2008 February 17 | Stories from Emona

Archive for February 17th, 2008

2000 kilometres away

Published by Maya on February 17, 2008 under General

Spain. One keeps wondering, how come that we still don’t have a direct air connection with Madrid at least, not to mention any other Spanish destination. Cheapo companies are a no-go for Juanpi (fitting his long legs into those seats defies 2 or 3 laws of physics). And prices from Ljubljana to Madrid -with stops in Germany- are a bit over the top, -unless company pays-.

Seeing that flights from Venice are much cheaper, let’s go from there!. But the same question arises… how come that we don’t have any flight to Venice?… -or Italy-
There are 2 other choices to reach Venice: car or train. I like trains, if they are comfortable, that is. The Casanova train that takes you from Ljubljana to Venice (and back) every day seems to provide enough comfort for a 3 1/2 hrs trip. Honestly, it could easily do it in 2 hrs if he wanted to. But this train likes it slow, stopping through half a dozen of villages and letting you admire the details of every tree in the way.
However, the rest of the passengers, Spanish “Erasmus” exchange students returning home, didn’t seem to be so amused by that – one could hear pretty many complaints about Slovenia and its people; it’s always interesting to listen to what others have to say about your country.

Then comes the border – and you start to like the idea of Schengen… a bit. No more endless waiting and no police bothering you for the passport. Soon you enter the first village on the Italian side, Villa Opicina. No Slovene word seen or spoken. When the conductor welcomes us and announces the next station, in Italian of course, everyone in the wagon applaudes joyfully, because they can understand what he said. I can comprehend how they feel. I guess Slovene language ain’t something foreigner people would just die for. Mostly it scares them off with all those declinations and conjugations, not to mention the rare consonant combinations we’re able to put together… And English is always funnier when spoken with Italian accent.

Mestre is the place where you have to abandon the coziness of train and exchange it for a bus. You can’t miss it, just follow the yellow line on the ground once you step off the train, and it will take you to a little white house which in fact, as you discover soon after, is the place to buy bus ticket. 3 euro per person, luggage included, and after 20 mins, more or less, you are left in front of Marco Polo airport. We had e-tickets and so were able to check in online a day ahead from home, which spared you some time waiting in the line with your luggage.

Some hours later the plane landed in the new terminal 4 of the big Barajas airport. Collecting the luggage brings another relief and off we go towards our destination in Burgos. The autovía, what in Slovenia we would call avtocesta is almost empty at these late hours and there is no cestnina to be payed at all – along 240 kms. Something we, Slovenes, can just dream of while having to pay almost every 20 mins on our roads.

Days there went by so quickly. We didn’t have much time so we used it mainly to walk around and do all those tasks we had accumulated during the year. I was glad to finally find a town where I can walk and shop in small tiendas, like back then, when I was a child. While in Slovenia little merchants are disappearing and giving place to every day bigger shopping centres, in Spain it seems they refuse to go, at least without a fight. You always have a grocery, bank, post office, bakery, pharmacy and whatever shop within 10 minutes of walking distance, and they generally treat you much more friendly. In most shops they remembered Juanpi, and it wasn’t difficult to stay 30 min on each talking about how’s life going, both here and there. However, eating outside can be expensive… 20-30 euros per person is a normal price, unless you pick the daily menu.

Ljubljana is comparable in size to Burgos, yet it is highly unpleasant to walk inside town or go by bus -that can take hours to arrive – . Streets are all stuffed with cars, cars and more cars. Burgos has cars, too – but they are much less of a nuisance. The town is pedestrian-and-cyclist friendly. You don’t need a car to move around town, and public transport works great, it’s cheap, and a lot of people uses it. And most important, the feeling of constant danger while taking your daily route goes away. There will always be some driving kamikaze, of course -idiocy is universal-. But the experience was muuuch better.

By chance I got to experience from close how does the Spanish health system work. Juanpi went to the doctor to see if they could do something about that old pain of his, that they failed to cure here in more than a year. We went to one of the many health centres distributed around town. Entered at 12:00 and by 17:00 he was cured. He had 3 consults, X-Ray, sonography, some syringe tests, EKG and spirometry. All within the same day. I almost cried, so impressed I was.The results of the exam are given to you directly, and you even get to keep your x-ray scan, something I haven’t seen before.
And such service ain’t available solely to Spanish born citizens, mostly everyone has free insurance. Working people pay part of their salaries for this system, that’s true, but also non-working people -including foreigners- is covered.

Then I had the opportunity to see how their burocracy works: for having your new ID made -which in Spain is now a smart-card- we went to the police station, waited half an hour for our turn, left two fingerprints and signed. The card is printed in front of your eyes and a minute later you have it. As for me, it took less than 10 minutes to get all my needed foreigner paperwork, 1 single document with my ID number, that’s all I need. They even wrote my name correctly. Simple and quick.

Of course, there isn’t just milk and honey in this western Mediterranean country. The arrival of euro 6 years ago and then the badly-made migration policy -which allows criminals to enter, rob and kill without any special consequences, as well as abusing the above-mentioned health system- together with the rampant bubble of speculation on house pricing -which is coming to an end, moving to Central Europe- is slowly driving Spain down till the point that more and more Spaniards are now searching for better future outside their home country. It’s such a pity. Spain could be a great country, it has all the conditions for that.
Slovenia could be great, too, haven’t we had such a complicated history. There is at least one thing these 2 countries have in common – politicians that are screwing their country. Unfortunately, for now in Slovenia they are doing an even “better” job.

The trip back took -again- one whole day. Madrid airport was quite crowded even at 6am, but security control was a bit more human friendly than the Venice one. Observing the sunrise while waiting for the flight brought some sadness to our hearts for having to return. But knowing we’ll be back again, makes it easier.