Spanish views from a small town

It's June, and on everyone's mind is on the coming summer and vacation. Those who have children think about it. Those who have to take care of a relative's child think about it. Those who work with children think about it. But the only ones who are truly going to enjoy a long vacation are the children.  Ah, but it doesn't have to be like that. Not according to just about every commercial on television. Publicity for websites, like Booking, Kayak, TripAdvisor, Rumbo, and others, tell you how easy it can be to book the cheapest trip possible, and show tantalizing pictures of five star hotel rooms in the most emblematic tourist spots. You know when you see them that the cheapest night there is still way above your budget, though, and they never show you just what you can afford, a tiny, cramped hotel room with a window facing an air well.  Then there are the beer commercials. Yes, champagne commercials usher in the Christmas season, and beer commercials usher in summer...

We love to hate them. They drive us nuts. As the story reaches a point at which your nerves are at the breaking point, bam! You have to wait. How long depends on what channel you're watching. Six minutes is the usual, though some channels have maddening commercial breaks of close to fifteen minutes. Everyone hates commercials.  But then there are commercials that we expect, that we await during part of the year. Christmas commercials are some of them. There are commercials for Freixenet cava whose television presentation used to be advertised ahead of time as if it were a new television show. Some of the longest of them took around ten minutes and showcased famous actors and actresses. For the last two years or so, they only last a little longer than a minute and tend to feature Spanish athletic women's teams that are Olympic medalists. But now the full commercial doesn't even appear on television. They have a fifteen minute compressed blurb and that's it. To see i...

Spain is no different from most Western countries in that at Christmas and New Year's most people celebrate with sparkling wine, champagne, or cava . All words for the same bubbly golden liquid that brings headiness and a warm feeling that all's well with the world. Spain has two very well-known national brands of cava , Freixenet and Cordoniu, both from Catalunya. There are others, but these two are the most famous. Some wineries in Galicia have also begun producing sparkling wine from the Albariño grape, but it doesn't taste the same. Albariño is better for fresh white wines than for sparkling wines.  To boost sales of their cava, Freixenet (and to a lesser extent, Codorniu) have for years made special commercials at Christmas time. They have at times been small productions that look like a light and dance show, or a small movie. But there are two things that have almost always been included until just a few years ago, when the crisis began: "bubbles" and famo...

It is a regional habit here to be humble.  Generally, that can be ascribed to the fact that in other areas of Spain, Gali cians ar e considered uneducat ed country bumpkins. We are seen as unfathoma ble, uneducat ed, and willing to work for pennies. And that, as a region, Galicia takes more than it ever contri butes to the rest of Spain . Other regions, such as Catalu nya have protested, for example, against investing in high-sp eed rail to Gali cia, saying that money is money lost. We let the central government respond by delaying its completion. In truth, we do no t do much to protect our interests. We had two independent banks found ed in Galic ia that were bou ght by a Venezuelan bank and a nother based in Madrid . The savings banks and co-ops we had were fi rst fused into one bank, then sold off to the same Venezuelan bank and ma de into a regular bank. We had a fiber optic company that was sold to an English firm. We had an e nergy company that was bought by a Ca t...

A few minutes ago I opened an article on internet that sounded interesting. As I let it load, I looked at something else. Suddenly, the computer started speaking. I jumped in my chair, startling one of the cats. They did it again. I wish it were a pixie in the computer because it would have been simpler than the commercial it turned out to be. The article had an imbedded advertisement video.  Normally, when I pull up an article and I notice the connection slows down, I go to the article and find a video is downloading. I try to find a way to stop it, but not all ads let you do so. Sometimes, it overloads my internet server and everything stops. Then I get the message of "No responde". If, after a minute or two it doesn't go away, I have to shut all the pages I have open. I have read somewhere that the powers that be in internet are planning to do away with those commercial-ads. I hope they do so before ten years elapse.  I suppose they have descended to bombarding us ...