Spanish views from a small town

There has been a hullabaloo on all the media about the interview given by Prince Henry and Meghan Markle to Oprah Winfrey. Charges of racism, ostracizing, and plain nastiness shown to an American who dared to marry into the very British family. How much is true, how much is hype, can only be known by the people in question. That it is all a very public way of airing family laundry, is obvious to all. Yes, they are public personages, but even people who are public have a certain right to intimacy. Perhaps the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk wanted to tell what they consider their side of the story, perhaps they were simply out for the money and a bit of vengeance. Each person can believe what they will. During all this family fiasco, I was reminded of another American who joined the Royal Family, Wallis Simpson. Edward VIII, Elizabeth II's uncle, had to renounce the throne to finally marry her. It was a love story that surmounted all the odds. And Wallis was a woman who was also misunde...

Through a link, I reached an  article in the Kentucky Kernel, which seems to be the online newspaper of the University of Kentucky. It's short, and written by a student who studied abroad in Spain a couple of summers, once in Barcelona and once in Sevilla, then returned for an internship in Madrid. In it, the young woman listed five things she loved about Spain after her short experience here. Two of those I agree with, mostly. Most cities and towns are walkable. It's not much of a feat to walk a few blocks, and there is much to involve the senses. The other thing is the food. It is quite varied from one region to another, and the tapas are good, in general. Yes, there are some places that aren't worth blackening the threshold with one's shadow, but other bars and restaurants are sublime. However, I take umbrage with the other three reasons to love Spain. They prove that the young lady hasn't really bothered to dive more profoundly into the country and its quir...

This morning I went into town on an errand and saw that it was filled with strangers. The tourists have arrived. I looked up at windows that were normally closed and shuttered, and saw them open and inviting in the cool morning air. The word that automatically popped into my mind was flats . Instead of the American condominium or apartment , my mind reached for the very British, very European, flat . In Spanish, the word is piso , and literally means floor . A piso is the Spanish equivalent of the American condominium and the British flat , but it has all the nuance of the British conception of the word. It's an apartment, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller, but it's g enerally owned by the family who lives in it. An apartment building here is almost never owned by one family renting out the apart ments like what might happen in the U.S. Generally it 's like a con dominium building with each apartment priva tely owned.  The adosados are row houses . But if the ter...