The Strike.

 September 29th in Spain is basically a National Strike Day for the unions. Everything closes on this day; shops, resturants, schools, and public transit. All of my teachers at school said to be careful and not to leave our apartments. Most people I know didn't go anywhere just because they need public transit to get around and taking a taxi was dangerous. I don't need any of those things. I can walk anywhere in the city, mas o menys. I slept in and did laundry so by the time my friends made it walking to my apartment, I had assumed everything was over. This was at like 5 pm. So we just sat in a park and talked. We actually ended up meeting these really nice Eygptian girls who kept asking us to take their pictures. We all ending up going to dinner and they were all convincing us to go to Egypt and we were all convincing them to go to Chicago.

Not until the next morning did I hear anything about the strike. In my first class, my teacher showed us the news clip from it. Apparently it all started around 6 pm at the plaza right outside of my school, Placa Catalunya. Things got really intense with massive burnings (cop cars and garbage), tear gas, and rubber bullets. Not only was there a rally for the union strikes, but there was also a hostage situation. About 300 anarchists took over and began living in a back at the other end of the placa. They had been living in there for the past 3 days. The police decided to evacuate all of these people during the march. This was a very intense time in Barcelona.

 From my understanding (which is not well because of the whole new to news thing), the unions strike because of the tax distripution. In Spain, the people only pay taxes. They don't pay for schools, healthcare, or most basic living needs. The taxes are high obviously because they are going to all the services, but Spain wants to raise the taxes but not improve the services. One way they want to get more money is through increasing the age of retirement and take the money from the elderly (that's how the Spanish see it--taking money from the elderly). Spanish citizens don't think it's fair to take from the elderly when the richer who can afford higher taxes should pay them. So that's supposedly what the strike was about. I may very easily be wrong. This was the impression I got from my teachers. And while all of this was happening, I was just relaxing in a park. I feel like I missed out on something monumental but at the same time I think it would have been too much.

The pictures above are from my friend Vince who spent all day walking around Placa Catalunya and saw basically everything that happened. I was also going to find the news clip that my teacher showed us, but I can't find it on line. It basically showed all of the conflicts between the police and protesters and it also showed the police car on fire. Most of the newspapers the next morning had the picture of the burning police car as its cover.