Good Friday

Road Trip - Good Friday in Zaragoza

It’s Easter, 2011, and we are doing something I thought we would never do. We have set out on a road trip to visit a friend who has moved from Spain to France, and the only time we can find to make a visit is during the Easter school break. Normally, when all the world, and his brothers and sisters take to the road I stay at home. That is because over holiday times like these there is usually a spike in deaths on the road. As a compromise we gave them all a head start and we waited until Good Friday to set out. Good move, as the roads were practically empty.

We left Valencia on the way to Zaragoza as a first stage, with a stop in Teruel for coffee and to stretch our legs. We arrived at noonday when the drums broke their Good Friday silence in a roar. The tradition is for drummers to commemorate the Crucifixion and burial of Christ starting at noon. It also made for a very nice welcome to us. In all, there were about 50 drummers, and that for us was quite impressive. Little did we know!

We carried on our travels arriving in Zaragoza about 3pm, and we found our hotel easily because it was situated on the Plaza Pilar, one of the main centres with a massive open space, fronted on one side by the great Basilica and church, and on the other by hotels and restaurants. At the moment that we arrived there was one of the Brotherhoods on parade with drums and wearing the pointy-headed costumes that is normal for Semana Santa festivities.

After a nice lunch we wondered around for a little while, and very rapidly it was time for the great processions commemorating the burial of Christ. This is done by parading Christ in various stages of the taking down from the cross, to the final depiction being Mary, the Mother of Christ being depicted in all her pain and sorrow.

We had read somewhere that this would involve a total of about 10,000 drummers, but we assumed that to be a typo. There were many Brotherhoods participating, each one from a different church, and consisting of about 200 drummers in each group, some of them were very little children whose drums were bigger than they were. The processions went on for about three hours and were very colourful, so I suppose that in the end there were about 10,000 drummers. The noise was deafening and was not to be ignored.

I’m not a very religious person, but I did have empathy with the believers on that day. One point of interest was that we had asked a policeman about the route of the parade beforehand, and whether the procession would pass our hotel. He said that they never passed that way, however; the parade has finished about an hour ago and we are now back at our hotel. Probably most of the groups are not yet prepared to call it a day, so they are parading around and around the plaza in front of our hotel.

That’s all well and good, but when are these people going to go home?

Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael

Letting the Train take the Strain

Fabulous Train Views

I do love to ride the train. I’m sure that’s because I very rarely do, so when the opportunity comes around I’m like a kid. However, I like my train rides to be long distance non-stop affairs that give me time to sink into the start, to go to sleep during the middle part, and to really feel the experience of going somewhere with never before- seen passing scenery. The magic begins when at precisely the announced hour and minute the train very quietly leaves the station. No blaring horn or “All Aboard” to jolt my senses, just a nice and quiet leaving. If you other people are late, tough shit. We’re on our way. For the first little while I am wide awake and fully conscious of everything that is sliding past, but little by little my eyes start to cloud over to the sound of the click-clack, and the gentle swaying of the coaches. I don’t even see it coming, my eyes just close and my head goes down to my chest, and I pray that I’m not snoring too loud, or God forbid, I’m not drooling. I can report that some of the most enjoyable sleeps I have ever had were on trains. My most notable train ride was from Montreal, Canada straight through to Banff Springs, Alberta, Canada. The railways don’t do this anymore, you have to take several different connecting trains, but back then we simply got on one end, and got off in Banff. If you understand that I come from a country that is exactly 35 kilometres long, and Canada is more than 3,500 miles across, then you get the idea of how exciting this was for me. Through cities and towns and farmland, and beautiful mountains we went, but it was the plains, endless vistas of land with just wheat or other crops, and completely flat land that totally hypnotized me. I have never seen such open spaces, even though I have visited the U.S. Obviously the land mass is equal, but I have always found myself within built-up areas in the U.S. Only in Canada have I ventured that far outside civilization. I was taking pictures of the plains when a Canadian asked me, “What the hell are you taking pictures of?” We had sleeping accommodation that was very small that encouraged intimacy. On the first night I went to sleep naked with my head against the interior wall. I awoke in the early morning when I realized that we were not moving. In fact, we were stopped alongside another train, and passengers from that train were cueing up to see my flaccid penis. I never made that mistake again. You can never know where the train will stop. I have such a fascination with trains that I will write future blogs on the subject, but I just wanted to say that I have recently completed a fairly straightforward journey between Valencia City and Alicante terminal. I did this using the Euromed, a very comfortable train, even travelling in tourist class. What was particularly fascinating about this journey is that I have also driven the distance, and trying to figure exactly where I was on the train in relation to the road system was difficult to track at all times. Trying to get my bearings from station names when we were zipping past at 200 kph was impossible. I think I have finally figured out the approximate route, but trying to do so added a bit of intrigue. A new experience has just been added between Valencia and Madrid with the AVE service, a super-fast train that covers the distance in one and a half hours, whereas with other services it takes between three to four hours. Many people have been taking a day outing, just for the hell of it. I must join in the fun of Valencia-Madrid-Valencia in one day. More train stuff to come in the near future. Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael

Driving Tests Cheats

People shouldn't cheat, but they do.

I noticed through an article in the newspaper that the cheats are at it again in the never-ending quest to get the all-important Spanish Driving licence. Having driven all of my adult life I came to Spain only to discover that I had to start from scratch, in Spanish, to study for my Spanish licence. Since I had no skill in the language it was the greatest challenge of my life, but given that I could not live in this country without driving, failure was not an option. Along the way I discovered that not only did you have to know the rules of the road intimately, but you also had to know how the test was administered.

Basically, it was not user friendly at all, to the extent that I concluded that its purpose was to make the applicant fail. Assuming that this was true, one possible reason might have been to try and hold back the tsunami of new would-be drivers and their cars that would add to the already over-crowded streets. My driving school didn’t want to take me on as a client because I did not have a command of Spanish, so it was deemed an impossible task. But I passed the theory on the first try, which is something that most Spanish people don’t do, and I passed the driving practical exam on the first go as well. However, I had been driving for fifty years, although that could have gone against me as bad habits become entrenched by then. Once I had my permit I set about offering a service to other English-speaking people because I had got into the heads of the examiners and I was able to go through the various practice tests papers to point out the traps.

There would be many groups of two questions that essentially asked the very same question, but because of how the question was stated the applicant was set up to answer one correctly and the other incorrectly. I grew to respect the skill of the people who set the questions, but I certainly did not respect the fact that the public were being treated in such a manner. The effect was to penalize perfectly innocent people. So, I understood when those on the inside started working with those on the outside to make money from those who were willing to pay. But sharp-eyed law enforcement types who probably expect this sort of thing took their time until they knew exactly how the scams were being worked, then they busted everybody. The toll was really impressive, and big names went down together with the clients who lost their licences and had to wait for a long time before they could start all over again. The publicity was great and one would have thought that the message was clear. However, a new form of the scam has unfolded with people buying their driving permits. The temptation must be great when in order to obtain your driving permit involves jumping so many hurdles.

However, I have retired from the business of assisting people because the volume of applicants who wanted my service simply didn’t warrant me providing it. The conventional advice when buying a house is, first, find a good lawyer to represent your interests. Most people ignore that because it adds a cost. When they get in trouble, then they seek a really good lawyer to help them, although often it is too late. In my case I suggested a person speak to me first before doing anything else about getting a licence. Far too few took that advice, and paid the price for it. It’s a shame really, but that’s life here in Spain. Try to grin and bear it!

Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael

I Love It!

Don't you just Love It !!

It has been one month since we have had to learn to live with the 110 kph speed limit. I think it’s fair to say that the whole country is amazed at what has happened during the past four weeks. The government said that they were imposing the lower limit as a means to conserve fuel, but we all said that if that worked the government would lose tax revenue at a time when the government needs more income. We were very suspicious that perhaps they were playing at being politically correct while expecting to reclaim the shortfall, and to make even more money in increased fines.

The way that things have turned out is that we have realised a saving in fuel consumption by driving slower, and the expected income from increased fines has not materialised, but rather it has declined by 72%. In the eyes of the government, the driving community can be so bloody irritating!

The icing on the cake is that on March 7th, the implementation date of the new speed limit, no-one, anywhere in Spain lost their life from a traffic crash on that day. Don’t you just love it?

Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael