Strike! (Kind of)
Before coming to Spain, I read about the various protests and strikes that are going on in Spain at the moment due to the economic crisis. On the ground, the picture's pretty consistent with the news. I see protests all the time, from large ones like the transit workers below protesting on Valencia's main drag Colon, to small ones like gatherings outside of banks, to protests unrelated to the crisis entirely like a big pro-Palestinian protest a couple weeks ago.
I learned that the transit workers demonstrate about once a week. My colleague told me that the services still run, just not as frequently when they are demonstrating (like only two subways an hour...sounds like SF Muni sometimes on a normal day). So it's not really a strike. The picture below shows the same transit workers, but protesting today up a different street.
I definitely HEAR more protests than I see, whether in my apartment or working in the studio. That's because the protesters use noisemakers like whistles and horns while they are walking. And they most definitely are walking, or even more accurately, strolling. They are not marching. In fact, the feeling I get is as if a big group of people decided to hang out in the street with their friends, making noise as they slowly make their way through the city.
