The concierge, Frederico who smells like dirty BO, of the building I work in just gave all the tenants of the building a circular about the evacuation of the building yesterday. It is essentially thanking us for exiting the building so quickly. I can not take credit for going down 15 flights of stairs quickly as I felt rather arthritic yesterday and being that they had just painted the handrails; I couldn’t assist myself or avoid the vertigo in the slightest. Then you get to the first bullet point of the circular which reads “Se ha debido a una amenaza de bomba recibida en las oficinas de Barclays”. So, the real fire drill was really a bomb threat that the bank on the bottom floor had received.
My office is on the 15th and 16th floors of the Torres de Colón. The two towers, according to Wikipedia, are 102 meters high and have 23 floors. They were designed by Antonio Lamela, an architect from Madrid, and built in 1976. Wikipedia makes the buildings out to be marvelous with their “granate” colored windows and its modern design with the green structure on top. I think that the Torres are probably one/two of the FUGLIEST buildings in Madrid – they look like a green plug with a brown cord – they stick out like a sore thumb, a total eye sore. I must give the building their fairness as they offer great views which as you walk around our floor, you can almost see all of Madrid, they are in the best neighborhood in Madrid - the neighborhood has the best shopping where I have seen famous people (ok, so it was just one, Vic
toria Beckham who looked like a walking stick), is centrally located, has a cute flower stand across the street, I have my own office overlooking the Hard Rock café and best of all it takes me 17 minutes to get from my door to the 15th floor.
As the Torres were built in the mid-seventies, the elevators have yet to be modernized. I have been trapped in them 3 times for about 35 minutes average trapping, if it were my choice, I would much rather takes the stairs. I have been called a “gafe” (jinx) by one boss who no longer takes the elevator with me. I have 3 main bosses who I call the three Musketeers (although sometimes they remind me of the Stooges) and then 2 other bosses. The hippy boss was insisting yesterday and this morning as we were riding up in the elevator together that we had to evacuate because of a bomb. A nice way to start your morning. Today is the day the judges decide where the 2016 Olympics are to be hosted, so this boss that made my morning elevator ride pleasant, mind you, he once asked an unknown elevator rider when she was due and she told him she wasn’t pregnant (oops!), seems to think that Madrid is going to have a couple of surprises, I hope his statement proves to be false and perhaps this is when being a “gafe” will come in handy and I can take the elevator up sola.
Most people know that Spain has the “Etarras”, the people who support the ETA, a Basque political party that started out as a pacifist university group and seems to have lost their real purpose, if there ever was a real purpose and are now known as terrorists. The Etarras are constantly on the most wanted list, found in Andorra, tend to do car bombings and usually target political figures or policemen. The US Embassy used to send us ex-pats warning emails about the Etarras and crowded places in Spain (in Israel, the government emails were kind of the same but it also warned to avoid public transportation) but lately, we haven’t received so many of those warning emails.
My point to this is that, no need to worry about me in the Torres as Annabel just reassured me in an email, “I also think they would be far more likely to target other buildings first – the towers aren’t exactly emblematic – they’re just plain Uuuuugleeeee”. It seems that bombings and terrorists threats are becoming an everyday thing. It is kind of sad and pathetic that people take to violence. My friend Kristen’s dad strongly believes in L-O-V-E, Leave Out Violence Entirely, wish that more people believed in L-O-V-E as well.
My office is on the 15th and 16th floors of the Torres de Colón. The two towers, according to Wikipedia, are 102 meters high and have 23 floors. They were designed by Antonio Lamela, an architect from Madrid, and built in 1976. Wikipedia makes the buildings out to be marvelous with their “granate” colored windows and its modern design with the green structure on top. I think that the Torres are probably one/two of the FUGLIEST buildings in Madrid – they look like a green plug with a brown cord – they stick out like a sore thumb, a total eye sore. I must give the building their fairness as they offer great views which as you walk around our floor, you can almost see all of Madrid, they are in the best neighborhood in Madrid - the neighborhood has the best shopping where I have seen famous people (ok, so it was just one, Vic
toria Beckham who looked like a walking stick), is centrally located, has a cute flower stand across the street, I have my own office overlooking the Hard Rock café and best of all it takes me 17 minutes to get from my door to the 15th floor.As the Torres were built in the mid-seventies, the elevators have yet to be modernized. I have been trapped in them 3 times for about 35 minutes average trapping, if it were my choice, I would much rather takes the stairs. I have been called a “gafe” (jinx) by one boss who no longer takes the elevator with me. I have 3 main bosses who I call the three Musketeers (although sometimes they remind me of the Stooges) and then 2 other bosses. The hippy boss was insisting yesterday and this morning as we were riding up in the elevator together that we had to evacuate because of a bomb. A nice way to start your morning. Today is the day the judges decide where the 2016 Olympics are to be hosted, so this boss that made my morning elevator ride pleasant, mind you, he once asked an unknown elevator rider when she was due and she told him she wasn’t pregnant (oops!), seems to think that Madrid is going to have a couple of surprises, I hope his statement proves to be false and perhaps this is when being a “gafe” will come in handy and I can take the elevator up sola.
Most people know that Spain has the “Etarras”, the people who support the ETA, a Basque political party that started out as a pacifist university group and seems to have lost their real purpose, if there ever was a real purpose and are now known as terrorists. The Etarras are constantly on the most wanted list, found in Andorra, tend to do car bombings and usually target political figures or policemen. The US Embassy used to send us ex-pats warning emails about the Etarras and crowded places in Spain (in Israel, the government emails were kind of the same but it also warned to avoid public transportation) but lately, we haven’t received so many of those warning emails.
My point to this is that, no need to worry about me in the Torres as Annabel just reassured me in an email, “I also think they would be far more likely to target other buildings first – the towers aren’t exactly emblematic – they’re just plain Uuuuugleeeee”. It seems that bombings and terrorists threats are becoming an everyday thing. It is kind of sad and pathetic that people take to violence. My friend Kristen’s dad strongly believes in L-O-V-E, Leave Out Violence Entirely, wish that more people believed in L-O-V-E as well.
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