The Bright Side of Bad

Three blog posts in one week you say? Well, living with a chronic illness has taught me to look at the bright side of bad, and the bright side to limited mobility this week has been more time to write (and more time to watch Netflix without feeling guilty!)

So while rewatching old House episodes I have been thinking about all the curiosities I have observed while in Spain and decided I would share those with you while waiting for my homemade soup to cook.

I covered a lot of miles in Spain since the beginning of October when I arrived, and until this week did not see a single stop light. The Spanish really like traffic circles! They are everywhere. Small towns and villages and big cities have traffic circles adorned with flowers and fountains and statues. It really is lovely and keeps the traffic moving quite well. What is odd is that the Spanish do not seem to know how to use traffic circles! Or at least if they do, the rules here are quite different than in Canada. It is kind of an every man for himself scenario here that does not seem to involve being in the outside lane of the circle when exiting it!

Traffic circles remind me of when I was giving my oldest son Joel driving lessons. Joel and his brother Nathan and I were driving in a new neighbourhood in southeast Calgary where there was a brand new traffic circle – one of the few I could find where I could teach Joel how to navigate them. The problem was that I never thought to teach him before we entered the circle. What that meant was that once we were in the circle Joel had absolutely no idea what to do – so while I explained it to him, he drove around and around and around…making so many circles that Nathan and I started to laugh so hard that poor Joel got flustered and that made him unable to execute the manouver even after I explained what he needed to do. So around and around we continued, driving in circles which fueled more hysterical peals of laughter, causing poor Joel enough stress to ensure he did not take another driving lesson for years!

Another Spanish oddity are the rows and rows and rows and rows (you get the picture) of Iberian ham in the grocery stores. I get that the Iberian peninsula is famous for its ham – but the equivalent would be to go to a grocery store in Canada and have to walk past four aisles of nothing but maple syrup!

Next up – the Spanish language. Now I love Spanish and have been learning it since 2016. It is a fairly easy language to learn (at least compared to French) and most things make sense to me. Except for the standard greeting everyone knows… good day. Good day in Spanish is Buenos Dias…which actually translates “good days.” Why plural? Why not use the singular bueno dia? Well – they do in fact come close to that when they shorten buenos dias to Bueno…or just “good.” Now that’s odd! Good what? Good body? Good smile? Good riddance?

Another oddity is the propensity of restaurants in Spain to serve both potatoes and rice with any given entre. Like dried cured meat isn’t bad enough for one’s heart they have to throw in fried potatoes? After travel to dozens of countries over the years I am beginning to realize that vegetables (of the crunchy green variety) is a Canadian thing. Even when I toured for many weeks in the United States I had trouble finding decent al dente green veggies on the menu (except maybe in very high end restaurants – which I suspect may also be the case here). Everywhere I go vegetables (if they are even on the menu at all) are stewed or fried or just plain overcooked and mushy!

The last oddity I noticed is the distinct lack of fat people – despite rice and potatoes being eaten with EVERY MEAL! What gives? I just look at French Fries and gain five pounds! Maybe it is because they drink so much wine??? 

That’s it! Drink more wine and you can eat all the French Fries you want!!

Now that’s looking at the bright side of bad!