Dragon Tour of Duty 2004, part 1

As promised, here is the first report in my press tour across the Europe. I will describe the places I visited in no particular.

MADRID

It was not the easiest time to visit Madrid because of the terrorist atrocity of Atocha station -indeed Microsoft contemplated cancelling this leg of the tour altogether. Many Americans and Englishmen were refusing to travel to the city, but I felt I would be letting our Spanish hosts down if I cancelled my trip.

The people of the PR office that organised the event were polite and courteous in the extreme. Only time the impeccable manners of my host Oscar Morales wavered was when he listened news where the American politicians slagged off the Spanish electorate for 'appeasing terrorists'.

'If we Spaniards truly were such cowards who can be swayed by terrorism as the Americans claim, ETA would have been running Spain for decades.' he said with barely contained contempt in his voice.

'The ruling politicians decided to lie to us based on their political agenda, on the time when all the Spain desperately wanted to hear the truth. You must remember that the public opinion was already strongly against a war without UN mandate anyway. The actions of the Prime Minister were inexcuseable. For the sake of Spain, he had to go.' continued Oscar. You must remember that Oscar is a well-to-do, middle-aged man, not a young idealist firebrand.

After the event I had some time for myself and I went to see the sights with with Vicki, one of the PR girls who seemed to enjoy introducing her home city to me.

I walked through the streets of Madrid, and admired the city's architecture. Despite its beauty, the city was heavy with sadness. Spanish flags with black scarfs of mourning were everywhere, with baderolles saying 'enough' hanging underneath them.

Yet the life carried on: the palace of the revered king of Spain was being re-decorated, in preparation of the forthcoming royal wedding of the crown prince. The statue of Cerevantes still overlooked the town centre benevolently, and the youth had gathered around it, though many wore the black ribbon as a sign of mourning.

One of the bookshops carried a new book by Arturo Perez-Reverte, with a cover painting depicting a Spanish swordsman -this really cemented my determination to start studying spanish as soon as possible. I literally can't wait for it to be translated.

As I flew from Madrid to Milan, a Spanish businessman on the plane told me that his wife had missed the train that was attacked only by few seconds. He lives only 500 meters away from Atocha station. He thanked Santa Maria for his good luck.

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