Here are a few pictures from my visit to this Scandinavian jewel.

By James C. Hawkins | March 23, 2024 | 20-minute read

At the beginning of October, I had succumbed to what I call, ‘The Squats.’

After months of adjustment in Spain, my financial situation had tightened, and it was imperative that I put myself on a strict budget. This meant, my schedule had become: wake up, go to work, go the grocery, and go home. The rigidity of my budget didn’t allow for anything exciting or personal and this had turned me into a ball of grump. And for almost 7 weeks, I caught myself snapping at the tiniest things.

I felt low. I felt crunched. I was in The Squats.

After living in two countries this year and traveling a fair bit, I’ve learned one thing:

Nobody is happy anywhere.

Everyone is putting one foot in front of the other trying to make it through the hardship of a day. And while money doesn’t solve all problems, haivng more money lessens the hardship you experience in a given day. And in Spain, having one of the lowest overall salary levels in Europe, everyone is trying to stretch their money as much as possible.

After speaking with a few friends that live in Madrid about this, I realized that I was in the middle of my most authentic Spanish experience – a budget crunch.

With the closure of a bus route, my commute had lengthened to about 1:15 hours in the morning and about 1:30 hours in the evening.

Many times, there is no seating on the train in the afternoon, so I’m relegated to standing shoulder to shoulder with a crowd of people. My body has not acclimated to the lack of AC in Spain, so I’m always sweating in the Metro. With the haze of monotony everyone is in, common courtesy seems to have left the forefront of our minds.

Too often on the train, I witness a person not showing kindness to someone because they are too entrenched in their phones. I would compare this to Americans who text and drive.  

My colleague, Hugo, has moved to Madrid from France, and we have become friends, so the commute is better when he and I ride together. But when I have to ride alone, I tend to notice the complacency of our society even more – and in that, I include myself. During my Squats I had become a bit too tired to care about anyone else.

On Friday September 29^th, Hugo had flown back to France to run a 60km mountain race, so I had to do a little trekking of my own… to the office by myself. We work half days on Fridays in Spain, but I found myself leaving the office at 6:30 after all the lights had been shutoff. My brain was tired and as I entered the Baunatal metro station to take the long train back home, a pair of two men, glued to their phones, walked directly into me. They didn’t offer an apology or even bother to look up.

‘That must be some important cat video they’re watching.’

…I thought to myself as I sighed, shrugged, and perched myself on the platform to wait for my train. It arrived and miraculously, there were some open seats. Relieved, I sat down and closed my eyes as the train pulled away from the station.

Up around where my office is located (San Sebastien De Los Reyes) the stops between the metro are quite a distance between each other. Unlike downtown Madrid where you might stop every 2 minutes, here you could wait around 7 minutes in between Baunatal and Manuel de Falla.

As the train came to the next station the coach shrieked on the metal rails and my eyes opened.

An elderly woman and her caretaker entered my coach, and I saw there were no other seats available, so I offered her mine. This is not something that was a huge sacrifice and no cause for applause or attention, but simply something my mom and dad would have wanted me to do.

I was happy to do it, but as I tried to find my balance standing on the moving train, I thought to myself, ‘Why am I always the first person to offer my seat? Why can’t anyone else do it?’ During this period, The Squats had borne an intense cynicism in me and after long days, it was more difficult to keep it at bay.

I am discovering in Spain that there is a culture of ‘Well, you didn’t ask me to do it, so you can’t get mad at me for not doing it.’ And it is a concept that is so opposite of how I was raised. When I was a kid, I was taught that if you see the dishwasher is finished and full of clean dishes, you should empty it. Or, if you see that the trash needs to be taken out, you should take it out without someone asking you to do it. There were chores that needed to be done, and if your parents had to ask you to do them, you were already in trouble.

Did I push those limits a thousand times? Absolutely. But, now as an adult, I know that I can’t wait for someone to ask me to do something for me to be aware that it needs to be done. So, when an older woman with mobility issues needs to sit down, I gladly give up my seat without being asked. And as I stood on the train, I held a lot of contempt for the other passengers who didn’t even see her or try to move.

‘Why am I always the first one to give up my seat?’ I repeated the thought. Just then, the train began to pull into the next station. I read the sign that said Marqués de la Valdavia and groaned at the sluggish pace we were making. I still had 13 stops to go and then another, shorter, train home. As the doors opened, a musician entered the coach and I let out an even more audible groan.

Musicians playing in the metro is an extremely common site in the city center and a vast majority of them are unpracticed. (Read: Terrible) And meanwhile, we the passengers are an audience held captive. Most people, try not to make eye contact or even give them the slightest notion of attention, or else they might be cornered into giving money for a horrid musical performance that they didn’t ask for. The case was the same for the musician who entered the coach at Marqués de la Valdavia.

A balding man with sad eyes who didn’t appear to be homeless, rather living on the outskirts of Madrid trying to find a purpose. He appeared to be not great virtuoso. Maybe he was commuting downtown to play in the stations of Sol or La Latina. He stood quietly for a few stops and I was comforted that maybe he would spare us his rendition of Sweet Child of Mine.

The coach was silent beyond the shrieking of the train on the metal tracks, and everyone was either looking down at their shoes or their phones. The balding man looked around and took a deep inhale as he opened a plastic food storage container that housed the dismantled parts of a silver flute.

He began to play softly, and everyone simultaneously looked away from him. Don’t engage and he won’t ask you to pay. I didn’t recognize the tune, but it sounded sad. I thought that maybe he had written it himself because perhaps he, too, was sad. We arrived at the next stop, Las Tablas, and as people on the platform saw there was a musician in our coach, they quickly ran to another one.

He played on, but softly, and soon the tune changed from melancholic to perturbed and then to angry. Contrary to what I had thought, he played brilliantly. I was completely entranced. At this point, a few other people had become brave enough to give him attention. And then suddenly, his tune changed from furious to joyful and I watched as his eyes began to water. Now everyone, even the people that had been glued to their phones, looked up and watched the balding man pour his heart out through simple notes on his flute.

He finished and to my surprise everyone in the coach cheered and clapped for him. I had never seen anyone in Madrid clap for a metro performer before and I stood in amazement. A few others were brought to tears, and I was no different. People tipped him well and he humbly accepted. He departed the train at Tres Olivos and I watched a phenomenon occur. Like rain in a desert that sprouts dormant plants, the people on the train started talking to one another. Some even gave up their seat for new passengers.

The air in the coach felt lighter. The man who was most likely commuting downtown to play his flute had seen a group of hardened people and gave them a bit of inspiration. It’s moment like these that I find myself believing in divine intervention.

That has been one of the most beautiful things I’ve experienced while living in Madrid. And it showed me that, yes, the human race is capable of extreme callousness, but at our core we have each other’s best interest at heart – should we choose.

I arrived home late but, oddly enough, I felt energized. I quickly showered, changed, and picked up a bottle of wine to take my friend Pedro’s birthday party. I had met Pedro through some other friends. He does not speak English very well, and my Spanish is improving but even still, our conversations had not been very deep.

He was surrounded by friends and people that loved him and I felt honored to share the space. As my former boss had told me before moving to Spain ‘This will be a time of listening for you, James’ I spent the evening trying to translate rapid conversations and inside jokes. However, the guests at the party went to great lengths to make me feel included and asked me simple questions so I could contribute.

They invited me to an after party at a club, but I had to decline. I was adamant about my budget commitments and had allowed myself some fun, but a line needed to be drawn. I had some travel coming up in October for my job, and I needed to make sure I was spending appropriately.

On Wednesday, I flew to Antwerp, Belgium. I had a meeting with a customer in Utrecht, Netherlands on the following Monday, but the World Gymnastics Championships was being contested not far away in Antwerp, so I decided to fly in a bit earlyto watch them live and in-person.

A bit about Belgium and Antwerp…

Belgium is an interesting country. It has two official languages, Dutch (Flemish) and French, and you can draw a line in the middle of the country to separate which people speak what language. In Antwerp, they speak Flemish. The Belgian identity is extremely divided due to the difference in languages spoken as well as the fact that it is a relatively new country, younger than the USA. In case you didn’t know, Belgium currently has a monarchy and was created as a buffer country between the Netherlands and France.

Antwerp is regarded as the world capital of the diamond trade which comes from its colonial background stealing diamonds from the region of the Congo in Africa. The city has all the trappings of old Europe and has its own distinctive architectural style that differentiates itself from its Dutch and French neighbors.

It is a beautiful city, but I would be lying if I said it was on my top 10 cities to travel to in Europe. Having to budget more than I would have wanted, my experience was pared down moreso than, perhaps, the average traveler.

The central train station was perfectly located between the city center and the Sporting Venue. I purchased a 2-day metro ticket for 17 euros and I regretted that decision. If you go to Antwerp, don’t buy a metro ticket. You don’t need to use it to get on the metro and there is nobody to check if your ticket functions.

Seeing the city was secondary, though, because I was there to watch the US women’s gymnastics team and Simone Biles win Gold in-person.

I cashed in my Capital One Venture Credit Card points to secure a hotel for 5 nights in Antwerp. Even staying for free, Hotel Antwerpen Billard Palace was not worth it. I should have used those points for one night at a nicer hotel and put the rest on my credit card. A hostel would have been a better option or even someone’s couch.

Using some of my company’s internal rewards points, I booked a private walking tour of the city. My guide, Sarah, was lovely and engaging and offered me tons of insight about the city. She took me through the Grote Markt, the Cathedral of our Lady, the Red-Light district, and other notable parts of the city. Sarah had been an actress in her younger days in London and had rubbed elbows with the likes of Jude Law and Hugh Jackman who had been performing there at the same time as her.

Poor Sarah got lost in telling me her stories while we walked around the city that we ended up 2 miles away from my hotel. She apologized but I didn’t mind. I was in Antwerp alone, so it was impossible for me to be lost.

There was nowhere I needed to be and nobody I needed to be with.

I made my way back to the city and revisited some of the things that Sarah and I had passed. Being on a tight budget, I did not make time to visit any of the museums that charged for entrance. Sometimes when you are traveling, half the fun is walking around without a destination in mind. In this way, stopping for coffee at random cafes, or entering a public garden tucked between buildings, feels like your own personal discovery.

One stop on Sarah’s tour was Sint-Paulskirk (Saint Paul’s Church) which, she told me, had been paid for and built by the collection of prostitutes that called Antwerp home in the 1500s. This formed a relationship with local clergy where prostitution was tolerated in Antwerp, and you can still see it today in the city’s Red-Light district. On Sarah’s tour, I had only seen the outside.

It was free to enter, so I decided to step through.

Note to the reader: When you travel to Europe, you could spend your entire trip visiting beautifully ornate churches and cathedrals. My advice is to pick a maximum of one church per city to visit. I have mixed feelings about paying to enter a church, so I always end up at the lesser-known establishments. This is a decision that I have never regretted.

I have visited a few churches and cathedrals that were built in the Gothic style, but Sint-PaulsKirk was a bit different. The first thing that I noticed was that nobody else was there. I was the sole visitor walking through the great alabaster halls and it made the moment feel heavier. In fact, there weren’t many tourists in the city at that time. And after being there, I understand why maybe spending 5 days was a bit of an overkill. Most tourists came in as part of a day trip from Brussels, but not many stayed there for multiple days as I did.

The church is simply beautiful, and I found myself staring up at the elaborate oil paintings and etched wooden relief sculptures trying to decipher the history of Catholicism in Belgium. Also in the church, you can find a treasury filled with jewels and gold. However, knowing about the derelict history that Belgium has with the region of Africa from where the jewels had been procured, my amazement halted. While I looked, my mind drifted back to humanity’s ability to be cruel to itself.

After leaving the church, I found myself wandering even deeper into the folds of the city.

I knew that Antwerp had a very large Orthodox Jewish community but I had not seen traces of it in the city center. But, seemingly out of nowhere, I found myself pressed in-between several men wearing long black coats and large hairy hats. I had stumbled upon the Jewish Quarter. There was a commotion among them that seemed to be a sort of panic. The rise in tension caused me to get very nervous and I rudely pushed through the crowd of men to enter a side street. What happened? It felt like I was a turtle and got caught up in a furious school of fish.

I clambered into a non-descript restaurant to escape the energy of the crowd and I was greeted by hundreds of figurines of the Virgin Mary. This is awkward. Do I make the sign of the cross? The restaurant was called Elfde Gebod and was filled floor to ceiling with religious iconography. I took my seat and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, French fries and a beer. I opened my phone to try to find the cause of the commotion.

Unknown to me, Hamas (a terrorist organization in Palestine), had attacked Israel.

Having followed the conflict since I was old enough to have an opinion on such things, my calloused first thought was, ‘Sigh….Again?’ It had not happened yet, but judging from past conflicts between the two states, I knew Israel would retaliate. And, of course, we know now that they did.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex, but it is clear that Israel has been violating the human rights of Palestinian people for a long time. But why is there so much conflict over such a small country? Religious and ideological motivations have gripped both sides for so long and continue to add fuel.

As I sat in Elfde Gebod contemplating this, I found 5 statues of Mary glaring back at me. I thought about raising my glass to the statues and giving them a cheers, but then I worried how crazy I would seem to the other patrons of the restaurant.

Through the ages, people have caused much harm under the banner of their religious ideologies. I.e. the chopping off of the hands of Congolese workers to steal jewels that would be worn by Belgian clergy, or the bombing of hospitals in the Middle East to stake claim in the holy lands, and even the justification of slavery in the American South by local preachers twisting biblical idioms.

The more of the world I see, the more disheartened I become.

How will we save our planet from climate crisis when we continue to fight over which religion is correct?  Do you think we could hook up a giant megaphone to the musician with the flute so he could play us all a song? Could it be that simple?

Night fell quickly and I had budgeted for two drinks at a bar. In each city that I travel to, I like to explore the gay areas, no matter how small. Antwerp has a few different places, but I decided on a place called ‘Hessenhuis.’ It seemed nice enough on the inside, but I found it lacking in atmosphere. I ordered one drink, chatted a bit, and then I went outside to the patio.

I was tired and I wanted to go back to the hotel. I had budgeted for a second drink, and perhaps, if I stayed longer, I’d meet a few more people. I didn’t have the funds to have a wild party night so I looked for a sign to help me make my decision. I looked up and tried to find Stella in the night sky but I couldn’t see her. However, I was able to see the stars and that’s something I’m not able to do in Madrid. I interpreted that to mean that I should save my money (and energy) and walk back to the hotel.

Antwerp held no great romance or adventure for me, but I’m certain that both exist there. Maybe it was just hard for me to see it.

I am writing this to remind myself that there may never be a time that our world has peace.

But James… you can always be the person that gives up his seat for someone that needs it. You can always be someone that produces more than he consumes. And you can be your own reason to have hope in the world.

I love you.