Feed the Rich and Bury the Poor

A great contrast came upon leaving Madrid by train. It really was obvious how poor the people in the country were. Most structures where simple brick with holes cut out for windows and doors, and quite simple rooves. Even beside the railway tracks were little plots of vegetables with fences made out of thin strips of wood - basically anything that was close at hand as there was certainly no money for steel posts.

A couple of the buildings had large chimmey like stacks and I'm thinking that they were factories. These were crammed in between houses and I don't even want to think about the diseases children would be getting from it.

It was such a contrast from the previous day walking around the lush parks of Madrid were council workers were everywhere with leaf blowers and just tidying up the place to make it look good. I hope that they know what they are doing with their Olympic bid. On the one hand it would be great to bring Euro's and tourism into the country, on the other hand, if they don't win the bid, they would have wasted a lot of money that could have been really utilised in a better fashion.