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You are here: Home Life in Lifestyle Editor's diary: A very different side to Madrid
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24/10/2007Editor's diary: A very different side to Madrid

Editor's diary: A very different side to Madrid Madrid is not all jazzy bars, great restaurants and fantastic art museums. Real people live in the suburbs, as the Editor found out.

 

As a frequent visitor to Madrid, I am huge fan of this huge sprawling monster.

You get the feeling that anything is possible in a city which is teeming with energy.

It sends a tingle down my spine, in the same way that London used to.

But this week, for reasons I won’t bore you with, I saw a very different side to the Spanish capital.

I was staying at a friend’s place in a barrio called San Blas, out near the airport.

Once very working class it was a place you did not walk alone at night.

A friend of mine told me how she had been badly mugged here some years ago.

But now it is very different. The yuppies/pijos – Spanish and foreign – have arrived in force.

So, there are gated communities, no shops (except for a centro commercial miles away) and cars rule the roost.

You can see some greenery, which is a pleasant change for a city dweller like me.

But the lack of human contact, is still something of a shock to the system after coming from a bustling Barcelona barrio.

To contact us: spain@expatica.com 

Copyright: Expatica

Subject: Editor's diary



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