Huelgas

Since arriving in Spain, one of the many things that has struck me as so different from the United States is the amount of "huelgas" (or strikes) they have here. This year, for example, the Spanish government needed to cut federal spending, and they decided the best place to take the money from would be the school system. Three thousand teachers lost their jobs as a result, and the schools have been huelga-ing ever since. My host-sister Irene rarely goes two weeks without missing a day at her university because of either a teacher or student huelga, and even my 13-year-old host brother Raúl has been part of quite a few huelgas. This has been pretty impressive, considering that in Colorado, cutting school funding is part of the norm. I've never heard of any strikes happening there, despite the consistent budget-slashing of school districts across the state. Spain, on the other hand, is not afraid to let the system know when they're unhappy.

Apparently, the same can be said for Portugal, my would-be destination for the upcoming weekend. Plans have changed though, because-- you guessed it-- the air traffic controllers are having a huelga of their own. The airline didn't bother to inform me until yesterday, and considering we were supposed to leave tomorrow this has been pretty stressful. Right after class today, we called the airline to see what we could do. While they do have a lot of huelgas in Spain (and Portugal), they usually never last more than a day, but those days occur frequently. That being the case, we were hoping to maybe fly out Friday instead, but those flights were already booked completely. It made no sense to fly out Saturday, since we have to leave Sunday to be back in time for classes, so I guess Portugal will just have to wait.

This has been a disappointment, to say the least. I had been looking forward to that trip for a while now, and have wanted to visit Portugal long before I even got here. We move onward, though, and quickly made plans today for another weekend trip to start Thursday. So tomorrow we leave early in the morning to catch a bus for the six-hour ride to Sevilla, a reportedly beautiful city in southern Spain. It would've been nice to visit another country before I return to the states, but I'll take what I can get.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Wish I could be there to share some turkey with you, but as it is I'll be in Sevilla instead. Not a bad trade off. Take care!