Spanish views from a small town

A Spanish driver is really a frustrated Formula 1 racecar driver. There is a reason Formula 1 is gaining popularity steadily. You can stand on a country road and see a car swoop around the tight curves and race along the straightaway with a roar of the motor and the transmission, and you can almost see the driver think himself Fernando Alonso or Kimi Raikkonen at the Monaco Grand Prix. Spaniards have always had a history of individualism. At least since the Inquisition has disappeared. And perhaps as a result of its weight on public and private behavior. Spaniards hate to be told what to do. If a car is designed to reach two hundred kilometers per hour, why should they stick to the hundred twenty speed limit on the highways? If the road is straight and there are no pedestrians around, why should they go at fifty kilometers? It's as if a Spaniard makes his car his home and castle, where he does what he wants to do. Period.   Of course, this concept of my car, my rules go...

Time. That elusive, mysterious concept we all understand but never stop to think about. Not until we stand at a point in our lives when we look at a person or an object and think, "This didn't look this way yesterday." And then we wake up and realize that yesterday was perhaps twenty years ago. The first thing that passes through our minds was where did the time go?   One day I decide to take a drive along villages I haven't visited in maybe ten years. New houses have been built in meadows and the enchantment of the area has been paved over by new lanes and sidewalks. The old ladies I had seen dressed in black sitting by a doorway are no longer there. The door is closed and looks like it hasn't been opened since I've last seen it. No one is living in the house and the roof looks precarious. The wild coastline has been paved over by a walkway and now I can no longer stand on the rocks to look out over the waves that have travelled the ocean. Instead, I am he...