Spanish views from a small town

Late August rain. Nowhere to go. Much to do. Very little initiative to do anything.  Drip, drip, drip. Rain knocks on the roof. Drops splatter on the ground. Rivulets run down the windows. Grey surrounds everything. Light is strained. An eight o'clock look to everything. Not sure whether morning or evening. Lights will not be turned on. Quiet broken by the refrigerator motor. Cars grow, splash, and fade. Tic toc tic says the clock. Clickety-click says the keyboard. Cats sleep. Rain is needed. Drought is killing the reservoirs. Rain feeds boredom. Longing for yesterday's sun. Summer fades. Winter comes on nigh. Nature begins to close shop, pulling down the shutters halfway. Please, may I buy one last warm day? I won't be long. Go right ahead, I'll wait for you. The forecast says sun day after tomorrow.  

I am the first to admit that I haven't the money to spend on five star hotels and three or four fork restaurants. In fact, when we went to France three years ago, we went by car, searched for the cheapest diesel, stayed at wonderful B&B's, ate mostly food from supermarkets at picnic spots, and bought very few souvenirs, mostly magnets. I think the most money we spent daily was for our accommodations, and I deliberately chose those that were the least expensive without being cheap hostel-type places. We enjoyed ourselves without mortgaging the house. Many people on tight incomes who like to travel, have no option but to travel cheap. The tourism industry has adapted to them, even though the cities and towns they pass through wish they would leave more money. In fact, our regional government of Galicia has stated it would try to change our tourism to target more "moneyed" tourists. Good luck with that. They'll find that there aren't that many who have a fe...

Landscape etiquette for tourists: Do not enter a wooded area to pick up what you think is abandoned firewood. That applies to all of Galicia. I understand that on the wide moors of northern Castile if a property isn't surrounded by barbed wire or a fence of any kind, whatever is on it might not be of interest to the owner. Might. I wouldn't assume it, either. But in Galicia, where people have been killed over property markers, whatever wood you might find in a pile has a name on it, and the owner of the name and the wood is not far away. This morning, I woke up groggily, nursing one of my morning headaches. While I tried to finish waking up in my kitchen with the blinds still closed, I heard a clop, clop, clop and my dog started to bark. At first I assumed it was one of my neighbors doing whatever, and that my dog had become overexcited, like he often does. But then the noise continued, and I became curious (sometimes I am very village-minded).  I opened the front door, ...

With all this hype today, I did my research and found out where I plan to be on 12 August, 2026, at 8:30 PM. I will have to be somewhere to the north or east of Santiago; we're too far to the southwest here. That is the day a total eclipse is forecast for this area. It will swoop down from Greenland, Iceland and beyond, to Spain, where it crosses from the northwest, over the Balearic Islands, to die with the sunset just before reaching the southern edge of Sardinia.  The last time we had an eclipse of the sun was the partial eclipse in March, 2015. The day became a little fuzzy, the sky not so blue, the light weak, the air a little cooler. What must it be like to have the sunlight totally blotted out and day turn into instant night? An article in The New York Times  today recommends seeing it with a crowd of people because the feelings are so overwhelming. Suddenly, it is total night, and the temperatures drop, and there is not light except far on the horizon. It is frighte...

Spain was sitting pretty for too long. Every time people were mown down in other European capitals, we were reassured the police here were very busy dissipating terror cells. Every time an arrest was made, the public was made very aware of it, and told a future attack upon innocents in a Spanish city was almost non-existent. The central government had been crowing how much tourism in Spain had grown because Spain was seen as a safe destination. Barcelona had become the third most visited city in Europe after London and Paris this year. Cambrils is also a tourist destination, albeit more of a national one. Am I being harsh? No, because the authorities were guilty of the sin of pride. They prided themselves on being able to dismantle small terror cells, and on sniffing out potential murderers. While they may have helped to avoid other probable attacks, they should not have blinded themselves nor the general public to the real possibility of something like this happening. At the same ti...

While the world merrily stumbles along the road to damnation, I have made a radical change. I have already been changing slowly with the years. From being just left of center on my political views, I am going further west, though I will never reach Communism or Anarchism - they just don't work. I have eschewed wearing comfortable non-violent colors to favoring COLOR. I fell in love a few years ago with the clothing brand Desigual. It's a Spanish company based in Barcelona that makes clothes, shoes and handbags with bold, competing colors and designs. Unfortunately, my girth does not allow me to wear all of its designs, nor does my purse. I go during sales to see if there's something nice that will fit me and my budget.  I mentioned my latest intention the week before I did it, and was simply told, "Go for it." So, I went for it, and dyed the front of my hair bright blue. Since I am timid on the thought of doing something myself that might have unintended consequ...

Hatred is a loaded word. It is loaded with all our deepest fears and most rancid beliefs. It is a rottening of the mind, with its stench and filth emanating whenever odium is declared toward anyone. The reek coming today from certain groups is nauseating, and has already caused at least one death in Virginia. Some of that reek is strong here in Spain, as well. Though the majority of Spaniards accept people from all over the world, there are some who consider immigrants the bane of society. These infelicitous souls think that immigrants are somehow favored by the authorities over the indigenous population. In Madrid an association has sprung up dedicated to giving out food and shelter to the homeless and other desperate people. But to qualify, those asking for help must be Spanish, not foreigners. This association, Hogar Social Madrid, initially occupied an abandoned building, and were thrown out by the police. They went on to occupy another building, where the judge still hasn't ...

I read an article online yesterday morning that brought back memories of conclusions I had come to some years ago. The  article is from The Guardian, and was written by an American woman at least ten years younger than me. She grew up in a bubble of an environment; a middle class white town with conservative values and no interest in the outside world, nor much historical and cultural curiosity. I grew up in a slightly more diverse neighborhood, developed liberalized values, was very interested in everything that happened in the world and the country around me, and devoured history books as if they were Harlequin novels and I a lovesick little girl. In the first years I lived here, everything compared disfavorably with America. I grew up believing America was the best country in the world, and the one with the most freedom. I believed, much like the woman in the article did, that the United States was the epitome of a civilized nation. In fact, I believed that the truth was wors...

Pick a date on the calendar. Now, choose your poison. Today you have mussels in Rianxo, Albariño wine in Cambados, German sausages and beer in Sanxenxo, sardines in Teis, tortilla in Laro (Silleda), bonito in Burela, peppers in Arnoia, razor clams in Fisterra, horse mackerel in Chaín (Gondomar), roast pork ribs on a spit in San Clemente (Caldas de Reis), roast ham in Mondaríz, and octopus in O Carballiño. Apart from that, if you're not hungry, you have various different traditional, religious festivals that turn into musical nights in tons of different parishes. Then there is a medieval fair in Ferrol, the Cultural Week that ends today in Zas, a beach party in Ézaro, a motorcycle concentration in Vilagarcía, and the disembarkment of the Vikings in Catoira. And I know I'm missing stuff from the list, such as the book fair in A Coruña which I think is this week.  August is the month on which Spaniards have traditionally gone on vacation. There are still factories that turn thin...

It was described as the second weirdest festival by The Guardian in 2008, right after the mud festival at Boryeong in South Korea. To those who are not Catholic (and even quite a few Catholics), visiting Santa Marta de Ribarteme on its feast day, July 29th, is a sight to make you think you've fallen through Alice's looking glass.  Normally, when someone asks a saint for a favor, they then go to the festival of that saint carrying a votive candle, as a way of thanking the saint for having answered their prayers. But Santa Marta is special. She was the sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalen, and is now the patron saint of those about to die. In the New Testament, there are a couple of stories about her. When Jesus visited their house once, Mary sat by Jesus and listened to him talk. Martha bustled about in the kitchen and was put out that her sister didn't help. Another time, when Lazarus had died and Jesus asked to be taken to his tomb, Martha declared that it was now too lat...