WTAF

I moved into the Airbnb apartment today, the place where I’ll stay for almost 3 months while taking Spanish classes. The apartment is tiny, but I’m not complaining. It’s reasonable for the location and when I’m here I’ll either be studying or sleeping.

I did, however, need some basic items like toilet paper and dish soap, and I wanted to buy a desk lamp since there wasn’t one. All these things that I needed would be easily procured with one trip to a Target or a Bed Bath and Beyond back in the U.S., but I still haven’t found the equivalent here. I just know that the equivalent is situated on the edges of the city where they have enough room for enormous stores, but all I found were some home goods stores that were a bit fancy.

Of course I can and did get most of the stuff from a supermarket, but in my search for a desk lamp I wandered farther and farther away from my apartment. At one point I found myself in a leafy, quiet neighborhood of apartment buildings and hospitals and schools. Some of the schools clearly had been put into former church buildings originally intended as monasteries or church schools. The farther I got into this neighborhood of Chamartin, the quieter and spookier it got.

Around 12:45 I passed a few families coming the other way, very dressed up for church. It was Saturday so I supposed that these families had just been to baptisms or confirmation services. Then I was walking down the park-like median of a wide boulevard. Instead of the usual somewhat rough-and-ready sidewalk tables you see in more touristy areas, this median actually had restaurants in it. Well-dressed old people having heavy meals with big glasses of dark red wine. These people looked wealthy and somehow I got a very conservative vibe from the whole setup.

Then I passed the church. It was an enormous brick pile with a tower and belfry reaching up at least a hundred feet. I noticed it was closed as I passed by the gates, and then did a double-take and went back to see if I’d really just seen what I’d seen.

On either side of the church door hung ten-foot-tall white marble plaques. One of them had a list of names headed with “1936-1939: In memory of the martyrs killed for the sacred cause of the religion of their country.” Oh shiiiiiiiit.

Then on the other side, a quotation from Franco himself.

I knew from talking to Anna that there are still many supporters of Franco alive, but it was one thing to know that abstractly, and another to actually see memorials to fascism. Really topped off the creepy feeling I had already absorbed from the neighborhood.