Spanish views from a small town

The Spanish government announced this week that in 2040, just a little over twenty years from now, no diesel nor gasoline cars would be manufactured, and that by 2050 they will not be allowed to wander the roads. All in the name of climate change. On the one hand, I consider it admirable. It probably won't be enough to slow down climate change, but it's a start. Fossil fuels will still be used in places other than cars. But, it's a beginning, an incentive. What I find inadmissable, however, is the lack of planning. There was no mention of federal grants to research and development on more autonomous, cheaper car batteries, nor mention of how the population is going to be able to afford buying new electric cars to replace the ones they have and need. There was also no mention on re-educating workers in the car industry, nor of replacement jobs, since electric cars apparently need fewer workers to mount. And there was no mention of increasing public transport fueled by clea...

Imagine you live in Rianxo and have found an ad for your dream job in Pontevedra. Since you don't have a car, you prevail upon a friend to drive you down to the interview. It goes beautifully and you get the job. You are convinced that with a little time juggle you can catch a bus or two down to Pontevedra every day. You check the schedules. To begin, there is no bus from Rianxo to Pontevedra. You must take the bus that passes through Padron, where you will change to the one that goes down to Pontevedra. Ah, but the times. Do they coincide? You check. The first bus that stops in Padron leaves Rianxo at 7:15. It arrives in Padron at 7:50, giving you over an hour and a half to wait for the 9:30, that arrives in Pontevedra at 10:30. There's only one little problem. Your dream job begins at 9:00 every morning. You call them up and decline the job. You would be spending most of your salary on cabs.  That's the general truth in Galicia. Usually, buses are localized. The neare...

After one of the coolest and rainiest months of May in many years (I haven't worn short sleeves even once!), today the sun has risen without almost any clouds and it's starting to warm up. Just in time to usher in June, a few days of good weather are predicted for Galicia. That, and the beautifully long days, have given me wanderlust. At the end of June I have one week all to myself. On one day of that week I intend to make one of my traditional day trips. I am starting to think about where I can go. I set a goal of a maximum of three hours driving to get to the place. Unfortunately, that limits the places I can visit outside Galicia that are still in Spain. Portugal is closer; the border is just a little over an hour away. But I would prefer to visit there in September, so for next month I'm scratching my head and wondering just how fast I can drive. Should I visit somewhere I've already been? Last year I went to Las Médulas in León province and wandered through Po...

My husband says that whenever I get behind the wheel of the car a black shadow comes in with me. Not that I drive badly, it's just that when it comes to parking the car, it seems all the cars on the street magically shift themselves to cover up any available space where mine would fit. Either that, or the car right in front of me grabs the available space. Generally, I don't have all the time in the world to park just outside town and walk in to do my errands. Nor do I want to carry heavy bags from the supermarket half a kilometer to the car. So I usually make several passes through the center of a town to find an empty space.  When I go to a large city I park in a parking garage. That way I avoid running back to put money in a meter that may or may not work every hour or two. I'm also assured of finding a place for my car in a central location. In Santiago I know most of those garages in the center. There's one I usually patronize, though there are others I sometimes...

After years of driving, you tend to accumulate anecdotes. Generally, those anecdotes are created as a new driver and, when you're old enough, they seem funny and you seem stupid. But you've learned to laugh at yourself, so the mortification has been left behind with your numbskull youth. I got to thinking about my driving history from an article in the newspaper about a driver who was absolved of drunk driving charges, even though he had had a blood test and the result was over one gram of blood alcohol content. He had been brought to the cops' attention when, some months ago, he drove to a rural health clinic and asked for a doctor to attend to a deer he had run over. Said deer was outside, in the car. The personnel went, hmmmmm, and called the traffic cops. They took his BAC, but the judge decided that by then it had no relation to the moment he was behind the wheel. That at that moment it could have been within legal limits, only to mushroom later because of the time e...

This afternoon, shortly after lunch, there is a saint's procession in town. The entire town. It's motorized. The church isn't trying to force religion upon us with that, it's simply that the saint being honored is the patron saint of travellers, and by extension, of drivers. This midday there'll be a Mass and then the priest will come out and sprinkle holy water on all the cars participating, blessing them. Then the cavalcade will set out all over the township, with Saint Christopher in the lead. The Church took Saint Christopher off the liturgical calendar in 1970 because his veneration only dates from around five hundred years ago, not from Roman times, which is when he was supposed to have lived and been martyred. Despite that he is still venerated locally in different parishes throughout the world. And drivers are loath to stop believing in him. In fact, many cars and trucks have little statues or medals of Saint Christopher on the dashboard. Our car is second...