Barcelona Neta

As cities go, Barcelona is a pretty clean (neta!) one. Much of that is owed to the constant street and sidewalk cleaning that goes on here. They have various sizes of street cleaners so they can get in to every corner. The average street cleaner truck is the size of a small mini-van. These street cleaners close every parade as the last vehicles down the route before the streets are opened to traffic. I applaud the city government for their tenacity for keeping the streets and sidewalks clean, but sometimes it borders on OCD. On occasion you feel like someone is following behind you sweeping up the dirt you tracked into the city. Still, it amazed me when I walked on to my small balcony the other day after a student protest against the Bologna Process had rolled through and noticed that the cleaners were already at work on the graffiti the students had left on the buildings as they protested. After I got over the fact that the students felt it necessary to splatter paint everywhere and graffiti any place they pleased, I was surprised (and pleased) to see that the cleaners got right to it. I'm not sure that would be the case in Chicago where the street cleaners are behemoth vehicles, although perhaps Mayor Daley's graffiti squad would have been all over it.

A note regarding graffiti: It is everywhere in Europe and it often goes uncleaned. I don't mind a good mural or some interesting and artistic tags, but just random graffiti while you're protesting seems excessive and disrespectful to me. How will anyone take your complaints seriously if you splatter paint and leave behind a mess as if the protest was a party?