access, usually with very few exits. The speed limit on them is normally 120 km/h (appx.. 75 mph). Autovías, by contrast, are always free expressways. They may, but rarely do have at-grade intersections. What they do have is very frequent interchanges. Every little crossroad has an interchange, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere they'll have a "cambio de sentido", an interchange to nowhere for the exclusive purpose of changing direction-most likely so you can get to a business that is on an access road on the other side of the highway. Autovías can also have more severe grades than autopistas. For that reason, the speed is normally lower-usually 110 km/h (70 mph) and sometimes 100 (62 mph). We would keep switching between these types of roads as we made our way across Spain.
Just past Bilbao José put in a tape of Spanish guitar music. It was a fascinating tape. Some of the selections I assume were traditional Spanish favorites, while others were standards from the '60s (like Beatles tunes) arranged in a Flamenco-esque style. When the tape ran out he turned on a talk radio station. It amazed me just how fast the Spanish language is spoken. It's much faster than French. I really didn't follow most of the show; in fact, I was really pleased to just catch a few words here and there.
The land got drier and flatter as we drove south from the Basque country into Castilla Leon. Before long we were in farm country that looked a lot like South Dakota-huge fields amid mostly flat land, with big buttes in the distance. Here there were no farm houses. Instead there were small villages filled with rowhouses that housed the local farmers.
The tollbooth operators in Castilla Leon were not on strike. We had to stop to pay a toll of €23.93 for abut a 100-mile stretch of autopista. Cars would have paid €7.79 for the same stretch-still more than it would be in America, but significantly cheaper than in France.
It's interesting that Spain, which I perceive as a poorer country, is much better signed on its highways than France. Like in Iowa, there are distance signs after every exit, and the exit signs tell road numbers, and both near and distant destinations. The warning and guide signs are almost always in pictograms; there's notably less language on the signs here than in France. There's also very little traffic, and everybody seems to drive very politely. Combining all those things, I think Spain would be an easier place to drive than France.
At several points along the way we passed "Tío Pepe" bulls along the road. Tío Pepe is a brand of sherry (jerez) that is popular in Spain. Instead of billboards, on hilltops all over the country they have enormous steel silhouettes of a bull that is the symbol of the product. It's one of those shapes people who know the product immediately recognize-sort of like the Nike swoosh or the CBS eye. José had a sticker with the Tío Pepe bull on the back of our bus, as well as a little figurine that looked like a voodoo doll featuring Uncle Pepe himself that hung above his seat.
We pulled off to one of those access road businesses near the town of Tudanca, which is literally in the middle of nowhere vaguely near the city of Burgos. José bought gas while the rest of us checked out the combination convenience store/restaurant/hotel. I bought a Fanta limón (it was good to be back in a place where sour soft drinks were common) and a package of chocolate euros. These were like the "gelt" that Jewish kids get at Hanukkah--really bad little chocolates embossed and wrapped to look like euro coins and bills. I have no intention of ever eating them, but it made an interesting souvenir.
It started to get dark around 9:45pm. Soon after we crossed yet another range of mountains and entered "Comunidad de Madrid", essentially the "D.C." of Spain. The northwest part of the "autonomous community" is basically a rural mountainous area. Gradually the mountains flattened out, and we saw lights spreading out as far as we could see in front of us. We passed a series of brand new industrial parks and housing developments and eventually made our way to the innermost of Madrid's three ring roads (the M-30). It seemed to me that we nearly covered the complete circumference of the ring, but I suppose we probably did almost exactly half of it. We first followed signs for Valencia and Sevilla, then for Badajoz (on the Portuguese border in southwest Spain), and finally for La Coruña (called "A Corunna" by its Galician natives, and located on the Atlantic coast in northwest Spain) We eventually exited at the Plaza de España, which was still bustling with people at 11:30 at night. José paused briefly by the plaza so we could fetch our luggage, and then we walked about a block on a side street to our hotel.
We passed more reminders of the general strike as we walked to the hotel. All along the street trash was piled up outside the buildings. Normally trash is emptied overnight in Madrid (as we would find out later), but for not it was just left to set-not to mention smell.
We dumped the luggage in the lobby and immediately had dinner. We knew ahead of time we would be having a cold dinner, as the restaurant was closed when we arrived. I was picturing those Parisian cold cuts, but this was actually quite a pleasant meal. We had boiled eggs with salad dressing on lettuce followed by cold thin-sliced beef roast. Then we had the Spanish version of Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. Spanish Neapolitan includes chocolate, vanilla, and the flavor Spaniards call "nata". Nata literally means "whipped cream", and it is literally unflavored but delicious ice cream. The meal was accompanied by water and extremely hard rolls. (José probably would have liked them; I thought they were like hockey pucks.)
The Hotel Señorial is well located, being just off the Plaza de España, a short walk from the Royal Palace, and just off Gran Vía (literally "Broadway" and the main street of downtown Madrid). It has a lovely lobby, and the restaurant is nice. Many of the rooms have also been pleasantly modernized. Unfortunately that was not the case with the room Paul and I were in. The room was small and badly maintained. Light bulbs were missing from fixtures, wallpaper was peeling, and there was graffiti carved in the bathroom door. There was no air conditioning, and I don't care if it is a desert heat-it gets hot in Spain in summer. The window looked out on the city lights, which meant we either had to close the drapes and block any breeze or try to sleep with light shining in the window.
As it turned out sleeping both tonight and tomorrow would be a bit of a challenge anyway. Tonight, just as we were fading off to sleep we heard chants of "Huelga! Huelga! Huelga!" off in the distance. Huelga (pronounced WALE-gah) means "strike" in Spanish. It was now after midnight, and the general strike had officially started. Protesters were marching down Gran Vía to mark the official start of the event. It was clear tomorrow would be no ordinary day.
We were originally scheduled to have a formal sightseeing tour today, but Cristina was not sure if the things we were scheduled to see would be open because of the strike. Therefore we had the entire day free to do what we wanted. That was fine with me. I could travel almost anywhere and be content just walking around and seeing what there was to see.
I was up around 8:00, and I caught a quick shower in the antique metal tub in our bathroom. Breakfast was not scheduled until after 9:00, so I took a walk down Gran Vía to check out what effect the strike was likely to have on our day. Anyone who spoke Spanish certainly couldn't miss the fact that a strike was happening today. There was spray painted graffiti everywhere announcing "HUELGA 20-J" (meaning the strike was the 20th of June. I had complained about the graffiti in France, but this was far worse. Gran Vía is lined with many of Spain's most elegant shops, and their doors and display windows had all been vandalized by the strikers. Where there wasn't spray paint, red and green stickers about the strike were plastered all around. Many of the shop doors had red and green stickers on them that said "cerrado por la huelga general" (closed on account of the general strike). On the metro entrances there were red and green posters that said "El 20-J no hay transporte" (on June 20th there is no transportation). There was also graffiti in a number of subway entrances that said "huelga para limpieza en el metro" (strike for cleanliness in the metro-a rather amusing point to make with graffiti). There were also red and green leaflets littered all over everywhere-on the sidewalk, on the subway stairs, in store entrances, on the ground in parks-literally everywhere.
The concept of a general strike is absolutely alien to Americans, and I was curious just what the strikers hoped to accomplish. The leaflets outlined the reasons for the strike. Most importantly, the government was trying to cut unemployment benefits. Spain has always had a high unemployment rate (though it was obviously much lower now than it was in 1985), so unemployment benefits are something that would matter. I'm sure the timing of the strike was planned to coincide with the European leaders' summit.
So, were things actually closed? Well, yes and no. Despite the posters, the metro was most decidedly open for business. They had signs in the stations that announced there would be a minimum of 40% service on June 20th, and it appeared to me that trains were running on an absolutely normal schedule. However, there were almost no taxis to be found anywhere-in a city that is normally crawling with taxis. A number of small shops were closed for the day, but most chain stores were open all day long. Some restaurants were open, others were closed. There were even some places (most notably a Sony store across from our hotel) that seemed to open and close and then re-open. I went back to the hotel and told Paul what I had seen, adding it could definitely be an interesting day.
Breakfast consisted of pre-packaged hard toast, a croissant, and the same hockey puck bread we had for supper. (I had thought the bread was so hard because it had been sitting since morning; apparently it's supposed to be that way.) We did, however, have unlimited coffee, and I enjoyed two full cups of extra-strong café solo.
After breakfast I set off on my own to explore. I mostly traveled by metro, which has changed dramatically since I was here in 1985. I thought the metro system was extensive then, but it wasn't even close to what they have now. They've basically made two main improvements. First, they built a ring line that completely encircles the central city at about the same location as the M-30 expressway. Next, they expanded things to the suburbs ... and expanded .. and expanded ... and expanded. The metro network has nearly doubled in length since 1985-with most of that growth coming in the last five years. It's growing by about 25% more next year, at which point it will become the second-longest subway network in Europe, passing Paris and Berlin and trailing only London.
I read an article recently that described the metro expansion as "the miracle of Madrid". Having just last summer been to Los Angeles, where it took twenty years to build the most skeletal of rail networks, the rapid expansion of Madrid's metro seemed like a miracle indeed. The article gave the secrets to how they did it. The first big advantage Spain had was what the article described as "a favorable legal environment". Instead of the endless lawsuits that plagued L.A.'s metro, Spaniards wanted metro expansion, and if people did complain, a strong central government was able to push it through-come hell or high water.
The whole metro expansion project was treated as a make-work project, and as such it was comparatively cheap to build. They let bids to virtually every construction company in the country, and the size of the project meant that there was enough work to occupy pretty much everyone who wanted to be part of it.
More important was the "creative financing" that was used to fund expansion. Almost the entire project (which works out to about a billion euros-cheap by world standards, but a huge amount of money nonetheless) was funded by long-term (thirty year) low interest loans taken out by Comunidad de Madrid from Spanish commercial banks. So why would banks be so willing to make those loans? Because they were backed by more than the cash value in real estate. At the moment there is almost no privately owned land in Madrid (or most of Spain, for that matter). The government of Comunidad de Madrid inherited vast tracts of land (some developed with housing and business, others completely undeveloped) that had previously been "owned" by the Franco government. The government put up some of that undeveloped land as collateral on the loans, and with today's rapid suburban growth many of the banks would honestly rather get the land than the money that is due them for the metro loans.
With all the additions, the Madrid metro today is a mixture of old and new. Parts of the network date to the turn of the last century, and while they're pretty well maintained they are definitely showing their age. Other parts are ultra high tech. There are some lines where you have to open the doors yourself, as in Paris. On others, everything opens automatically. Sometimes there are no announcements; other times they have pre-recorded announcements, with digital text of the announcements showing on screens in the cars.
For its flaws and variety, though, I found the Madrid metro far superior to Paris. It's easier to use (probably because there are fewer lines-the expansion mostly just extended lines further out), and much better signed. Moreover, all of the new stations and a surprising number of the old ones are handicap equipped. They have two dozen park-and-ride ramps, which would make it much more practical for local residents to use.
While there are people in ticket booths in Madrid, virtually everybody buys their tickets from vending machines. The machines are high tech affairs with multilingual touch screens and mechanisms to take €5, 10, or 20 notes (the only bill acceptors I saw in Europe). The five is really all you'd need, unless you were buying a monthly pass, though. Fares are about half of what they were in Paris (a third of what it would be in America); you can get ten rides (a single magnetically encoded pass) for €5.
My first stop was at Barrio del Pilar, a wealthy suburban neighborhood northwest of central Madrid. I had seen on a map that there was a shopping mall here, and I thought it would be interesting to see what a mall was like in Spain. "Centro Comercial Madrid 2" (a not terribly creative name) was located just steps from the metro station. It varied between two and three floors and filled all of a suburban-sized block-similar in size to the malls in Burnsville and Eden Prairie up in the Twin Cities or to Merle Hay in Des Moines. The big difference between Madrid 2 and those malls was that there was no parking lot surrounding Madrid 2. They had three levels of underground parking, but it appeared that a large part of their clientele came there just as I did-by metro.
The strikemongers hadn't found their way to Madrid 2 (or to most of the suburban neighborhoods, for that matter). There was none of the graffiti I saw on Gran Vía, nor any stickers or flyers. No one was picketing, and while a few of the mall shops were closed, the vast majority were open and doing a booming business.
I spent quite a bit of time browsing through the Madrid 2 location of El Corte Inglés. "Corte" is Spain's primary department store. They have an enormous store in downtown Madrid, smaller stores in the neighborhoods, and locations in virtually every city in Spain. The Madrid 2 Corte was like a good J.C. Penney mall store.
Unlike a lot of mall anchor stores, the Madrid 2 Corte was more than just clothes. It was a true department store, with books, appliances, art supplies-you name it. I browsed at great length, but all I bought was a book that gave the origin of Madrid's street names.
The other main place I went at Madrid 2 was a store called ALCA. The place describes itself as an "hipermercado" (ee-pare-mare-COW ... hypermarket), and it's pretty close to what you'd find at a Wal-Mart Supercenter or a Super Target. It's a full line discount store, plus an enormous supermarket. The place was jammed with people; it was like the day after Thanksgiving at an American store. I bought nothing but Pepsi and gum, but I had fun browsing.
I browsed through the rest of the mall, without actually going in any other store. With the exception of fast food and a Hallmark store, there were absolutely no stores identical to those found in an American mall. Instead there were hundreds of Spanish chain stores that were close copies of their American cousins.
I tried to use a cash machine at the mall, but it wouldn't accept my card (even though it had the "Cirrus" logo on it). Fortunately there was a different kind of ATM in the metro station, and it worked just fine. I quickly decided that as long as I was in Spain, I would frequent "Caja de Madrid" ATMs.
I next took the metro's brand new Line 8, which rushes travelers from downtown to Barajas airport in just 12 minutes (as compared to the 50 it takes to get from the Loop to O'Hare). I didn't go all the way to the airport; instead I got off at Mar de Cristal (Crystal Sea), a very new suburban area east of central Madrid. I had no idea what to expect here; mostly I chose the stop because I thought it had an interesting name. It turned out to be like a lot of Spanish suburbs-high rise apartments amid broad streets. There was quite a bit of litter by the station; the strike people had made their way out here. Amid the "huelga" flyers I found a bullfight poster, which I folded up and put in my Corte Inglés bag.
At one end of the traffic circle for which the station was named there was a small shopping mall that included one of those Carrefour stores I had seen in France. I attempted to go into the store, but a guard stopped me and advised me that I would have to check my bag before entering. Apparently they felt that if I had a bag from another store, I might shoplift from their store. Never mind the fact that they, like everyone else in Spain, had security buzzers at the exit. I decided I didn't care for their attitude and therefore didn't need to patronize them.
I made my way back to the hotel and joined the rest of the adults for lunch. We ended up at a very expensive restaurant in a heavily touristed area just off Gran Vía east of our hotel. I really didn't care for the place. It was loud and crowded, and I felt it was just a total rip-off. I had salad and ravioli, and that alone was as much as those cafeterias in France. The place charged extra for table service (as opposed to eating at the bar), and they even charged for tap water. I thought the service was slow and rude, and the food was tasteless (like Chef Boyardee).
After lunch I took the metro to the Mendez Alvaro station. The metro station there is in the basement of an enormous inter-city bus station. No one appeared to be on strike there, either. The place was full of people, and while I walked from one end to the other they announced the departure of three different buses.
My actual destination was about half a mile north of the bus station, a free-standing location of Corte Inglés and its discount step-son "Hipercor" (hipermercado de Corte). The building itself was one of the ugliest structures I've ever seen-an eight-floor windowless concrete triangle. (The symbol of Corte Inglés is a pennant-shaped triangle, and I'd almost expect the store was built in that shape; the nearby streets are too new to have forced the store to fit onto an awkward parcel of land.) There were police guarding the entrances from potential strike violence, but it was business as usual when I went there.
The bottom three floors are Corte Inglés, with two floors of Hipercor above that. The top three floors are parking, and there are also two levels of parking underground. They have moving ramps that lead you from floor to floor. I went quickly through Corte and spent most of my time at Hipercor. This is a lot like ALCA, though heavier on groceries and lighter on dry goods (they want you to buy those at full price downstairs). Paul had wanted Diet Pepsi, and I bought him a twelve pack of it (as well as two souvenir bottles of regular Pepsi for myself) here. I forget the price, but it was very reasonable. The only real problem was that now I had a heavy, bulky bag to carry around with me everywhere.
I made my way back through the bus station and took the metro just a couple stops north to Plaza del Conde de Casal. There is absolutely nothing noteworthy about the mostly residential neighborhood nearby, but it was like coming home for me. Back in '85 Janet booked me into the Hotel Claridge, which still towers above the plaza. It was a mid-range hotel then, and it looks like it's been improved, if anything. It definitely would beat the Señorial without question.
I walked north on Avenida Doctor O'Donnell, a familiar tree-lined boulevard just west of the M-30. I re-entered the metro at Sainz la Barranda and returned to the hotel to dump the Pepsi. Unfortunately Paul was not in the room, and he had forgotten to leave the room key (there's invariably just one in European hotels) at the desk. I ended up leaving the Pepsi in Margaret's room and setting out again.
Next I took the metro to Atocha station. When I was here before this was a "muy típico" neighborhood full of middle class families and elderly people leading a very traditional Spanish lifestyle. My has the neighborhood changed! Today Atocha is a hip, happening neighborhood full of trendy youth with strange haircuts. These wide-eyed idealists were only too willing to be part of the general strike (though I'd imagine most of them have no real jobs to begin with). I was one of them once-not that long before my last trip to Madrid, actually-so I could relate.
My goal in going to Atocha was to see the Museo de Reina Sofía, which houses one of the world's finest collections of modern art. I made my way through the plaza in front of the museum, past a number of picketers who urged me to stay away on strike day, and went inside in spite of them. The museum was open-sort of. All their employees seemed to be working, but there were signs advising that some of the galleries might not be accessible due to the strike. Because of that admission was free today.
The sign said "some" of the galleries might be closed; in fact every gallery was closed due to the strike. I saw a pleasant sculpture garden in the courtyard of the building and I saw a few galleries through locked glass doors as I passed by in empty hallways. I had budgeted quite a bit of time to see the museum, but as it turned out I was there just a few minutes.
There was more to see after I left, though. Just across the street from the museum is a McDonalds. It was open when I got off the metro, but in the fifteen minutes or so that I was in the museum they had closed metal grates in front of all their doors and windows. Someone had spray painted "MEAT IS MURDER" (in English) on one of the grates, and a group of demonstrators was gathering in front of the place, supposedly to protest globalization. They were all carrying those same red and green signs that were the symbol of the strike, and it amused me that most of them had come by metro-never mind that these were the same people who had said "no hay transporte" (there is no transportation) on June 20th.
I took the metro to Plaza Eliptica, which is indeed below an elliptically-shaped plaza in a pleasant suburban area south of the city center. I then got on another line that didn't exist when I was here before and went out to Pan Bendito (blessed bread), at the end of the Line 11. I made my way above ground, but quickly regretted my decision. Most of residential Madrid looks pretty much alike: ten-floor red brick apartment blocks with business on the lowest floor. Most of the streets are quite wide-many of them boulevards, and they intersect at grand traffic circles (plazas) with monuments in the middle of them.
While it still had high rise apartments, Pan Bendito was a very different neighborhood. My first clue was that police guarded the entrance to the metro station. My second clue was that there was no business on the lower floors of the apartments; indeed, the apartments were all behind iron fences with key-code locked gates. Behind the gates shoeless children in tattered shorts tossed cheap plastic balls at one another. Young men (my age down to teenagers) sat on the sidewalk in front of the gates and smoked.
Plaza Pan Bendito was an unmowed vacant lot strewn with litter. The apartments were in horrible repair; they reminded me of the "Stalin houses" all over Russia. There was virtually no traffic on the streets, and the whole place just had a creepy feeling about it.
The people here (and those on the train to and from the place) looked and sounded Mexican rather than Spanish. I really don't know, but I wonder if the area isn't a place where immigrants settle when they first come to Madrid. It would certainly make sense that Mexicans might come to "the mother country" looking for work. If that's true, though, they don't seem to have found work in nearly the quantity that most Hispanic Americans have. I picture Mexicans like most immigrants in U.S. cities as extremely hard-working people who willingly do the horrible jobs that long-term residents don't want to do. I don't picture them sitting around on the sidewalk smoking, as if they had nothing to do. Then again, I don't make a point of frequenting American slums. The Mexican areas I've been to in Chicago and New Orleans and Los Angeles were basically middle class neighborhoods. This place really did come across as a slum, and with the exception of a few quick walks in mostly black areas of Chicago (where neighborhoods can change dramatically in two blocks), I'm not sure I've ever really been out of my car in a real slum before.
I made my way to the one business in the entire neighborhood, a street vendor who was selling ice cream novelties. In most Madrid neighborhoods there would be three or four ice cream vendors; that there was only one was yet another clue to the place's poverty. A couple of ragged children in front of me had pooled their money to buy a popsicle. I took out a couple of coins and bought an ice cream bar. Then, with all the confidence I could muster, I made my way back past the cops and down into the metro.
I went out past Aluche, another area I had been to back in '85. I thought that was a bad area then, but it was wonderful compared to Pan Bendito, and it's obviously become a better neighborhood in the intervening years. Then I went above ground past an amusement park and back downtown to the hotel.
Dinner tonight started with macaroni, topped with that same flavorless sauce I had for lunch. We then had a very nice pork chop, fries, and an apple.
Margaret knew that on the other side of Plaza de España was a genuine Egyptian temple that had somehow ended up in Spain. She suggested we walk over to see it. The walk took us through an underpass where a black woman was laying. She may have been a homeless person, or she may have been a prostitute-possibly both. She was dressed in nothing but a bra and shorts, and she had obviously not bathed in days. She wasn't begging, but she scowled at us as if we were somehow intruding on her by taking a public walkway. I didn't really know whether to be sorry for her or disgusted by her. In the end I, like everyone else, just kept walking.
The temple was interesting, though we could just see the outside of it. There is a lovely park around it that affords a beautiful view of much of the city, and the kids spent a lot of time looking around and taking pictures. Many of them also came to talk (in English) with a religious nut who was roaming through the park. After we had been there for nearly half an hour (and it was going on 10:30), I went over and suggested that we should probably get started walking back to the hotel. The religious nut just about bit my head off. He accused me of being a dictatorial so-and-so, for making that rather hesitant suggestion. I just shrugged him off and again suggested that we should probably get started on our way back. I noticed that all the kids quickly joined me as I walked away.
When we got back to our room there were again more demonstrations going on. I figured it would be interesting to see the TV coverage of the event, so I turned on the TV in the room. It was interesting that only one station was on, and it was running only infomercials. Apparently the strike had shut down most of the television broadcasts.
We knew the strike was over, though, when at 11:30pm garbage trucks stopped outside the window and sanitation workers began picking up all the trash that had accumulated in the neighborhood. That was really kind of annoying, because the fumes from the garbage truck drifted right up to our room. Eventually I did get to sleep, though, and it was actually a surprisingly restful night-after a very interesting day.
I was up relatively late this morning (7:30 or so). I showered and then took the metro just one station up the line, where I bought coffee and a delicious pastry right in the station. It was fascinating to note while I was out just how quickly things had returned to normal. Already this morning people were out cleaning up the strike graffiti and picking up the littered flyers. Everything was open, and the general attitude was that it was if nothing at all had happened yesterday.
I bought all the major newspapers (which at about a euro each are quite a bit more expensive than their American equivalents) and read the coverage on the strike. It didn't take long to figure out that the coverage tended to reflect the political slant of each newspaper. There was everything from it was a total success to it was a total failure. Neither of those positions would be exactly true, but I'm pretty sure that in Madrid at least it didn't have the impact the organizers had hoped it might. (Apparently there was greater participation in the outlying provinces.) Probably the most sensible measure of the strike's impact was one report that noted the decrease in electricity usage nationwide on the 20th. It was down about 25%, which was much less than previous strikes had lowered the figure.
Aside from the strike, the big topic of discussion in the papers was immigration. This was apparently a major focus of the EU leaders' summit, and it appears to be an even hotter issue in Europe than it is in America. Just as Latin Americans come north to work in the U.S., Africans come north (often illegally) to work in Europe. Their first stop is invariably in Spain, and from there they disperse around the continent. Governments looked the other way and even encouraged immigration in the prosperous '90s, but with unemployment rising today there's an attitude of "Europe for Europeans". Many business owners, however, respond job openings have gone unfilled when they were made available just to Europeans; they need immigrant workers, because they're the locals aren't willing to do hard physical labor. It really was precisely the same arguments we get in our country, and it was interesting to see that other places deal with the same issues.
The background music on this page is the rock hit "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night!)".