Three Years

Today marks the three year anniversary of the bombings in Madrid. The wounds are still fresh and the city is once again demonstrating its losses with candles and memorials. It's interesting, because I was in Spain three years ago today and I remember hearing about the bombing. We were in our History of Spain class with Dr. Inglis and I don't remember what we were supposed to talk about because all we talked about was the bombings. Dr. Inglis came in and told us what had happened and at that time, they thought the Basque nationalist group, ETA, was responsible for the attacks and most of us had never heard of ETA. We probably learned more about Spanish history that day than any other.

The next week our school trip was scheduled to go to Madrid. I remember Mom telling me not to go but Dr. Inglis assured us that we would be fine. We went anyway and everywhere we went in the city there were groups of candles, banners and letters remembering loved ones or asking the government to do something. I never once felt unsafe in all my time in Spain and maybe that's just ignorance or stupidity but oh well.

So now three years later, I'm back in Spain and I feel like I'm sort of reliving it all over again. Yesterday Shannon and I had plans to go eat a brownie sundae at the Hard Rock Cafe (we decided we would reward ourselves and they have the best ones!) but we picked a bad day to go. The plaza where Hard Rock is located was the site of a mass demonstration yesterday with thousands of people. Many carried Spanish flags even though they say Spain isn't very nationalistic in that regard, people brought out the flags and buttons with the reds and yellows blazing. I wish I had my camera with me just to take in the sheer amount of people, but alas, never when I need it. We fought our way to the crowds and we did get our brownie, but I think that was the hardest I ever worked for a brownie.