Indignados???

Yesterday after class I went to Las Ramblas which is a very touristic area of Barcelona. I went to the clothing store to see if I liked anything and there were a lot of stores. One thing that I learned to do while in Spain is never to convert the euro to dollars when trying to buy something, it will just depress you. Living in Spain and shopping in Spain or Europe is very expensive. I went to a store called Desigual and for one tshirt they wanted 79 euros which is almost the same amount that an original soccer jersey would cost. Its about 130 dollars in American money. I might just have to get a part time job to support my spending habits while in Spain...lol. Also smoking is another big thing here in Spain, its normal for everyone to smoke as they are walking down the street or as they are just going on about their day. The first days that I was here there were some people in the plaze near my school called Plaza Catalunya and at first I thought they were gypsie type people because they had tents set up around the plaza and signs and graffiti on the tarps and posters. On Monday I found out they were called los Indignados because thats what they call protesters over here in Spain. Los Indignados were protesting the budget cuts or los recortes of health and education funding. It is something normal to do over here in Spain, protest. The economy also is not that good in Spain as they are in a recession so our professor was explaining to us how many banks had let people borrow money as a mortgage to buy an apatment in a building and that many people have een getting laid off so then they do not have money to pay the mortgage and the bank keeps the property but the person still has to pay back the mortgage even if they get it taken away. I read graffiti on my way to school that said 80,000 pisos basillos y la gente duerme en la calle, meaning 80,000 floors empty and the people still sleep on the streets. This is a way of saying that people are left to live on the streets even though there are all these empty apartments.