Huelga General (General Strike)

After living in the center of the capital city of Spain for over a year now, we're pretty used to seeing protests and hearing about strikes.  Today is a quite a bit different though because it's a country wide general strike.  There's an interesting article on it online at El Pais.

For the record, our team is not on strike :).  But there are a few noticeable differences between today and "normal life."  

• The garbage hasn't been collected, so there's trash all over the streets and plazas.
• The majority of businesses are closed, even some that are independently owned.
• There's been some obnoxiousness:  smashed glass, spray painted ATMs, stickers plastered on the windows of stores that did decide to open, etc.
• Transportation services (bus, metro) are running at reduced levels.

After us gals met for bible study this morning, Jenee and I headed out to find a cafe that was open and had WIFI.  The first place we tried was closed, so we started down the street only to see a line of police vans drive by.  Then we noticed that one of the helicopters was holding a pretty steady position over the area, which we found a little disconcerting. (I've checked the news since then and there was a demonstration on Grand Via, which is really close to here.  So, that's what that was about.)

"We're on strike, sorry for the inconvenience."

We headed down another street toward a second place, and discovered a crowd waving flags, wearing stickers, and chanting "Hu-el-gaa, Hu-el-gaa."  So, we watched that for a bit before turning around toward a cafe a little more off the beaten path.

UGT = Unión General de Trabajadores
General Workers Union

News trucks parked near UGT Headquarters.

The third try was a success and we were pretty thankful to find an open cafe that was nice and quiet.  What a crazy morning :).

If you're interested in seeing more pictures of the strike, 20Minutos has a good sized collection going.