Road Report Archives

Adioth España

Out of the 25 European Union countries only Malta has lower productivity growth than SPAIN. Do you think it might be because almost every business in Spain shuts down for a mandatory 3.5-hour lunch every day and all of the workers go drinking? No wonder they need a “Siesta”. Hearing about it all my life it always sounded so quaint, but arriving in Seville at 1 p.m. and seeing the entire city shut down like Christmas Day by 2 p.m. I thought my head was going to explode. Even window-shopping is out of the question since most places close their steel shutters before leaving.

Spain is a very nice country, but going there in the off-season was a little like visiting a ski resort during summer. You can see all the lovely facilities, but only imagine what it is like when they are being used. Not only was this the off-season, but also I managed to time my visit partly during a freak cold snap and even my original flight from Madrid to Barcelona was canceled due to snow at the Barcelona airport.

On my way back into Madrid on the subway I was the victim of an unsuccessful pickpocket attempt. Just as I was stepping onto a Metro car these two ugly, older women (possibly gypsies) started crowding into me as they were stepping through the door. I felt something on my leg and went to put my hand on my cargo pant pocket, but there was already a hand there. Instead of looking at me, the woman whose hand was now beneath mine on my pocket sort of pretended to be blind, but an instant later both women jumped right back off the car just before the doors closed and started talking to each other. That pocket did actually have most of my valuables in it, but luckily it was overstuffed with sunglasses and other things so I think she realized it would be impossible. I was in such shock that it took me several minutes before I could rule out any other possibility than this was a pickpocketing attempt. With all due respect to Cher, gypsies are tramps and thieves.

Don’t get me wrong because I love all the Earth’s creatures, but it took me a long time to figure out what is so irritating to me about the Spanish language and especially its usual machine-gun cadence. They use just way too many syllables. For example, in order to count from one to ten it takes the English speaker only 11 syllables, but the Spanish speaker needs a tongue-twisting 19 syllables. Or take the country names: United States (4) vs. Estados Unidos (6) or Spain (1) vs. España (3).

In Madrid I went to the Prado Museum (because you are supposed to) and to the Museo del Jamon (Museum of Ham) because it’s unavoidable. The Museum of Ham is actually a large chain of tapas bar/restaurants that unabashedly celebrates the countries obsession with ham. Even if you don’t go into one of its locations it doesn’t matter because ham is served at almost every restaurant at almost every meal. I don’t know how the government managed to brainwash its citizens into thinking ham is the only food anyone needs, but someone should look into it.

I found the tapas bar experience to be a fun and cheap way to eat very mediocre food. Tapas doesn’t have to be bad, but it almost always is. I went to many places and watched and ate what the locals ate and it’s mainly dry slices of ham on condiment-free crusty white bread washed down by multiple small glasses of beer. In Barcelona I went to a French-influenced tapas place that was excellent, but that was the exception. Barcelona is the least Spanish of the cities I visited, partly because they don’t even consider themselves part of Spain, but as Catalunya and with their own wacky, x-filled language. English speakers aren’t nearly as rare there as they are through the rest of Spain.

I took the train from Barcelona to Nice, France for a look at the French Riviera with day trips to Cannes and Monaco. The beach in Nice (rhymes with grease) is anything but nice (rhymes with dice) as it more closely resembles a rock quarry, but in general in Cote d’Azur area of France is extremely impressive. I am in Italy right now and headed to Athens on Friday then Istanbul likely after that.