Pedestrian access a little to be desired

There are plenty of things to admire about Spain. It's a nation of efficiency, cleanliness and orderliness. In any grocery store I’ve been in you'll never have to wait more than a couple of minutes to be directed to the next cash or have a cash opened up for you. Parking garages have floors that are so impeccably clean they almost shine. The nation is reputed to have the second best high speed network of trains in the world, and I can attest they are superb ways to travel, often reaching 300 km/hour, as per the LED read out at the front of the coaches. At even the smallest coffee shops, products are arranged with utmost tidiness. Chambermaids not only clean every nook and cranny but rearrange furniture, even trash cans, as exactly the suite was originally set up. But certain aspects of the country just makes you want to shake your head. I speak in particular of highways, sidewalks and pedestrian access. I adore my haunt of the last several years, Elviria, on the outskirts of Marbella (and home to Julio Iglesias!). But the pedestrian and motorist infrastructure would never pass the grade in North America. For example, on a well pedestrianized overpass leading to a commercial area, the "sidewalk" is more an afterthought than the real thing. In fact, it doesn’t even seem

to be designed as a sidewalk but simply a concrete surface a few feet wide on the opposite side of vehicle guardrails. In parts it's crumbling away. In another there's an indentation a few feet long. A sizable black PVC tube serpentines along part of it. Anyone walking along it either has to turn sideways to let a walker opposite pass or step aside, often on a makeshift gravel path that has been created over the years as the "second lane." Meanwhile, the outside posts that the guardrail is affixed to intrudes into the "sidewalk." Then there's the bus stop. A fully functioning bus stop with modern shelter is located just down below. Buses pull off the Autoivia (freeway) into these narrow bays, a site unimaginable in North America

where they would likely be deemed hazardous. But the kicker is pedestrian access to the bus stop. On one side there is a culvert, more than a couple of feet wide and a foot deep. To get from a sloping lawn (no sidewalk or steps) to the bus stop you either have to walk into and out of the culvert or jump across it, risking twisting your ankle. Yes, you can go around it to the very end where an exit ramp meets the highway and a walking path of sorts exists. But the sidewalk is disintegrating with a mess of gravel.

Two oh-so-Euro things: Cigarette machines still reign supreme in restaurants, cafes and grocery stores, just like they used to do in North America up to the 1970's...And even on an overcast windy day, Europeans can be seen dining outside, oblivious to the blustery conditions. or maybe they love the Costa del Sol just oh-so-much!

- Ron Stang, a frequent traveller, Windsor Ontario Canada

Israel: this multidimensional land will survive

My Israel Solidarity Mission trip concluded, here are some takeaways:

The country remains vastly united. Sure, there may have been mass demonstrations last year that seemed to be tearing the country apart over a more than controversial judicial review by the Netanyahu government. All that has ended. I don't doubt people are still irritated with the prime minister and I saw obscene graffiti stating just that. But when Israel as a nation is attacked its body politic comes together. How would you feel if a nation roughly the size of southern Ontario was most viciously assaulted for no provocation? And when the attackers vowed to do the same over and over again? Hostage kidnapped posters were everywhere, the one visual departure from what otherwise seems a very normal going-about-business country. Scratch the surface and talk with anyone and you know people are outraged and want to fight back. Israel didn't start this, just as it didn't the Yom Kippur War (1973), Six Day War (1967) and War of Independence (1948). Not to mention innumerable terrorist attacks, with one clock estimating that

the shortest time Israel has not been attacked by a missile is 56 minutes. We visited Sderot, a city south of Tel Aviv that has long been a target of Hamas missiles, often made from UN donated water pipe. We watched a video of Hamas terrorists where, on an otherwise quiet Saturday morning,  begin shooting people on the street outside the police station, the site of a vicious Oct. 7 battle. We dined with soldiers who had come to Israel from around the world, from Uruguay, Brooklyn and Manhattan, all of whom made Aliyah and are now proud Israeli citizens. Gun-toting soldiers (some off duty) has long been a feature of Israeli society the sight of which has more poignancy now. You have to even smile when you see attractive young women, applying makeup and seemingly without a care in the world, toting an M4 or M16 rifle across their backs. There is no question Israel is a Jewish state, with Orthodox Jews most visible but numerous men also wearing yarmulkes. So many israeli women wear religious turbans (Mitpachat), a fascinating and exotic garment which you will see in no other country at least in this abundance. But, as probably the vast majority of outsiders are unaware, this is a multi-ethnic state. A fifth of the population is Arab - and Muslim. Road signs are in three languages - Hebrew, Arabic and then English. And eschew any talk that this is a "white" country. It’s as racially diverse as Canada or the US, with people of all shades including Blacks and Asians. And don’t believe the rhetoric that this is a "settler" country. Jews have been here for 3000 years. The country is traditional but more than contemporary. Walking back from a kosher Italian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda Market we passed open air rave parties with rock bands. Hard to find something like that even in Detroit. On my last night, taking the new and efficient train from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion airport, I met a vibrant younger woman originally from Chicago and in part as American as apple pie. She has lived in numerous countries and now resides in Haifa in Israel's north. She's going home to the States in a week. But she says that when she travels, she isn’t out of the country a day before she misses it. This uniquely multidimensional land - religious and ecumenical, traditional and contemporary with an undefinable life force shot through it - are the reasons why. 

(Photos of Jerusalem light rain line and a coffee bar in Jerusalem's chic yet traditional German Colony district.)

- Ron Stang, a frequent traveller, Windsor Ontario Canada