Smells and Smog in Madrid, Spain

Something that Nicci and I have noticed, is that we notice smog, smoke
and other airborne pollutants much more than before.

The cars here are like ours, BMW, Opel, VW, Mitsubishi and many more
that we don't have in the states. The SmartCar (Smart Car?) is
everywhere (and those frigging things are so cute), they can park
facing OUT from the curb when everything else is parallel parked.
Mini's look big next to them.

Anyways. Clearly, we are from the SF Bay area (or at least I am) and
in general, you don't smell a car that drives by in Alameda, or San
Francisco, or really anywhere in America. A Diesel car (or one running
on vegetable oil, or Biodiesel) might smell terrible or like Krispy
Kreme donuts (depending on where they got their oil for their
biodiesel, but generally cars make noise, not smells.

We ran to a park near the Plaza de España today (se dice el Parque del
Oeste)(Western Park) and it was great to get into the park, because we
had to run down the Gran Via. Three lanes each way of smells.

Adding this pollution smells to the "natural smells" or Nicci would
say "Gross animal smells" is the smell of Ham, Cigarette smoke, the
smell of "Puros" or cigars and anything else on the wind.

I've not smelled any Spaniards themselves, and they seem to be as
clean as any other type of person. Sometimes they are overwhelming in
their cologne and perfume, but this is something I've noticed.

Petronius