On March 1, I returned to Madrid via the AVE train from Valencia. While on the train, I noticed several passengers wearing elastic gloves and masks. I had been following the events in China since early February and even told a few friends back in the United States that something very serious was happening there and that everyone should be on guard. By the time I made my trip back to Madrid, news of the virus in Northern Italy was the dominant topic on every television station. My last week in Javea at the end of February, I went to six different pharmacies to try and purchase a mask but there were none left in the city. At this point in Spain, the government had not announced any restrictions of movement nor had it mandated any mask wearing but the public had already been spooked by the news from Italy. So, I boarded the train like so many others, without a mask, and luckily the train was half full and I found an empty row to pass the hour and forty minute ride. Instinctively, I washed my hands four or five times throughout the short trip and when the train arrived at Atocha Station, I noticed many others in the station moving about in masks.
The first of March I got settled in a friend’s attic loft in the neighborhood of Malasaña for the month and even chatted with two potential clients in the US about trips for the upcoming summer to Spain. How innocent and foolhardy we were to even consider making plans for a Spain adventure, looking back now. As the first week of March came to an end, everyone in Madrid began to hoard goods such as beans, rice, toilet paper and other essentials. Still, no lock down had been announced but the world was watching Italy and everyone knew that Covid-19 was already in the country. I soon canceled my gym membership and stopped riding the metro. On March 8, the socialist government allowed a very large “Women’s rights/Me-too” demonstration and that Saturday I remember exiting the metro at Tribunal for the last time and seeing hoards of young people, arm-in-arm, celebrating the prior manifestation. Allowing this demonstration would soon be an arm of the right to attack the left for allowing such an “irresponsible” gathering of tens of thousands of people knowing that Covid-19 was in the country. By the 10th of March I had decided that I was going to begin my own isolation. I bought as much food as my fridge and tiny kitchen could hold and only left the house once a day to get a short bit of fresh air and a walk to stretch my legs. We all knew the lock down was around the corner and sure enough four days later on the 14th of March Pedro Sánchez declared a state of emergency and ordered the people of the country to stay at home.
Very soon, the numbers of deaths from Covid-19 in Spain skyrocketed, averaging about 700 per day between March 22 and April 8. This rapid onslaught of deaths across the country broke the health care system and the country rushed to find spaces to put all of the patients. The horror that we had seen in Lombary, Italy was now the very same experience we were living in Spain. For me, things became a bit tricky at the end of March. The owner of my flat in Malasaña was progressively getting more worried about her home situation down the street because her family, with a newborn, was living in a very small home while the father was still going to work every day to supervise at a factory in one of the “essential” businesses. His daily exposure to others and potentially, to the virus, required that he isolate in the flat where I was living and I had to move across town to another friend’s apartment. Luckily, she had escaped the city with her sister’s family to their second home in the mountains north of Madrid. Little did we know at the time, but she and her family would not be allowed back to Madrid until the end of May. Therefore, I ended up staying at her place for a little over two months and I owe her dearly for saving me in a very tight spot! Before I could move to her apartment on March 26, just on the other side of town, I had to reach out to the US Embassy via email to have them give me a note saying that I was moving to another home because of reasons related to Covid-19, in case my taxi was stopped by the police who had set up road blocks across the city to ticket anyone who was outside of their home without special permission. This gives you an idea how stringent the early days of the lock down in Madrid really were.
Until the end of May, I lived alone in my apartment, like so many others across the country, leaving twice a day for a walk and a visit to the supermarket which really served for me as another way to escape the house. The three phases of opening helped to ease the confinement and soon I was getting together with friends in the neighborhood for the allowed evening walk for our age group. The middle of the day had been reserved for the elderly and parents with young children and the hours after 8 pm were given to the rest of the population. What is incredible is that by May 7, since the beginning of the state of alarm, over 900,000 tickets had been issued across the country to individuals for breaking the restrictions of the quarantine. That seems like a huge number but tellingly, during Semana Santa, or Easter week, thousands of Madrileños tried to drive out of the city and all were ticketed and turned back by the local police and Guardia Civil who had made roadblocks on the perimeter of the city.
Now that the state of alarm has ended, Spain, much like many countries, has entered the “new normal”. Masks are worn by everyone inside of all stores and other establishments. A huge percentage of the country continues to work remotely from home but sadly, the biggest problem for Spain is it has lost billions of euros related to the paralyzed tourist sector and no one at this point knows just how bad things will get in the months ahead. Thousands of hotels are still closed. Restaurants across the nation have shuttered. 13% of Spain’s GDP is derived from tourism. As I type this, I am enjoying time on the the Costa del Sol in Málaga and while there are some European tourists in the city, it is not even 50% as busy as it usually would be. When extrapolating that across the nation, this effect has been and will continue to be devastating for Spain. Selfishly though, I will say that strolling though Madrid in the month of June and only hearing Spanish on the streets and seeing the locals fill iconic spaces such as the Plaza Mayor instead of multitudes of foreign visitors, has been refreshing. A few weeks ago, I was having dinner in El Barrio de las Letras with a good friend from Madrid and with a look of amazement on his face, he said that “this”must have been what Madrid was like 100 years ago. And while we and many others both have enjoyed these nostalgic moments, the country desperately needs to revive the tourist sector. Spain is a beautiful country who welcomes its guests with open arms but it is the one who is suffering now. My plea with this blog post is that you keep the country in your thoughts and prayers and that you make your plans to come visit this enchanting country when you feel that it is safe for you to do so. Spain needs you and I promise that upon spending time here you will learn that you have always needed Spain!