France’s Guignols are like a cross between Saturday Night Live and the Muppets: all satire and latex.

In a recent video parody of Spanish athletes, disgraced cyclist Alberto Contador sings that he’s got bull’s blood in his veins. Tennis superstar Rafael Nadal croons about his stash of clean blood hidden in his fridge.

This is daily fare on French TV, but here on the south side of the Pyrenees its touched a nerve. Nadal has been among the most outspoken. Maybe because of this second Guignols video which shows him urinating in the gas tank of his own car, then speeding off at 200 miles an hour.

“This isn’t an attack against me,” Nadal told reporters during training this week, “but an attack against Spanish sports and the Spanish people.”

As such, Spain’s foreign minister has duly chimed in. Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said official complaints had been sent to French media outlets, and especially to Canal Plus, which hosts the Guignols.

But why the doping parody to begin with? The cyclist Contador was recently busted. But generally speaking Spanish athletes don’t get caught more than others. The crux of the matter seems to be Spain’s athletic success. It makes some French suspicious. In recent years Spain has come to dominate soccer, basketball, tennis and cycling. Impossible, goes the innuendo, without a little synthetic pick-me-up. For the Spanish, the French are just jealous.

One recent news report on Spanish public television pointed out how France hasn’t won a Tour de France since the 1980s, or even the French Open for that matter. Then the reporter rattles off a long list of Spanish victories.

Missing in this uproar is just how funny the Guignols’ rubber puppets are. Not to mention that they’re rubber puppets. Instead, Spaniards today are gloating over a damning piece of news next door.

A French prosecutor announced he was opening an investigation into Patrice Ciprelli, the husband and coach of legendary French cyclist Jeannie Longo. Ciprelli has admitted to purchasing the banned performance-booster EPO.

He has been banned from the legal profession for 11 years. The court said he could not appeal against the ruling.

Garzon is best known for helping to secure the arrest of the former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet in London.

Marco Werman speaks with The World’s Gerry Hadden.

81-year-old Maria Martin Lopez told Supreme Court judges how when she was six, Franco supporters came to her house and took her mother away.

“They shot her,” Martin said. “My father had me go with him to try to find her body. Later, we found her. They’d stripped her naked, and thrown her clothes in the brambles.”

Martin said they tried to complain to authorities but were told to drop the matter. “If not, they said, we’d end up just like my mother.”

Spaniards like Martin have long been barred from testifying in court by Spain’s Franco-era amnesty law, passed in 1977. But a few years ago Spanish investigative judge Baltazar Garzon challenged the law and began to investigate. He argues that the killings were crimes against humanity.

Garzon used the same principal to have the late Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet arrested in 1998, despite Chile’s own amnesty law. For trying the same thing at home, Garzon is now in the docket.

Among victims, there is outrage that it is Garzon under investigation and not the crimes themselves. 75-year-old Pino Sosa Sosa, from the Canary Islands told judges that her father’s whereabouts are still a mystery.

“We’re here for justice,” she said. “They took my father from the house, beat him, threw him in jail. They took the sustenance of our house from us, because my mother fell sick afterward. She never could find him.”

Defenders of Spain’s 1977 amnesty law say it remains the only way for Spain to move forward. Digging in the past, they say, could lead to political instability. But during testimony Maria Martin displayed a hand-drawn map of where she says her mother’s remains lay.

“Here, where the stream passes,” she said, anxiously pointing to her scrap of paper. “There, right up next to the bridge.”

Garzon’s prosecutors cut Martin’s and others’ testimony short, arguing the same point that has stunned international human rights groups: That this trial is about whether judge Garzon broke the law, not about who was killed by whom, more than half a century ago.

But beyond the issues of jobs and money, Spaniards seeking their fortunes in “Alemania” [the Spanish name for Germany] run into a whole bunch of cultural challenges. Some of them are well known, others surprise.

I doubt any Spaniard has left for Hamburg or Berlin without having heard that Germans are punctual. Very punctual. Spaniards, it is also widely known, are not.

But because they’re prepared for this difference Spanish workers in Germany usually adapt quickly. I’ll be at work by 8:30 has to mean 8:30. Not 8:45, 9:07 or next Thursday.

But for 20-year-old Patricia Cigala, a native of Murcia in southeast Spain who’s been in Munich for three months, it isn’t Germany’s highly organized work schedule that’s thrown her off. It’s what she sees as Germans’ equally regimented social lives.

“This city is really big,” she said to me, waiting on a freezing morning for a bus that would take her visiting mother to the airport. “Sometimes you find yourself in a (German) acquaintance’s neighborhood and you want to just pop by, unannounced.” She shook her head. “Don’t do it.”

Cigala, who’s found a job in catering, said that in Spain friends and neighbors constantly drop in without warning. Not only are they welcome; it’s a given that they’ll be served coffee, a beer, whatever’s on hand. “Here, you have to have a date,” she said. “A date and a time. And you have to set it up days, sometimes weeks, in advance.”

Cigala said such formality gets under her skin – much more than the cold winter air – but that she was learning to adapt. It was either that, she said, “or move back in with my parents in Murcia, and find a job earning $800 a month.”

20-year-old nanny Ana Abad, from Madrid, has a head’s start on Cigala. Abad’s been in Munich for a year, and said she’s made some close German friends. Sitting in an all-night bar in the Old City, Abad told me, “Germans seem very closed off at first, but in the end you realize that they’re not cold at all. I’ve made true, good friends here.”

She said that she also suffered initially due to the Germans seemingly distant attitude. But she said time, and an open mind, were the keys to winning over the locals.

When I met Spanish architect Ana Garcia Puyol at my hotel it was clear how little time she’d been here. A day, actually. She greeted me with the stiffest, straightest, most uncomfortable handshake I can remember. Very un-Spanish. Very un-German, even.

Turns out she didn’t know that I’ve lived in Spain for the last eight years. That’s where I was coming from, culturally, when I leaned forward for the traditional Spanish double-kiss. She resisted, I backed off, fearing I’d snap her elbow.

Later, when she realized I lived in her home country – and especially that I speak Spanish – her demeanor changed. She relaxed, opened up, told jokes. And I thought, Ana’s warming to me is like a sped-up version of how Germans will warm to her.

At first there’ll be distance. But one day, with persistence, Ana will speak the language, get to know the customs, and the doors will start opening. The demeanor of the Germans she meets will change, they’ll relax, open up, start telling jokes*. She’ll have made friends.

In my experience it’s only then that you can really know whether you want to live in an adopted country, or go home.

*Perhaps nowhere is the breech between Spanish and German culture wider than when it comes to humor. Both sides know it. Each think they’re funnier.

Juan Alberto Fuente and Jose Sandino search for their new home - a youth hostel - in Munich, Germany. They've just arrived from Malaga, in southern Spain, in search of work. Both are experienced industrial engineers but Spain's economic crisis had them sitting on their hands. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

The number of unemployed people in Spain has surpassed 5 million, according to the government. That’s about 23 percent overall – the highest rate since 1994. For the young, the jobless rate is nearly 50 percent. Now, a generation of desperate Spaniards is seeking work abroad. It isn’t the first time poverty has driven Spaniards from home, but such exoduses have been of unskilled laborers in the past. This time, more of Spain’s best and brightest are leaving.

Munich’s airport shuttle stopped on a recent morning to let off arriving passengers downtown. Among those getting off on the freezing sidewalk were Spaniards Jose Sandino and Juan Alberto Fuente.

Sandino and Fuente are thirty-something industrial engineers, from Malaga, in southern Spain. Each has more than a decade of experience under his belt. But Spain’s economic crisis has left them jobless. And turned them into immigrants.

The two clean-cut, shivering men make their way to an information desk at Munich’s main train station, and try out their beginner’s German. After a long subway ride, and getting lost a couple of times on the street, Sandino and Fuente find their new temporary home. It’s a giant youth hostel, filled mostly with young backpackers.

Their room is small and bare, with two wooden beds, a desk, a closet. It’s hard to believe now, Sandino says, but not long ago his construction consulting firm back home was netting him six-figures. Then the housing sector collapsed and so did his business. Sitting on his bed, he says he can’t believe that just this morning he was saying goodbye to his girlfriend and family.

“This move has been complicated, he said, “because my girlfriend is pregnant, and alone now. Our baby is due in July, then they’ll come join me here, where we don’t know anything or anyone.”

Sandino does know one other person here, his traveling pal and bunkmate Juan Alberto Fuente. They met during an intensive German language course this Fall in Malaga, and decided to take the plunge together.

Fuente says he could have just gone on living indefinitely with his parents, knowing he’d be taken care of, but that was not his goal in life.

“If you send out tons of resumes and no one even calls you for an interview,” he said, “you have to go out and find work. You can’t just sit on your hands for years and years.

It’s not about the money, he said, but about feeling useful.

Spain’s near-23 percent unemployment rate is driving highly educated people like Fuente and Sandino abroad by the tens of thousands. This year more people left Spain than moved there for the first time in more than a generation. And Germany’s a principal destination. Here, unemployment is below 4%. But coming north is hardly a waltz through the edelweiss, says Cristina Rico, a long-time Spanish resident of Munich. The unprepared, she says, usually fail.

Having a tea in a Munich café, Rico said a lot of Spaniards heard about how German Chancellor Merkel called for workers to come last year, and misinterpreted it.

“Spaniards have a distorted idea of finding work in Germany,” she said. “That it’s easier than it is. I’ve seen people come here and turn around and go straight back home. They had diplomas but didn’t speak English or German.”

And thus they had no way to communicate.

Cristina said that over the last year she was bombarded with so many emails from unemployed Spaniards curious about Germany that she started a Facebook page, called Spaniards in Munich. Every day people log on with questions about jobs, housing, healthcare, German courses – and diplomas. In Germany, with its strong vocational schooling, even so-called unskilled jobs require a certificate of study. For example, Rico said, even to work in a pet-store you have to show you’ve been trained for it.

That’s what’s been frustrating 20 year old Spaniard Ana Abad for more than a year. Abad came to Munich from Madrid without first finishing her university studies in communications. Now, she said on a recent evening, she needed that diploma.

“I tried to find internships but it was impossible,” she said. “So I took this babysitting and housecleaning job in order to have money for my German language studies. I hope to finish my communications degree via long-distance by June.
‘
And look for work here, she said.

Several Spaniards interviewed here said if you have a diploma and a decent level of German you can usually find a job quickly. Economist Marten Olsen, with the IESE business school in NY, said one reason is because hiring in Germany is less costly and risky than in Spain. He said the cost of hiring in Spain has risen 24 percent in recent years, because of wage and benefits increases. At the same time, he said, productivity has stayed nearly flat. In Germany, he said, it’s been the opposite.

“Spanish workers have only become a little more productive but wage compensation has gone up a lot,” he said in a video presentation from New York. “Germans a lot more productive than the Spanish ones and wage compensation has been only gone up only a little.”

In other words, he said, it’s become relatively cheaper to hire people in Germany than in Spain.

In the old days, Olsen said, Spain could have devalued its currency, the peseta, to stay competitive. That would help stem the exodus of workers in today’s crisis. But with the euro, that option is out.

Juan Alberto Fuente, one of the engineers who’d just arrived from Malaga, said he wasn’t optimistic about Spain’s future. He said he saw something that shocked him on his way in from the Munich airport, and underscored the current difference between his home and here.

“The first thing I noticed was that there are tons of trucks on the German highways,” he said. “In Spain there are virtually none.”

Truck traffic is a major indicator of how productive your economy is, he said.

With young educated men like Fuente and Sandino leaving, there’s a growing concern that Spain may be undergoing an authentic brain drain. The government has played that down. And Spaniards here in Germany said even if it is true, it’s only temporary. Most said they’ll go back to Spain better educated, with real-world experience and real money in their pockets.

But that’s likely to be years from now.

Spain hasn’t had an effective law against such practice. Now, even writers are starting to complain that their books are being pirated. So Spain’s come up with a law. But its generating controversy, too.

The latest round of that controversy began late one night in December, when Spanish novelist Lucia Etxebarria said she received unnerving news about the sales of her prize-winning books. They were selling like hotcakes. Illegal hotcakes.

“I learned that I have the dubious honor of being among the top writers in Spanish in the world whose works are illegally sold and downloaded online,” she told Spanish TV recently. “I was furious.”

Spain is among the world’s worst offenders for digital piracy, and its breaking new ground, with books. Pirating them is a new phenomenon, since digital books themselves are fairly new.

But there are sites out there now that operate like Napster for Spanish literature lovers. Etxebarria went to her Facebook page and dropped a bomb on the literary world. She would no longer write, she announced. This, from a novelist who’s won some of the top awards for Spanish literature, who’s a household name in many parts of the world.

Lucia Etxebarria (Photo: Xavierphoto/Wiki Commons)

Outgoing socialist Prime Minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero told Spanish radio that he tabled the legislation, after seeing how much controversy it was stirring up among Internet activists.

Controversy, because the law allowed authorities to go after not only sites offering copyrighted material for downloading, but also file sharing – or peer to peer – sites that don’t actually host the materials. Also, it would have empowered a special government commission to shut down law-breaking sites within days – too fast, critics say, for a judge to weigh in, as the legislation also called for.

But Spain’s new government, in power for just three weeks, has taken up the cause, pledging to enact the legislation. Conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s new minister for culture, Jose Ignacio Wert, said last week that Spain’s digital pirates’ days are numbered.

“The government will go after anyone and everyone making money off of other people’s creations without permission,” he told reporters. He emphasized that down-loaders themselves would not be targeted.

But Josep Valor, an expert on intellectual property at the IESE business school, says the proposed law is flawed. He says it requires weeks or months of investigation to determine whether a site is in fact guilty of piracy. Plus, he says, the new law puts the onus on virtually all websites to police themselves against what visitors might post. He says that’d be impossible.

“Even if you are a newspaper, or a radio station,” he said in a telephone interview, “and people just write comments, and some of these comments are in fact links, then you are liable for those things?”

Spain’s Internet activists see an even more basic flaw with Spain’s legislation – or any for that matter that seeks to stem the free flow of information online. Victor Domingo, president of the Spanish Association of Internet Users, said digital copies are invisible, and their worth can’t be measured like traditional products.

“If I steal a sausage from you, you no longer have it,” he told Spanish TV. “But if I make a digital copy of something digital of yours, then we both have it. The problem is that the culture industry is based on physical products, for example, books.”

Domingo said the digital reality destroys the old paradigm.

“Instead of accepting that,” he said, “the industry is trying pass a law that tramples on our rights.”

Some Internet activists believe they have a right to share intellectual property online even if it’s copyrighted. They say they won’t give up their struggle to keep the Internet free of restrictions.

One Spanish website, for example, posts videos on how to upload copyrighted material while hiding your own identity, so that authorities can’t catch you.

While activists gear up for more protests, most artists seem pleased. Even the writer Lucia Etxebarria. She now says she’s considering a return to writing, knowing that the government is taking action. Even if its plan is flawed.

Garzón sat in the dock Tuesday at the Spanish Supreme Court wearing his judge’s gown. He’s facing charges of abusing his powers and ordering illegal phone-tapping.

Demonstrators convened outside the court in support of Garzón. They say Garzón is being persecuted because he planned to investigate human rights crimes committed under the dictatorship of Spanish General Francisco Franco.

Giles Tremlett, Madrid correspondent for the British paper, The Guardian, has been following the trial. He says the proceedings might spell the end of Garzón’s tenure as a Spanish magistrate.

Tremlett is author of a new book about the Spanish Civil War called Ghosts of Spain.  He says Tuesday’s trial is proof of how deep the scars of the Spanish Civil War run, and how hard it’s been to heal the wounds.

This is the first of three separate cases against Garzón.  Next week he’ll stand trial for alleged criminal malfeasance for investigating cases of illegal detention and enforced disappearances committed during the Franco dictatorship.

Garzón investigated the cases despite Spain’s controversial 1977 amnesty law for “political acts”. Prosecutors say Garzón deliberately ignored the amnesty law.  Garzón has countered the accusation, by saying disappearances are kidnappings, and it is valid to pursue them because they are ongoing cases.

If Garzón is found guilty, he’ll be banned from working as a magistrate in Spain for up to 17 years.

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Marco Werman: In Spain sometimes those charged with protecting the law get into legal trouble. Today, the country’s most prominent judge went on trial. Baltasar Garzon is best known for seeking to extradite former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet in the 1990s. But today Garzon appeared before Spain’s Supreme Court. He’s accused of abusing his powers and ordering illegal phone tapping. Next week he stands trial for investigating atrocities carried out during the Spanish Civil War. Giles Tremlett is the Madrid correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. How confident is Garzon in his defense in this particular case?

Giles Tremlett: Well, he’s very confident in court, but I know that in private he believes that his fellow judges have decided they are fed up with him and they want to get rid of him. And he’s basically facing an extraordinary series of cases. There’s three cases against him in the Supreme Court. That is something never ever happened before; it’s very rare in fact for a judge to have even one case going against him.

Werman: Why is all this coming down on Garzon all at the same time?

Tremlett: Garzon is a man with very many enemies. You have to remember he’s taken down everybody from government officials, state terrorism, political corruption, separatist terrorism in the Basque country, as well of course, former dictators in Argentina and Chile, so he’s a man with a huge number of enemies and they are certainly very keen to get him. And that is something that splits Spaniards down the middle. Many of them are outraged seeing Judge Garzon in the dock, but also quite a few of them are delighted.

Werman: Now, next week Garzon goes on trial for investigating crimes from the Spanish Civil War period, the late 1930s, why was that a problem, that investigation?

Tremlett: The mood of the accusation is that he has decided to simply ignore the amnesty law that was passed in 1977. What the judge himself argued and what was really a very famous decision is he said, “Well, that’s all very well, but when someone has disappeared that crime is basically a kidnapping, and that crime is basically still going on today. So the amnesty law might deal with crimes previous to 1977, but anyone who’s disappeared, the crime is still basically being committed. And therefore, can be investigated today.”

Werman: Giles, if convicted in any of these cases what kind of shadow is that going to cast on Garzon’s own pursuit of cases?

Tremlett: Well, Garzon himself will be basically banned from working at the magistrate in Spain for 15-17 years I think on the sentence. However, various international bodies are very keen to sign him up. He was recently working as a special adviser at The Hague while he had been suspended from the Spanish courts while these investigations were going on. He is very popular outside of Spain and very respected for what me might call the Garzon theory of human rights, which is that where abuses have been carried out in one country, but that country will not, cannot investigate them, then it is the duty of other countries to do that. That he successful did in Spain with Argentina’s military junta. There are people who worked for them who are in Spanish jails at the moment, and that really pushed forward the frontiers of international human rights crimes.

Werman: Giles Tremlett, Madrid correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, thank you.

Tremlett: Thank you very much.

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The New York Times published an editorial, calling the case against Garzón “politically driven”. Groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International allege that the Garzón trial threatens the concept of accountability in Spain and beyond.

As Betto Arcos reports, this recognition reflects the increasing popularity of flamenco not just in Spain, but also around the world.

That’s in addition to other controversial proposals, like cutting education funding.

But not everything Rajoy is doing to cut spending and increase productivity is raising hackles: He’s also pushing for a sort of “holiday shuffle.”

Spain has 14 holiday days per year. That’s two or three more than what Americans have. In the prime minister’s quest to boost productivity, he isn’t suggesting eliminating any holidays. Just moving them.

Rajoy told parliament last week that he’s going to make Spain’s work calendar more rational. He said, that means dealing with the high costs associated with extra-long weekends.

“We’re going to move mid-week holidays to Mondays,” he said.

Many of Spain’s holidays are like July 4th. They’re pegged to a date. So they can fall mid-week, for instance, on a Tuesday. When that happens, many companies give workers the Monday off. Or people just take Monday off, calling in sick. This month Spain had two such “four-day” weekends. That’s not including the week off at Christmas. When you add it all up, Spaniards took off nearly half of December.

Hardly what a flat economy like Spain’s needs, at least according to Spain’s business leaders.

They’re behind the push to eliminate the extra-long weekends. What’s surprising is that labor unions aren’t up in arms. In fact most working Spaniards are taking it in stride.

Take Victor Garcia, a door to door salesman in Barcelona. He said he’s enjoyed the informal perk of stretching out a long weekend. But he can live without it.

In principle, he said, abolishing the four-day long holiday weekend is a good idea. He thinks Spaniards have such high unemployment, and job insecurity as it is and they’ve got to turn things around somehow. “Working together, we’ve got to try,” he said.

In a nearby pharmacy, owner Dioni Hernandez said Spaniards have enough time off as it is.

“For every holiday we’re closed we lose a minimum of 3 per cent of our monthly business. If when there’s more than one holiday in a month, we really start to get hurt,” said Hernandez.

Spain and other southern European countries have faced criticism during this economic crisis for supposedly not working hard enough. Rajoy’s proposal no doubt seeks to counter that claim.

But is it true that southern Europeans are slackers, while Northern Europeans are more industrious? Earlier this year German Chancellor Angela Merkel assumed it was. She scolded her southern neighbors for taking more vacation than Germans while asking Germany to bail them out.

Merkel got beat up for her comments. Turns out workers in Spain, Italy and Greece on average put in more hours per year than Germans do. That’s according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

So why is Northern Europe more wealthy, less in debt? Some suggest that thrift makes the difference. Germans tend to save, while Spaniards have gone on a big borrow-and-spend spree.

With fewer days off under Rajoy’s plan, Spaniards may spend less. But there are obstacles to phasing out the four-day weekends. Spain’s powerful tourism industry is grumbling because Spaniards would spend fewer nights in resorts and hotels. And then there’s the church.

Some important religious holidays, such as the Assumption of Mary fall on the same date as each other. The government proposal to peg it to a Monday would require the blessing not only of Spanish church officials but of the Vatican itself.

Jose Bollo, manager of the Barcelona hobby shop, RC Tecnic, lets shoppers test-fly toy helicopters like this one. He says most people leave with at least one chopper under their arms. Economists say small stores need to be creative to survive during this long economic downturn. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

Spain’s new Prime Minister has announced spending cuts and labor reform as the country seeks to calm anxious lenders.

The conservative leader Mariano Rajoy was sworn in Tuesday, and inherits big problems. Unemployment is at 22 percent, the highest in the Euro-zone.

In Spain this holiday season all people seem to talk about is crisis, crisis, crisis. But as Christmas approaches, shops and restaurants seem to be mostly full.

In his inaugural address, Prime Minister Rajoy tried to be optimistic, but he also warned citizens that tough sacrifices lie ahead. His administration, he said, has no choice but to slash government spending – by more than $20 billion. He called it a thankless task.

“We’re like those families who find themselves having to feed four people,” he said, “with only enough money for two.”

The crisis is upon us, goes the mantra in Spain these days. 22% unemployment. A flat economy. Soaring interest rates on government debt. And yet, on the street, you can’t help but wonder if things are really that bad.

At a local mall in Barcelona, holiday shoppers are out en masse. Santiago and Lourdes, a young couple pushing a baby carriage, are sort of like the family to which Rajoy eluded in his speech. Lourdes has lost her job as a waitress, Santiago says, but he’s still got his, as a security guard.

“We’re subsisting on half of what we had,” he said, “and this year we’ve made sacrifices. But we’re still spending on the things that count.”

This holiday season what counts are presents. Shopping bags hung from Lourdes and Santiago’s hands, and from the handles of their baby carriage. So how exactly is this crisis affecting this young family?

“We go out to dinner less,” Santiago said. “Instead of going to restaurants, we now gather at friends’ houses.”

So there you have it. As world financial markets batter Spain with unsustainable interest rates, as the government slashes spending for healthcare and education, as the press reports that businesses are making contingency plans in case the euro currency collapse, this hard hit couple cuts out the occasional restaurant meal.

Spanish shoppers flock to local malls during the holiday season, undeterred by the economic crisis. They're probably spending a bit less, experts say, but they're still spending. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

He said that what probably happens is that if you ask the shop owners they will immediately tell you well shopping is lower than last year, and this will go to the press.
“But if someone says for the year, has it been okay? They’ll say yes, we did a very good year. So they’re not closing down,” he said. “A lot of people are doing well.”

Oliver says that what’s often lost in the way we discuss this crisis is context. Spaniards may be spending less today, he says, but in recent years they’ve been spending – and earning – more than ever. He says that when stores report that sales are off, they may be very well be off – but from record highs.

That’s the case at Ulanka, a shoe store here in the mall.

“People are more concerned with prices this year compared to last,” said manager Asai Juan, “but that sales aren’t off by much.”

Big malls like this don’t tell the whole story, of course. Small independent shops have suffered more in this crisis than the retail chains. But economist Xavier Oliver said the crisis has given small businesses a much needed kick in the pants. The ones that survive, he said, must find ways to stand out.

We’ve been selling this idea in business schools for centuries,” he said, “and no one has believed us till today.”

A crisis, he said, is the time to recreate your operations.

“How can I help consumers, my clients, and do it in a way that they notice that you’re helping them?”

Oliver sited as a model the Apple store, where you can ask questions, take classes and most importantly, touch the products.

A decidedly smaller store in Barcelona uses that same technique. When you walk into the RC Tecnic hobby shop, you see stacks of remote control cars, planes and, set out on the counter, model helicopters. They let you fly them.

Manager Jose Bollo says sales this year are better than last.

“We’re bringing people in by offering sales prices before Christmas instead of afterwards, like most stores do,” Bollo said. “And we let people fly the birds.”

The new Spanish government hopes to help small businesses like RC Tecnic, by lowering taxes and making it easier to hire and fire employees. But those reforms won’t be in place until next holiday season.

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Hotel owners say bookings are down. Construction companies are idle. But there’s at least one sector that is actually growing: health and beauty. On a Barcelona street a tandem of beauty-related businesses thrive.

One of these shops is the Marco Aldany hair salon.

Inside, a bank of chairs is occupied, mostly by middle-aged women getting their hair washed, cut and dyed. More women wait on seats by a window. The manager here, Patricia Marquez, darts from station to station, keeping her stylists, and her clients happy.

“The truth is we can’t complain,” said Marques. “We’re lucky. It’s a good salon, and our clients are faithful. And more keep coming.”

This is a place that thrives in Spain precisely because times are otherwise tough. Marquez said that’s because people feel out of control, insecure. Here, she said, with unemployment nearly 23 percent, inexpensive ego-boosts go a long way.

“A person needs to feel handsome, to feel comfortable with themselves. If they don’t look good it doesn’t matter what they do. You have to feel comfortable in your own skin,” Marquez said.

And Marquez said clients are seeking such comfort in her chairs more often, as the economy grinds on. According to a leading Spanish consultancy, the country’s beauty industry is on track to grow 3 percent this year. The overall economy, by contrast, is flat.

One client here today is Francesca, an auburn-haired retiree. She’s on a fixed income, but said she’d never give up her weekly coif.

“Because of our culture and upbringing,” she said, “we older woman feel better with our hair done up rather than letting it get all messy. It’s a question of feeling good about yourself. If it means spending 50 bucks of your pension per month, well, we can allow ourselves that.”

Fifty bucks is a relatively cheap deal for the full treatment, by the way. Economists and sociologists say that makes treating yourself to a new hairstyle or make-over, or manicure, nearly crisis-proof.

“Haven’t you heard about the recent survey in Spain?” a client named Mariona asked at a different salon. “It found that if a Spanish woman were forced to choose between a meal or a make-over, she’d go hungry.”

It’s even more true, given Spain’s grim economic backdrop. The government is slashing spending from healthcare to education. The jobless rate keeps rising. One clue to explain why such gloom would cause people to spend more on their hair or nails can be found on the lips. That is, the Lipstick index. It’s a term coined by Leonard Lauder, of the make-up giant, Estee Lauder, in 2001. Lauder observed that in times of crisis his company sold more lipstick.

The index was hardly scientific but Analda Santano, who runs the cash register at the Cinema Nails salon, said it’s accurate. But its not just about the gloom, she said.

She said people here realize one day the crisis has to end, and that the well-groomed will be well-positioned when opportunity knocks.

“If your hands are a mess,” she said, “people will look at you badly. A woman should have her nails painted. If you’re a man your nails need to be smooth and without any flaking skin on the fingers.”

Haircuts for self-esteem, manicures for jobs that might materialize – businesses selling good looks and grooming come out on top.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took one controversial step to improve the labor market recently. He banned Romanians from coming to work in Spain. The move has upset some Romanians. But others think it probably wasn’t such a bad idea.

When Romania and a bloc of Eastern European countries joined the European Union in 2004 their citizens faced a seven-year ban on free movement. Western Europe feared a flood of laborers into their markets. That ban expired earlier this year. But in August Spain lobbied successfully to have it reinstated for Romanians, for another 12 months.

Some Romanians, like one Bucharest resident named Adriana, are offended that their right to free movement has been taken away again.

“We are viewed as evil in other countries,” she said. “They see us as thieves. They think Romania is a country where bad things happen.”

It’s About Jobs and Jobs Only

Spain said its concern is about jobs and jobs only. With nearly five million people unemployed, prime minister Zapatero argued that drastic measures were needed to shrink the labor pool. The European Commission agreed.

Some Romanian politicians were furious. Renate Weber is a Romanian member of the European Parliament. She said she recognizes that Spain has too few jobs for too many people, but she questions the Spanish government’s real motives in singling out Romanians.

“The truth is statistically they didn’t come with any evidence that more Romanians would come,” Weber said. “So in this respect I don’t think it was based on evidence of fear from flows of workers. I think it was very much the line of the populist kind of measures.”

Spain’s government may or may not have provided figures, but the anecdotal evidence is there: Some 800,000 Romanians live legally in Spain. They’re not affected by the new restrictions. But an estimated one million more are in Spain illegally.

Worse for Workers

On a recent day in Barcelona, a group of young Romanians moved a small cement mixer into place for an under-the-table construction job. Among them was Nicola Dumas. Dumas, a father of two, has been here for years. These days he can’t find steady work.

Still, Dumas said, he’s far better off here than he’d be back home, where the crisis is just as bad and the state welfare support worse. He said it was a good thing that Spain closed its borders to his countrymen.

“Because a lot of people come from Romania to work and don’t find any. So its not worth leaving home,” Dumas said. “Plus,” he added, “if I’m working and a new guy comes along charging less he could steal my job.”

Not only are the once-plentiful construction jobs for Romanians scarce, but the jobs available are increasingly unpleasant. Dumas said employers are taking advantage of the current situation. Knowing that some Romanian workers are at risk of being kicked out, he said, employers are paying them less and less.

Romania’s minister for European Affairs, Leonard Orban, worried the new labor restrictions in Spain are part of a larger pattern of discrimination.

“Because there was also a decision in Netherlands, where conditions became tougher than before in what is linked to Romanian and Bulgarian workers. So we notice that there are in some countries,” Orban said, “tendencies to create tougher rules.”

But migration research suggests those tough rules aren’t really needed. Far fewer Romanians are leaving home these days. With over a million already in Italy and more than that in Spain, experts say most of those who wanted to leave Romania already did.

That explains why this Bucharest university student named Gabriel is staying home.

“Better to stay here and try to do something here,” he said, “to do something for ourselves and while we’re at it, for our country.”

Meanwhile in Spain, the restriction seems to have done little to lower unemployment. It remains at 23 percent, up a point since the law was put into effect.

Volcan de La Restinga near El Hierra (Photo: Guardia Civil)

They’ve been a popular way-station for many centuries. Today, they are a part of Spain, and a big tourist destination.

People go for the warmth, the beaches, to check out the volcanos. Most of them are dormant.

The largest of the seven islands is called Tenerife but we’re looking for the name of a different Canary island. The smallest and southern-most island.

It’s also the one where an underwater volcano is erupting offshore – right now!

The answer is El Hierro, where an underwater volcano is currently erupting three miles offshore but it’s close enough to be disrupting the El Hierro way of life. Anchor Lisa Mullins finds out more from volcanologist Jo Gottsmann (University of Bristol, UK) and journalist Barbara Belt who’s on the nearby island of Tenerife.

A growing number of Spaniards say that because the government has not taken decisive action like cutting spending and making it easier to hire and fire workers, Spain lacks competitiveness. And that made putting the breaks on the mounting sovereign debt impossible.

Bond markets punished Spain this week by demanding nearly seven percent interest on 10-year bonds. Seven percent is considered a country’s breaking point.

Spaniards, mostly young Spaniards, have been protesting since last spring. They also support labor reforms, although not the kind most economists have in mind.

In a plaza in Madrid, a young man complained about a lack of jobs, and the exploitation of unpaid or low-paid interns.

Spanish companies and universities use hundreds of thousands of interns, often college grads looking for experience and a foot in the door. The experience, they get. The foot? It often gets stomped on.

Octavio Granado is Spain’s Social Security chief. He told Spanish radio recently that during this crisis employers have grown too used to calling poorly paid, over-exploited workers “interns.”

Using interns is cheaper. And, that’s good for companies. But former intern and doctoral student Ester Artells says it traps young people in jobs with no future.

“You get a temporary contract for your doctorate, a temporary contract for your post doc work, then another and another. And you never get a real job,” Artells said.

Artells was reached by phone because she works in France now, in Marseilles. She’s a post-doc research scientist. She says she’s paid well there, and, unlike at home in Spain, jobs abound.

Despite their shortcomings, internships in Spain are still well sought after, because the likely alternative is no job at all. The man likely to be Spain’s next Prime Minister is Mariano Rojoy of the conservative Popular Party. He’s promising big reforms to get young people working again.

“The first thing we have to do is reform the constitution to set a ceiling on spending at all levels of government so that no one spends what they don’t have,” Rojoy said. “It’s time to tighten our belts.”

Belt tightening will inevitably lead to more cuts in public sector services, such as healthcare and education and in salaries.

None of that will be popular. But Spanish voters seems to fear contagion from Greece and Italy more.

Polls show Rajoy’s popular party has a big lead over the ruling Socialists going into Sunday’s elections.

With revenues shrinking, Spain has had to slash spending. One hard-hit sector is health care.

In Spain, health care is state-run and state-financed – and the state is spending less.

Now health providers and patients say they’re feeling the impact.

The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Barcelona.