Hey hey!
Quick update from Barcelona.
Last weekend I was with Morena, leaving the Sants train station.
It was late afternoon. Broad daylight, in other words. We walked a few blocks, stopped at a crosswalk, and then… chaos.
Morena shouted something, I felt a tugging on my neck, and two guys on an electric scooter sped off from behind me, looking back at us as they went.
It took me a couple of seconds to piece together what had happened: a couple of lowlife guys had tried to steal my gold necklace, and Morena had stopped them by grabbing it at the same time they did.
The necklace was broken, and I had a big scrape mark around my neck, but otherwise I was fine.
Just annoyed.
(Morena and I both got gold necklaces for our Hindu wedding – necklaces which were, in fact, blessed by Lord Shiva at the ceremony. It’s an Indian thing.)
Petty Crime in Barcelona
I guess the lesson here is not to wear expensive things around in Barcelona.
You occasionally hear of someone being roughed up over a 250,000€ watch, or something similar. But my interest in the problems of the sorts of people who own 250,000€ watches is limited.
Also, if I have to read about something in the news, I figure it’s pretty unlikely to happen to me.
When people would ask if it’s dangerous to wear their jewelry in Barcelona, I’d tell them it’s probably not an issue. But now that this has happened to me, I guess I’m revising that to “it may be an issue”.
Here’s the thing: I’m not exactly a soft target. I’m above average in size, and years of martial arts have trained me to be constantly looking over my shoulders.
But still, I look very foreign, and about once a year someone tries to rob me. So far (fingers crossed) without success. In any case, these electric scooters make it so people can get up behind you really quick.
If not for Morena’s fast save, the lowlife guys would have gotten away with my gold chain. Situational awareness will only get you so far. Also, a fair number of the people who have tried to rob me over the years are high as balls on whatever it is they take. They’re not assessing risk in the normal way.
Anyway, this is just a heads up.
I wrote more about pickpockets and other petty crime in a previous article – long story short, the courts are overwhelmed, and the penalties are so low that many criminals work with a certain level of impunity.
So be careful out there.
The great blackout mystery continues
It’s been two weeks since the power outage that left Spain and Portugal in the dark for around 12 hours.
I mentioned the blackout – el apagón, in Spanish – on the podcast, but not here on the blog, so here goes: despite the passing of two weeks, we still have no real information from the government about what happened.
They’re going to investigate, and the EU is going to conduct its own inquiry as well.
And they’ll all let us know as soon as they can.
With how fast news happens these days, the whole thing’s been pretty well forgotten in La Vanguardia and El País.
Last week, we had a brief border clash between India and Pakistan, an artist named Bad Bunny sold an incredible number of tickets for his upcoming concerts in Madrid and Barcelona, and – finally! – an American was elected pope. All that’s pushed the problems of the electrical grid off the front pages.
Meanwhile, President / Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez spent the first 10 days after the blackout saying that it’s definitely not renewable energy that’s the problem, and that anyone pointing out that we never had these issues when we used more nuclear power is a right wing conspiracy nut.
He said this, in fact, with such frequency that I can only assume he’s lying. The tech publication Wired has an article that suggests that solar and wind power can cause instability in the grid, and that the connections with France are limited, so we ca n’t just get topped up by their power plants if we need it.
So it may, in fact, be the case that renewable energy presents certain supply problems and that coal or nuclear are more stable power sources.
Anyway, the whole blackout thing wasn’t a huge problem in my life. Hopefully the people in charge of the grid will make adjustments and we can move forward.
There are plenty of countries where you can’t count on having electricity literally all day long. But presumably Spain doesn’t want to be one of them.
We were just called the world’s best economy a few months ago, after all. Maybe we should try to keep that going for a while, and see where it takes us.
New squirt-gun protest against tourism
Speaking of things that were quickly forgotten in the news cycle…
The morning of the big blackout, I woke up to the news that there had been another squirt-gun protest against tourism. Yes, some brave anticapitalist warriors had sprayed a tour bus with water while holding signs somewhere around the Sagrada Familia area.
All of this caused delays of approximately 10 minutes, and police say they identified 20 protestors as being involved in the “action”.
In other words, I thought that was going to be the big story of the week – and if it hadn’t been for the blackout, maybe it would have been.
Last time two ladies brought squirt guns to a protest, we never heard the end of it. That was June 2024.
People on the Facebook groups for expats are still, a year later, worried about being attacked by squirt-gun wielding mobs if they visit Barcelona, even though it’s happened once – now twice – in a city of millions.
Is Barcelona against tourism?
Here’s my take: a few people who live in the more touristy areas are legitimately annoyed at what’s happening to their neighborhoods. Most Spaniards would never go to a protest about it. And Barcelona has many, many neighborhoods where tourism is barely an issue.
In fact, based on my personal experience (some of which I mentioned at the beginning of this article) I’d say you’re much more likely to be a victim of petty crime than to run into an anti-tourism protest, on a visit to Barcelona.
At most, you might see some graffiti that says “Tourist Go Home” – but to take that as an expression of majority opinion is quite a stretch. Personally, I interpret graffiti as expressing the opinion of a tiny group of agitators who have to ask their parents for money to buy spray paint.
(It’s worth mentioning that ALL the “Tourist Go Home” graffiti I’ve seen recently seems to be done in the same handwriting – it may be the work of literally one person.)
Anyway, they types of people who go to anti-tourism protests are not exactly representative of the popular will. They are (and I’m doing my best not to be insulting here) a very specific kind of person with a very specific interpretation of reality.
So I would not – if I were you – spend a single moment worrying about anti-tourism protests while planning a trip to Spain. Most people out here are just living their lives, and they’re not at all worried about who you are and what you’re doing wandering down the Rambla.
As usual, that’s just my two cents. Let me know what you think, right here in the comments.
Thanks! And in the immortal words of the Wu Tang Clan, don’t forget to “protect ya neck” – and leave your expensive jewelry at home.
Yours,
Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.
P.S. Have you ever noticed that some people are more than happy to create their identities out of long lists of things they dislike? I wrote about this years ago, and (logically) it pissed some people off, but that just sort of proved my point. If being angry about things that are completely out of your control is part of your identity, you’re going to be angry a lot. My recommendation, then and now, is to be pro-, and create something positive in your life, rather than waiting for everyone else to change. But that’s a lot more difficult, isn’t it?
I lean to the left but am a fervent supporter of nuclear energy. Why? Because, at least in the west, it's so tightly regulated that the only issue is waste disposal and, as I've read, there is a type of fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor that actually eats the radioactive material and could be a solution to the waste issue. Or molten salt reactors, which never were pursued because of ADHD in the U.S. in the 60s (it wasn't of any military value). In any case … if we assume that the power grid infrastructure is aging and from a time when coal and nuclear fed it it wouldn't be a huge stretch to see where perhaps renewables could destabilize it. Especially so given politicians tendency to ignore projects that are sexy like updating/upgrading something before it collapses. Germany's big problem at the moment are its rail infrastructure and highway bridges but I digress. PM Sanchez doesn't impress me much so whether he's lying intentionally or just trying to quell calls for his head on a metaphorical spike after the debacle in Valencia and no this, either is plausible.
As for squirt gun protests, that just seems childish at best. If squirted perhaps I could pee on their leg as a reverse protest? It might be worth the fine. I also don't understand graffiti like "Tourist Go Home". It makes me wonder if they weren't loved enough by their mothers as children that they need to actually deface something that they say they hold dear, their neighborhood, just to make a statement no one will pay heed to? I'm perfectly fine with the right to express oneself and ask for redress but one can do that respectfully without turning the neighborhood into something dumpy. For me though I have no desire to visit Barcelona since my first and only visit there 20 years or so ago (on business). As someone once put it, I'm in search of a better class of Spaniard I found there (and seem to still be there with their squirt guns and spray paint).
Actually, peeing on someone’s leg sounds like a good counter-protest! I wish things could just work without politically obsessed weirdos telling us that they’re “right wing” or “left wing” but I guess that’s the game we’re all playing… I’ve heard that they have Gen 4 nuclear that solves all the problems of the old reactors, but who know’s if it’ll ever be politically acceptable to build them here in Europe. Oh well. Thanks for commenting!
"that are NOT sexy like updating/upgrading something before it collapses."
The same thing is also happening in Santander, and it seems to be spreading throughout Spain. You can draw your own conclusions.
I'm referring to robberies in the street and in broad daylight.
When the Police catch the robbers, they put them at the Police Station emandcthey're on the street again next morning