Spanish views from a small town

They're baaaack! You can see them moving in hordes down the streets of old Santiago de Compostela, hell-bent on reaching the cathedral. Or gathered in flocks at the terrace bars of my home town. The tourists are here. Last year was the real Jacobean Holy Year, when the feast day of Saint James, whose casket is in the cathedral at Santiago (says the legend), fell on a Sunday. But, the Pope graciously allowed us to milk the tomb for all its worth this year as well, since last year was a washout thanks to the pandemic. So, we're on the second Holy Year in this year of two thousand twenty-two of Our Lord. Lord help us. We never did learn anything from the pandemic about making our cities gracious servants of its inhabitants rather than of the rapacious tourist industry, so we're back where we were before the virus interrupted the money-making schemes of so many. Trooping down the streets of Santiago in the early morning, pilgrims singing rousing religious songs, getting neighb...

I've had an internet problem these days. Fiber remains elusive, though another company tells me they're working on getting Movistar to install the damned connection box. I won't be holding my breath. My wifi router, after two weeks since its billing period began, reached the maximum of the gigas it offers me, and my connection slowed to a snail's crawl. I shopped around, found a mobile package with unlimited calls and 100 gigas, that works with the antenna of the only provider that has coverage around here. I contracted it, inserted the SIM card in an old phone, and now use it as a hotspot. The fine print said the company allows tethering, so there should be no problem. Why else would they offer so many gigas? Still, I'll wait a month or two, paying for both services, until I finally get rid of the old one, which only offers 40 gigas a month.  This week we have finally gotten summery weather. It's warm, and I'm not complaining. Yesterday, it reached around 3...

Even though contagion is going up again in our township, the open-air market today was crowded today. That means that all the cafés and bars in town are also crowded. I think we might rise in status from medium-low to high this week. Hopefully, we won't be put in lockdown next week. There have been quite a few binge-drinking get-togethers all over the country, including in our small towns, here. And people have been travelling this weekend, especially since Monday was a regional holiday. It seems that with the state of alarm gone, everyone thinks that the pandemic is over.  Last year, everyone was mentioning how refreshing it was to be able to walk around their cities and countryside without hordes of people diminishing the beauty. We've already forgotten about that. Our regional president of Galicia is hoping that, with the general lower count of contagion, and more vaccinations, that tourists will come back, again. Yet, before this pandemic struck, we were complaining about e...

To continue the internet fiasco, I went again to the store where I contracted it. There, the assistant called Movistar, and after twenty minutes with the phone hanging on his ear, the person he finally spoke with assured him that someone would come out to see the best place to put the hook-up box.  On March 3rd.  In the meantime, they might be calling me to see if they come up with any other, temporary solutions for me. The assistant told me not to accept anything else. Of course not. If I accept a slow access to internet, it won't be temporary, it will become permanent. I will be saving them work, so they wouldn't make good on their promise to set up a connection to the fiber optic cable. Vaffanculo , Movistar.  Yesterday, on the news, they were interviewing people on the Canary Islands. Everyone is depressed because this year, there is no Carnival. Celebrations should have begun, already, in many places. Various small towns here, in Galicia, would have already had custo...

I went to a shopping mall in Santiago this morning. It's the third time since the pandemic began that I've been. If in July, when I last went, there was almost a normal amount of people, this time, the place was mostly empty. Despite the fact that school is beginning some time between this and next week, there was not much back to school shopping being done.  Santiago is under a restriction these days. Thanks to about nine people infected at a gym, reunions of more than ten people are not allowed, and the number of people allowed to stand at bars in cafés is fifty percent of those that fit. That doesn't mean that some incoming university students won't give their private parties; they will, but they'll just have to keep the noise down if they don't want the neighbors to call the cops. Whereas before, the students wouldn't have cared, now they want to avoid fines of over a thousand euros and up.  Today, overall numbers of newly infected have gone down in our ...

Life is becoming more normal, bit by bit. As of today, we can go to the malls, to the beach, to tiny weddings, to small funerals, and sit inside a restaurant. All, of course, maintaining a distance of two meters with strangers, and wearing masks.  The government is being pressured to end the state of alarm and finish opening up the country. Last Saturday, the sheep of Vox took to the streets in cars, waving large flags, and chanting, "Gobierno dimisión!" In one breath they accuse the government of murder by allowing the virus to take hold, and in the next, of ruining the country by shutting it down. They should make up their minds. I really don't like to hate, because I see it as a misuse of energy and something that just makes me feel worse. But there's really no other way to feel when I think about Vox and their hypocritical, self-aggrandizing, pseudo-patriotic trills. At the protest last Saturday, one of their leaders said that this was a great moment, on a pa...

The weather is taking on a summery feel, again. While temperatures are still proper of the month of May, the wind is moderate from the northeast, and the forecast is for temperatures to start going up tomorrow, and possibly hit 30º/86º by Tuesday. Just in time for the beaches to open. Most seaside townships replied to the regional government's suggestion of an internet app to get appointments to hit the beach with a resounding "No." They find it very awkward to implement, and will instead try to keep down the crowds in different ways. Some say they will fly drones to warn people, others will parcel out the sands, so people stay farther apart. Some say they will use manpower to patrol and control. It's May yet, and since we still can't travel from one province to another, there won't be crowds next week. The tourism industry is trying to revive itself. But, unless massive visits are coming in, many hotels and tourism-driven businesses will close. What gets ...

Tourism in Spain is growing by leaps and bounds. Now that our cities are chock-a-block with tourists gawking at the locals, small towns and villages are getting into the action, promoting "rural tourism," and setting up small hotels and apartments in out-of-the-way hamlets. It's been going on for some years, but of late, it seems to be growing exponentially, as city people want to escape to the countryside. Well, the countryside is full of people who have small farms with livestock for their own use. Many village houses have strutting, clucking chickens in farmyards, some still have grunting pigs, a very few have cud-chewing cows. Contrary to the expectation of the city-dweller, the countryside is not silent. Not even in the middle of the woods, five kilometers from civilization, is it silent. Animals live there. It's a different kind of noise from the Paseo de la Castellana at six in the afternoon, but it's still noise.  Apparently, some guests of a rural hot...

Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment to check my moles (the curse of having very light skin). When I emerged after making sure everything is fine and dandy, it was early, I had no need to rush home to make lunch, so I decided to go walking in Santiago.  When I got out of the car park in the Praza de Galicia, it seemed a nice, warm late-August day. The sun was shining in its August way, and the sky was a good deep blue. I decided to wander inside the cathedral, which I haven't visited in at least two years.  As I got closer, the tourists started to close in upon the narrow streets. On my approach, I saw at least three guided tours, each shepherd leading a large pack, all looking up in unison when the shepherd pointed, and paying close attention to the words. When I entered the Praza de Praterías from the Quintana, I saw that the area was overflowing. No, not the area, just the people that were lining up at the entrance to the cathedral. The crowds spilled down the steps ...

It's summer. It's the tourist season. That means finding myself behind cars that suddenly hit the brakes, make right or left turns on a dime without signalling, and that crawl along so slowly you wish an agent would be around to fine them for driving too slowly (yes, that's possible). That also means driving around a block five times to find a spot to park in when all I want to do is pick up one thing from the supermarket, and I'm in a hurry to make lunch.  One way to open up parking space in our town, is indulging in the practice of leira parking . Generally, that is a private parking option run by the owners of said leira (field), and who are paid a fixed amount by each driver upon ingress. Since that is considered competencia desleal (disloyal competence; in other words, that you are a self-styled entrepreneur without having paid the corresponding taxes, etc.), and is actually illegal, our township rents the leiras from the owners, paying them a fixed amount, no...

It's a sunny day in July. You have the afternoon free and it's warm and just right to head for the beach. You gather everything, towel, sunscreen, bathing suit (a bikini on me would scare off half the beach), that relaxing book you want to reread, get in the car and set its prow to the beach you've been going to for the last ten years because of its shady spots. As you drive down the curving lane that ends at a little spot of paradise, you start to notice cars parked along the ditches. You turn the last curve, and see wall-to-wall cars in every empty spot available, even under the pine trees. Your heart sinks. It's no longer a question of parking in a shady spot, it's a question of parking within half a kilometer. But you finally finagle a spot that would make an acrobat proud to park in and be able to open the door enough to wiggle out. You take your bag and go to find a shady spot. There isn't any. They've all been taken. There's almost no spot even in...