Walked the 40 blocks to the middle

Spain is on strike. It's the sixth general strike since Franco died. The whole country, the two big labor unions, most of the smaller ones, plus lots of non-union students and bar owners and others who are mad about budget cuts. Plus the anarchists and hooligans who will take any excuse to fuck shit up. One of my roommates hung a "We are the 99%, fuck you banks"-type sign, painted on a sheet, from our terrace. It makes me feel like I live here, even if I'm not really 99% de acuerdo with the sentiment.

I had some work that I felt like I needed to do, and it took a lot longer than I wanted it to, so I missed the big protest rally. I sort of hate huge crowds of people anyway. In the evening I took a long walk around the city to check out the aftermath. The main streets were still mostly closed off to traffic and there were little parades of protesters all over the place. Closer to the center, the police presence got more and more intimidating. A several block radius around Plaza Catalunya was blocked by a wall of police in riot gear. Just outside that wall trash bins burned and protesters waved union flags and hipster types took photos with huge cameras. The police shot plastic bullets off seemingly at random from huge guns, eliciting some "¡Hijos de puta!" in return and scaring some dogs. (If you take your dog to a protest and the super loud plastic bullet shots scare him, take him home for fuck's sake.) Across the street a raised middle finger sometimes rose up from behind a big trash can. It was all kind of novel and more dramatic than I'm used to, but after not long I started to get bored. When I realized that the situation's getting more exciting would almost definitely not be a good thing, I left.

Anyway, it was a big huge deal and some people got hurt and lots got arrested, etc. But as far as I can tell, the one thing most people really agree on is that the strike won't have any effect on anything. Joder.