La Ostra

Biking in Madrid

23 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment

by laostra in Spain

Madrid, and Spain in general, is a great place for riding a bicycle. The country is blessed with a lot of sun shine for the majority of the year, even during the winter. The weather generally is more friendly that it is in the Northern Europe and the temperature is also mild only. It doesn’t rain that much either, except in the Northern Spain.

The city of Madrid is situated to the south of Sierra Guadarrama. This low mountain range is easily accesible from Madrid by public transport, specially the suburban trains (Cercanías) that permit carrying bicycles during the week end. There are a lot of biking tracks in the mountain, starting from the easiest to the toughest ones. Some of the tracks are also used by hikers and they are connected to various view points. From the view points, one can see the surrounding towns and drinking water reservoir on the foot of the mountain, which for sure, provides beautiful scenes.

To the south and southeastern parts of Madrid, the terrane is flatter and more suitable for cross country biking. Nevertheless, the scenes are also beautiful, particularly along the Jarama River and its swampy low lands. The cycling tracks bend along the river and cuts through the loose rock wall created by the river’s overbank deposits. Birds and swans are often spotted feeding themselves of smaller creatures on the swampy land. For those who like outdoor photography, biking and photography in Madrid would be a nice combination of activities for the week end.

Cycling in the city centre of Madrid, though, can be quite dangerous because of the lack of special cycling lane. A road cyclist therefore has to share the road with all sort of vehicles from buses, cars, motorbikes to small trucks or vans. Fortunately, most drivers are tolerant enough to leave a lot space when they overtake a cyclist on the main road, but still, cycling on the main road without special bicycle lane is not a nice experience because the chance of getting hit by another vehicle from the back is pretty high.

“You don’t exist, mate!”

08 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment

by laostra in Spain

Strange thing happens! Actually, it’s not “strange” but “funny” and also “sad” or “funnily sad” (does this kind of feeling exist?)

Some people just don’t exist in the eyes of the others. They look but they don’t see, somehow their eyes are blocked off by something. They hear but they don’t capture the words, they don’t understand the words, eventhough the spoken language is supposed to be their language.

It is not unusual to get hit by an oncoming passer despite being standing still. Somehow they don’t realise that someone is standing in front of them. It is also normal when a “hello” doesn’t get any response, not even a quick look.

It is just unbelieveable how some people can see the non-existence of others.

Building a nation through sport

12 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by laostra in Spain

Spain won their first ever football FIFA World Cup title after beating The Netherlands by a single goal last night in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup title is the best accolade Spain have ever achieved since the establishment of football federation of Spain (Real Federación Española de Fútbol/RFEF) nearly 100 years ago. The country is football mad and has many talented players, but before 2008, they had failed to win any major cup. Spain won their first important cup that year, the European Cup, after beating Germany, also by 1-0 only.

To win FIFA World Cup is a major achievement that many Spanish are really proud of. It has been very long waiting to all of them. Thanks to current generation of supertalented Spanish players, the waiting finally is over. Spain broke the tradition of the World Cup winner, which so far has always been won by member of a group of football elites that consists of Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, France and Germany.

I have noticed that there has been an attempt to build up Spanish nationalism from some partners of the Spanish national team through their TV advertisements and from some TV presenters. Spain is a country that still have a kind of disunity between Castilla, Catalonia and Basque Country. Their hymne is without lyrics because they don’t know which language to use. People speak Spanish everywhere but Spanish is the first language in the south and Castilla region only. To the locals here in Madrid, what we call Spanish is actually Castellano, the language of people in the Castilla region.

“La Selección”, or the Spanish national team, has a very interesting player composition. Five out of 11 in the first team are Catalan (Puyol, Piqué, Xavi, Busquet & Capdevila), one each from Asturia, Canary & Basque (Villa, Pedro & Xabi) and three from Castilla (Casillas, Iniesta & Ramos). Seven out of the 11 are FC Barcelona’s players, only three from Real Madrid and one from Villareal CF.

The FIFA Champion of the World title has opened up an opportunity to remind the whole country of how great the Spanish are, how they can be very proud of the achievement of their nation. Less than 24 hours after winning the cup, the team was received officially by King Carlos and his family in his palace. Afterward, all the team was taken to Moncloa to see PM Zapatero. People in the TV sang “Yo soy español, español, español” (I’m Spanish, Spanish, Spanish).

The TV presenters even speak a lot more about the achievements of Spanish sportmen and women, including among other in tennis (Rafa Nadal), basketball (World Champion in Japan), MotoGP (Jorge Lorenzo) and, of course, cycling (Alberto Contador) and golf. One thing is sure, they urge people to be proud of being Spanish, because they have many the best in their respective sports.

A colleague told me that in the past, Spain used to be very useless in sport, but now they have improved a lot so that they have many stars. Some people argued that the sportmen/women now are better paid and well respected than they were in the past, therefore there are more talented people choosing certain sport to make a living, which is sensible.

With the successes of Spain’s sport in international level, the government and the royals are quick to recognize an opportunity to unite the country and drill Spanish nationalism into the heart of the people. It is obviously a good idea from their point of view and time will tell if they can succeed or not. From what I have seen so far, people in the whole country are enjoying the Spain’s triumph in South Africa. Whether or not they think that they are now a Spanish, nobody really know.

15 hari untuk kembali ke klub, jika tidak keluarganya akan dibunuh

28 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment

by laostra in Spain

Maria, bukan nama sebenarnya, seorang wanita yang berasal dari Brazil, terpaksa harus menjadi pelacur karena ia dijebak oleh orang yang mengiming-iminginya dengan sebuah pekerjaan di Spanyol. Ia adalah salah satu dari lebih dari 1300 orang yang menjadi korban penyelundupan wanita untuk menjadi pelacur di Spanyol.

Kisah Maria adalah sebuah kisah sedih yang tidak hanya terjadi di Spanyol, namun juga terjadi di Indonesia. Ada banyak gadis desa yang menjadi korban jaringan kriminal yang mengelabui mereka dengan menjanjikan iming-iming pekerjaan di Jakarta atau kota besar lainnya padahal mereka dipaksa untuk menjadi pelacur.

Dalam kasus Maria, ia pernah berhasil kabur bersama temannya yang berasal dari Salamanca, namun email-email dan sms ancaman kemudian terus berdatangan sehingga ia tidak memiliki pilihan lain kecuali kembali melacurkan diri. Ancaman itu seperti yang ditunjukkan di judul tulisan ini, ia diberi 15 hari untuk kembali ke klub tempat ia bekerja jika tidak ingin anak-anaknya di Brazil sana dibunuh.

Di masa moderen seperti sekarang, perbudakan dan penyelundupan manusia masih saja terus terjadi, tanpa bisa dicegah. Jaringan kriminal seperti ini seharusnya bisa diberantas, namun tetap saja tidak akan bisa habis 100%. Akan lebih baik lagi jika para wanita yang diincar agar jangan sampai tergiur oleh iming-iming pekerjaan yang indah dari orang yang tidak ia kenal. Tidak mudah memang…