More than 90 years ago, a subway station was constructed in the very centric Chamberí neighbourhood. It was the first line of the current 14 subway lines. This station worked for about 50 years, until due to the increase in the number of passengers, the local subway company decided to lengthen the stations of this line to make them able to handle the new long trains they started to use.
Chamberí station had to be closed because its situation made too complicated the enlargement works… and so remained until a few years ago when Metro Madrid decided to open it as a museum, allowing their visitors to travel in the time to the 60’s.
Normally, every couple of minutes a train passes through that station, as the line 1 is still there… but the day I went none did so. I could enjoy the station with no noise, as a subway workers’ strike was collapsing Madrid. Furthermore, visitors thought the museum was part of the strike, and there were no trains and no people.
More pictures in this slideshow.
Recently I got an email with a link to this website, with lots of posters which used to be in the metropolitan trains in Tokyo. Some of them are very Japanese, but some others could perfectly be applied to any other country.
My favourite ones are as follows (clic on the images to enlarge them):
Finally, after 5 days, I have recovered some kind of rhythm (even though I am on vacation) and I can start updating the blog again. 🙂
The flight went a bit better than I expected. My stomach recovered just on time, and I did not need to visit the lavatories too often. I enjoyed a couple of movies (Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the classic Shrek), some short series, I read a complete The Economist, and played some Sudoku and other games in the on-board entertaining system. By the way, I flew with Swissair this time and it was the best for this so far. Movies on demand, lots of games (you could even play Tetris against other people in the plane!), and lots of music CDs in it.
I sat next to a german guy, who after drinking one Campari, one bottle of wine, four beers and being disappointed for the lack of sake, opened up his laptop and started working. I do not know how he could do anything at all… but I guess it is still a good thing not to have Internet during the flights… Otherwise, companies should start considering implementing by default a feature like this one in Gmail to prevent people from sending e-mails, not being completely aware of what they are doing.
Since I landed in Spain, I have met a couple of friends, been to the office, and come to Alicante to enjoy a familiar weekend full of home dishes and lots of children (big family). I am also getting used to some of the differences between Japan and Spain. For example, my metro station is not prepared for people carrying (big) luggage, you need to be extra-careful with your belongings in public places (otherwise you get robbed) or how you are treated in the shops (this deserves a longer explanation in a separate post, I guess)…
I will be used to this in a few more days… (I hope)
Curioso enlace el que me he encontrado: Metro Bits. Una página dedicada a los metros de todo el mundo: con fotos, mapas, logotipos, cosas curiosas, … Tienen incluso una sección en la que dicen lo que se dice en los distintos sitios para indicar que se van a cerrar las puertas. Por ejemplo, el famoso Bitte, zurück bleiben de Munich.