I’m not sure how much the ‘greve geral’ in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy has been in the news in other countries, but here it was difficult to avoid last wednesday, especially since I live around the corner of the parliament.  I went there in the afternoon to take a look at what was going on and take some photos but after an hour of what I felt was a ‘decent’ demonstration, I went home.  Apparently that’s when the crowd started throwing rocks at the police, which in the end led to the police attacking the crowd.  Fast forward to a few hours later: I was working in my apartment, when all of a sudden I hear – besides the normal shouting and whistling that usually accompanies these demonstrations – strange noises.  I step outside on my balcony, and see people pushing over the glass bank on the corner of my street and setting fire to the trash.  At one point I was surrounded by three fires, at every exit of my street around my house, and people were trying to set fire to the trash in front of my door as well.  At that point, I have to admit, I got a little bit scared.  Luckily, only moments later the police showed up and all the hotheads ran away while the fire department extinguished the fire.  I gathered some courage and went for a walk with some friends to see the damage done.

That was one interesting day, I can tell you!  Anyway, click continue reading if you want to see more photos – and I promise, there’s A LOT of photos!  (By the way: there’s three analog photos included in this post, they are from a few weeks ago, during another demonstration, but I thought they fitted the general atmosphere in this post, so I included them anyway.)

Read More