Often, we say that “no news is good news.” But the fact that you haven’t heard anything certainly isn’t always a good thing. Especially not here. Here in Spain, it seems you really have to stay proactive; if you actually want action, you should be the one doing it. Frustrating, perhaps, to not be able to rely on others, but certainly a good life lesson. No one else (with possible exception of some family and friends?) has my best interests at heart.

I was waiting for my driver’s licence for over five weeks, after being told that it should come in about three. But the DGT (motor vehicles department) were waiting for a letter of my previous experience in Canada. I delivered this to my driving school the day after passing my practical exam, and was told all would be well, they would pass it on with the rest of my documentation. Of course, the school was closed for August (as many shops are here), but even before they left, they must have known that my letter (from Quebec’s SAAQ) was not accepted… I’d asked specifically if there needed to be an official translation or something… “No, this should be fine.” Sigh.

I finally phoned Monday (first day everyone’s back at work) and was told: “Oh yeah, you need to go to the Canadian consulate and get a letter in Spanish that states your previous driving experience.” Oh yeah? And said as if this were obvious. So, you were going to tell me this…when? Then what, I bring the letter back to you? “No, you’re better off if you go to the ministry and drop it off yourself.” (Ahem, *I’m* better off?)

Anyhow, after discovering this fantastic piece of news, I immediately rushed out to get said letter from the Canadian consulate (not an easy place to get to from where I live). Then grabbed the train/metro/train down to the DGT (not an easy place to get to, from the Canadian consulate). I made it just before they closed on Monday…phew, well done! But was told: “The letter needs to show the date your original licence was issued.” Okay, I say…here it shows that as of [date] I had N months and M days of experience. It’s the same thing. We can easily calculate the date of the original licence…I’ll do it right here and now for you, if you like. “Nope, we need the date to be written in the letter.” The man in the DGT, in an effort to console me, pulls out his own driver’s licence to show me where they will eventually need to put my date.

So, next day, I make the same (very out-of-the-way) trips…to the Canadian consulate and then to Tráfico. Tuesday’s consulate letter is identical, except it now reads September 2 (not 1) and now has a sentence that states the date I first received a driver’s licence (a date I calculated myself and gave to the woman at the consulate, who simply trusted me).

Finally, all is well. Apparently I will receive my licence in about three weeks…ha ha…now I get the joke!

A couple of weekends ago, I went on a weekend trip aboard the Gran Azul (Big Blue), a fair-sized sailing yacht, to do my prácticas for the PER (Patron de Embarcaciones de Recreo — aka “Spanish boating licence”). I “passed”, if one can call it that — I don’t know if it was my school or just the general approach to certification here, but it was quite…what’s the word: easy? We were “rubber-stamped” on a lot of the required elements for certification. I suspect/hope there are more exigent schools and sailing clubs out there.

A similar sail-cruising course I took in Canada a few years ago was much more demanding — not to mention safety-conscious. That being said, this was an interesting social experiment: living on a boat with seven other men and our Captain/instructor; full Catalan immersion; practical jokes; ribbing (calling me yanquí, for instance); swimming while far out at sea; seasickness for all but me; excessive drinking (albeit not while on duty) and other shenanigans one might (or might not) expect.

Since then, I’ve been focusing my attention on a completely different topic: Nepal. It’s somewhere both Dulcinea and I have wanted to go for years. I’ve spent all my time exploring flight options (routings, pricing), trekking companies (how many are there to choose from? TOO MANY! and how to choose?), possible hikes to do, visa inquiries. This all culminated with me booking a trip for us in late September/early October. We’ll be trekking through remote areas of Nepal near the Annapurna Circuit, including multiple >5,000m passes (that’s 16,500 feet for you — ahem — yanquís ;-). Higher than any point in Canada outside the Yukon. And considering the highest point in Quebec is well under 2,000m, it’ll be quite something for me (Dulcinea has been just over 4,000m in the Atlas Mountains).

So there’s plenty to do in the coming month: immunizations (for me, of course she’s had ‘em all); visas from Nepal and India (hope this goes faster than my Spanish visa-obtaining experience); buying and breaking in new boots for both of us; gearing up; continuing our exercise routines for serious high-altitude hiking; making sure we have proper insurance coverage; you get the idea. There’s a lot.

Certainly, on one level, we’ll be roughing it. A bit more than three weeks tenting in remote regions (no Annapurna tea-houses for us this time, though we may regret that decision) will probably push beyond our comfort levels now and then (ha — yes, I’m known for the occasional understatement). But I do feel weird about the fact that we’ll have an entourage of something like ten people supporting just us! Ten people for two? Cook, cook’s boy, porters, guide, the list seems to go on forever.

It seems wrong, on one level, yet it’s the basis of much of the economy of the region. It’s a poor area, but one which does not rely on handouts. I know we’ll be shamed by how hard they work, and all that on our behalf. Well, we’ll have to see — I’m curious to see how it feels once we get there. In my fantasies we’ll have a very “authentic” experience, establish relationships and get a feel for the real people who live there. At the same time, I doubt this will happen: dropping in for a fully-supported trek strikes me as quite artificial. We don’t belong. Or do we? Hopefully, more come on that topic, in a couple of months!

For years, I’ve had an enigmatic response to the question: “What are you doing?” With certain friends, at least, I tend to reply: “I’m making soup.” (Regardless of what I’m actually doing, you understand.) It became a kind of inside joke. But until now, I never knew what it meant.

Dulcinea and I went to see a great documentary film at the Verdi Park cinema yesterday: “Cómo cocinar tu vida“. Here, it was subtitled in Spanish, but the original English title is: “How to Cook Your Life” (it’s in English, although it’s a German production).

The title comes from a book written by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, which expands (or distills?) the philosophy from Japanese Zen Master Dogen’s 13th-century text: “Instructions for the Zen Cook”. Roshi, in turn, passed on his wisdom to chef and disciple Edward Espe Brown, who is the central focus of the film. What an interesting, complex character — quirky, anxious, short-tempered…in short, human. But also wise, witty and caring. In the film, he teaches people (at a retreat centre in California) how to cook, and at the same time, a great deal about how to live.

You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate its wisdom. It’s a sweetly charming film. The main character, Brown, chef and Zen Master, may take a bit of getting used to, but he does grow on you… And I bet you’ll have (at least) two reactions to the film: a vague hunger (to know more, perhaps, but at the very least simply to eat good food) along with a desire to cook. Healthy, good food. Made with attention and love.

This is something I’ve always appreciated: that when I cook for people, I’m focused on them. Long before they arrive — even as I plan what to make, shop for groceries, do the preparation or cleaning — I’m thinking about them. It’s a private way of caring. I see the same thing with Dulcinea’s mother: when her British-raised grandkids come to visit, she spends all day slaving in the kitchen for them, trying to figure out what “weird Spanish food” they will eat. She is a fantastic cook. But they’re not the most appreciative guests. Mostly, they just complain about the food. Yuck. All they want are croquetas and ketchup. And their mother (her daughter) sometimes gets upset that, by spending all this time cooking, she spends no time with them when they came all this way to visit. But I understand her. She is just caring for them, in her own way.

The film gave me a good reminder that people don’t have to like what you make. In fact, regardless of what you make and how good it is to you, it’s impossible for it to please everyone. This applies to cooking, but also to everything else.

I am a perfectionist. I hate to fail, or to be seen to fail. Or to imagine others are seeing me fail (in reality, when I think they are, often they aren’t). This can apply to many things, from cooking to, say, driving tests. If I’d failed it, so what? Sure, I’d have had to pay a bit more money, spend more time doing classes and exams, wait until September to try again…all of which would be a nuisance, but so what? It would be no big deal, really. Certainly not worth all the stress and worry I put into thinking about the possibility.

And with food, there are varying tastes — perhaps some people don’t like seafood. Or your gourmet cocoa-butter-fried sweet potatoes just don’t taste enough like McDonald’s fries (sigh). It doesn’t take away from what you’ve done. Even worse — for all your hard work and “love”, it still may not turn out to be a great meal. The dough is scorched and yeasty or the chicken is too dry. Yes, you may (in fact, you’re likely to) make mistakes. Well, we’re all damaged. We’re all imperfect. Sincerity means letting your flaws show. (read that last sentence again, and think about it for a moment — do you believe it’s true?)

Apparently the film is now available on DVD (in North America, at least). Find out more (and watch the trailer) here.

To roughly paraphrase Suzuki Roshi (from what I remember in the film):

“When you wash the rice, wash the rice. When you’re cutting the carrots, cut the carrots. And when you stir the soup, stir the soup.”

For me, it was a true “ahh!” moment. Now I understand. So what am I doing, after I finish this blog post?

I’m making soup.

[WARNING: rough road long, rambling post ahead. It’s a rough cut from a mind with some sleep deficit — but I wanted to get it down before I forget…]

That’s right, today was Judgement Day. I can’t blame last night’s sleeplessness merely on the heat. As loyal readers may recall, last month I passed my driving theory test. I recently entered the next phase, after returning from a trip to Canada (where I used my Quebec licence for the last time). Over these last two weeks, I’ve had three practical driving sessions (prácticas), in a car and with the instructor from my autoescuela (driving school).

Josep, my instructor, is not an easy man to understand. Even the other students, who speak perfect Spanish and Catalan, say this. He speaks very quickly, in Spanish (for me) with a strong Catalan accent. He enjoys playing with my surname, trying out variations on how he thinks it ought to be pronounced. Since I know how to drive, the main idea was to acclimatize me to Barcelona driving, get used to possible test locations, and work out the kinks (or manias, as the school receptionist calls them). So for our first session, he had me drive around Montjuïc. This is Barcelona’s “mountain”, full of parks, a castle fortress, giant cemetery and many of the 1992 Olympic installations. It’s also where they tend to do the driving tests. The streets of Montjuïc are notable for two things: tour buses and driving school cars. You can’t miss those hundreds of practice cars, with their distinctive panels on top and blue “L” signs in the back window. (I’ve been assured this does not stand for “Loser”.) Unfortunately (for my pocketbook), mine had to be 90-minute practice sessions, since driving or returning from the Montjuïc area takes about a half-hour from where my school is located. (Word to the frugal: choose a driving school close to the Montjuïc/Poble Sec area!)

Josep was quite happy with my driving, enjoyed chatting with/at me, although he couldn’t help his driving instructor ways, sometimes telling me when to shift gears, shouting ¡tranquila! or no corras if he thought I was going a bit too zippily in the 40km/h zones. But he said he liked the way I drove, that my driving was very suave. In spite of this, he likes to shout. Really took me back, around 20 years ago, to my first driving school lessons. Often, as we were returning back along Gran Vía or up Marina past the Sagrada Familia, he fell asleep. He kept lurching awake in the stillness of traffic lights. I asked him what time he got up in the mornings: 5am. And goes to bed (or rather, falls asleep in front of the TV) around 2am. Fortunately he gets some catnaps in during the day, too. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about paying someone so much money to doze off… on the other hand I can’t imagine a much worse fate than being driven ten times a day (generally by bad drivers) from Guinardó to Poble Sec and back. He’s a “real character”, as they say, but ultimately he’s caring, and a good teacher (all that sleeping and smoking aside).

It’s very unlike learning to drive in North America. You can’t just get a learner’s permit and drive with your parents, for example. And even an expert driver couldn’t do it all in one day — in several weeks, maybe, if you’re lucky. In California, 15 years ago, I did a theory test, eye test, driving test, had my fingerprints and a photo taken, and received a shiny, hologram-bearing licence, still hot from the machine. All in a few hours. I don’t remember how much it cost, but I’m pretty sure it was less than $50.

I think maybe you can learn with your parents (or friends) here, but only if they’ve equipped their car with a full set of duplicate pedals — clutch, brake, gas. But who would do that? Hence the autoescuelas. Pay to install pedals in your friend’s car, or pay a driving school. Once, when we were late (due to heavy traffic), Josep told me ¡corre, corre!: floor it! He groaned when I stopped for an amber light. He said that, although it’s a “little illegal”, he wanted to take full advantage of his short (45 minute) lunch break, in a 9am to 9pm day. As I raced back as fast as I legally could, a few times I’m sure I felt the gas pedal sinking to the floor under my foot, as he pressed it down on his side.

The second session, we drove around the one-way hilly streets of Poble Sec. The third one (just this past Tuesday) involved cambios de sentido, which are U-turns. I asked if I should parallel park, and did one, but we didn’t really practice that (I’m good at it, anyhow). On Montjuïc, there are many roundabouts, strange multi-lane traffic flow structures which you need to be familiar with for the exam. In my exam today, I wasn’t asked to parallel park (the nightmare of most North American first-time drivers), but was asked to “reverse my direction” twice (essentially, find a legal way of doing a U-turn). I also went out on the autopista, headed for the airport. In fact, after all my nerves in the past days/weeks about having to go through this test (and knowing that if I failed for some stupid reason, I’d have to keep forking out money for at least four more practice sessions and wait for another exam until September), I felt quite calm. Maybe waking up at 6h20 helped — I was too sleepy to be stressed out.

There were five of us (from the school) doing the test today. We met at 7am, and Josep elected one student to drive us to the test area. Three of us piled into the cramped back seat, and one other student met us at the test location with her moto. All the others were young and nervous, a couple of them doing the test for a second time, and somehow I found it hard to be anxious with people more nervous than me around. I took on a consoling, reassuring, joking and distracting role.

The examiner was a woman, and I think we got lucky because she was very friendly. Josep had told me, when I mentioned my nerves the other day, that the examiners are “obliged” to be well educated and to be in a good mood. I wasn’t sure I believed that — I’ve heard plenty of horror stories to the contrary, but today it sure was true. The three other students went first, and young (19-year-old) Carlos and I were in the last set. He was delighted when I offered to go ahead of him; he wanted a chance to see how it plays out, how the examiner acts. She sits in the back seat, while the instructor (who cannot give any tips or instruction, obviously) sits in the passenger seat — I suppose to work the pedals, should something go wrong?

The first guy was told he’d passed, and the second two girls seemed happy when they got back, so I assumed they’d passed too. How embarrassing, I wondered, would it be to be this guy with years of driving experience…and the only one to fail? But the thought quickly passed, and thankfully I was not debilitatingly nervous at the actual moment (can’t say the same for some moments, lying in bed last night).

As far as having your driving scrutinized goes, it was almost a nice experience. The examiner was soft-spoken, spoke clearly in Spanish for me (although in Catalan with everyone else, and happily jabbering away with Josep during my exam). I assumed Josep had told her, but she didn’t realize I already had a licence until part-way through. We had merged onto the highway (very smoothly) and she made a comment about how I look over my shoulder a lot. It reminded her of a Canadian she tested two years ago (good memory!), who did the same thing. Apparently (she said), in Canada “they’re obligated” to do this. I told her that’s right, shoulder-checking was one of the most important things I remember from driving school. I had worried about this being an issue (people here don’t do it), but she just warned me to make sure they’re quick checks, if I was going to keep doing it. It all made sense (to her) when she finally realized that I am a Canadian-trained driver. Some examiners might have failed me for less, if you believe those horror stories (though I’m not sure I do, any more).

During the test, I figured I was doing fine, because the examiner kept saying “muy bien” whenever I made a lane change or manoeuvre. I was reassured when I saw how others in our group drove — though they’re careful and law-abiding, they’re still a little “rough” with the clutch, brake, gas. It does take time to make it instinctive — I sure remember! By the end of the test, we were even chatting away as she asked me things about driving in Canada. Still, it was a huge relief when she asked me to pull over (just a quick double-parked stop) and hand the reins to Carlos.

At the end of the exam, the examiner asked for my Quebec licence. You’re only allowed to have a licence in one place, so they’ll swap it for a Spanish one (I was planning to mail it back to the SAAQ in Quebec anyhow). The examiner hadn’t said anything, but the fact that she was asking for my current licence gave away (if there had been any doubt) that I’d passed. I couldn’t celebrate, though, because poor Carlos still had to have his turn. He did fine, and (just barely) caught a tricky red stop light about 5 metres after turning at a green light. I (or any jittery examinee) could easily have missed it and thereby failed. But, he spotted it at the last moment and lurched us to a stop in time. Yay Carlos! I felt proud of him.

When we returned to the exam starting point (where the three others were waiting), I asked the woman if I could avoid putting an “L” sign in the car window for the first year, and having the 80km/h limitation put on me. Luckily, I had enough foresight to ask for a letter from Quebec’s SAAQ (motor vehicles department) that shows how many years of driving experience I have, along with my accident/demerit record. I will submit this to the department here, and she has assured me I should be able to have those limitations lifted.

And then, with much paperwork in tow, she was off to another school’s car, and Josep was left to give us the scoop. We were shocked to hear that we hadn’t all passed. The two girls, who went in the second “batch” and had felt they’d passed, both failed (ellas han suspendido). I don’t know why they weren’t told right away. They were quite upset (one of them, who was really nervous, was on her second exam). So the three of us guys had to limit our celebrations to nonchalant handshakes and pats on the back. (around us, other groups of drivers were seen bursting into relieved, ecstatic tears upon hearing they’d passed)

Two of our group disappeared on motos, and Carlos drove the rest of us back “home”. He seemed more nervous and error-prone on the drive back than he’d been during the exam! Ah, well, that’s new drivers for you…

As for me, all I can say is, with a smile of relief so enormous you can’t imagine: ¡He aprobado! I passed!

Was my number up? Well, I did disappear for a while, I guess about a month… Was traveling (my first trip back to Canada post-immigration to Spain), visited with friends and family, met and spent some quality time with my wonderful, gorgeous, brand-new (okay, 10-week-old but new to me) niece…

Am now back home, in Barcelona. Had a busy week of driving practice sessions, also wrote my PER (Patrón de Embarcaciones de Recreo, aka “boating”) exam. (The Catalan acronym is the awkward “PEE” — Patró d’Embarcacions d’Esbarjo.) This one was longer and more complicated, but at the same time more forgiving than the driving theory test, since you were allowed up to 17 wrong out of 65…but I got only two wrong. It involved a wide range of of new concepts, and so I’m pretty “chuffed” to have done so well, including 100% on all the critical regulation questions, buoys, coastal navigation solutions (which are not just multiple choice; your drawn/written solution must also be right).

What most deserves a mention right now, though, was a play we went to see last night. It was in English, up on Montjuïc at the Teatre Lluire, with Catalan surtitles. [Part of Grec’08.] My favourite playwright/director by far is Quebec’s Robert Lepage. I have seen every of his works I could, include six-hour-plus epics (The Dragons’ Trilogy). This show, “A Disappearing Number” by the troupe Complicité (conceived/directed by Simon McBurney), was brilliant, and reminded me very much of a Lepage-style production. Very technical, lots of video projections, moving/adapting set pieces, innovative leaps through time and space. It was far more captivating than a movie, and the two hours flew by.

It followed several parallel stories in different times, mainly revolving around the life of Indian math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920). Imagine a play all about math, starting out with a whiteboard lecture that was probably above most peoples’ heads, tons of formulae, abstract concepts, string theory…and yet every person there was completely enraptured, I’m convinced. The five curtain calls the actors received at the end were proof of that (I was impressed that the Barcelona audience didn’t give a standing ovation — no “freebies” to troupes performing here, as in some cities that shall remain nameless — even though these folks certainly deserved one).

It was a brilliant piece of work. A true inspiration — the kind of thing that leaves you wishing you’d gotten involved in theatre years ago…

Here’s a neat Spanish-Canadian connection: Margaret Atwood just won the 2008 Príncipe de Asturias prize for Literature, which is almost as good as winning a Nobel (there have been a few winners of both awards over the years, such as Doris Lessing).

That 50.000€ is worth around $80,000 Canadian! Maybe not as good as the 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.7M Cdn) you get for the Nobel, but still a good bit of cash for a writer… (-; I’m sure it’s a drop in the bucket, though, compared to her royalty earnings.

Good job, Margaret!

I’m not truly “home”, since home is now in Spain…but I am back in Montreal (with travel insurance to visit my own country, if you can imagine). My three month ticket return date came up, and since all my Spanish paperwork is now in order (and thus I should be able to legally re-enter the country), I decided to take a three-week jaunt across Canada by plane, train and automobile. First to Montreal, then out west to see my sister and her new daughter, then more family. (If “more family” sounds dismissive, please — it isn’t. I’ll be glad to see everyone; it’s just that having a two-month-old niece is particularly exciting.)

It’s a great time to be in Montreal, of course: the street fair, fireworks competition, Jazz Fest (starting later this week). The place probably hasn’t changed that much in the three months I’ve been away, yet it’s undergone the spring to summer transition (which is always dramatic, and not only in the amount of clothing people wear) and all the restaurants have new menus, prices bumped up by $0.25 (best case) to $2.00 or more. Guess this is the price of oil, food…or just opportunism, with a new tourist season heating up?

The other noticeable change is the proliferation of bicycles. Montreal has always been a big biking city with great bike paths (more developed and bike-friendly than Barcelona in almost every way except for Bicing). But there are so many new bike paths this year that bikes are especially viable, even for people who need to commute to and from downtown. Bikes are absolutely everywhere. There are new links that run down avenue du Parc, along de Maisonneuve…it’s impressive (and makes me a little jealous) to see all the new developments. Hopefully Montreal will learn some things from Barcelona’s “public biking” approach, but Barcelona could learn plenty from Montreal, too.

The exciting news from today is that I bought my annual supply of underwear and socks at the St. Laurent street sale (wonderfully named La Frénésie de la Main). But it had a nice Spanish(-language, at least) touch — I bought them from a latina shopkeeper (hablamos español). Meanwhile Spain was playing Italy (two emotional forces of La Main, especially now that Portugal is out) on the big screens in every bar and restaurant around. Spain eventually won the Euro 2008 match in a kickoff, so it’s into the semi-finals for them (I mean, for us).

I guess I must adjust to new situations quickly, because although it’s really good to be here, I’ll be glad to (when the time comes) go back to Barcelona. In Spain, probably I go on too much about how great Canada is for this or that. But here in Canada, I don’t find myself saying: “Phew, finally I’m back in a land where things makes sense,” but instead going on about how great it is…back home.

To keep my poor readers from bursting with suspense, I’d better mention that…I won the jackpot! That is to say: I passed my written driving test, with only two of the 30 questions wrong on the examen teórico. You may recall that I was allowed at most three wrong, and so I was officially declared: apto (though I’m not so sure about that, myself).

In the previous post, I forgot to mention one more step in this process… I had to have a physical exam before applying to write the theory test. This involved paying a large lump sum (50€) and going to a medical clinic approved for driving licences. I’m starting to wonder if this whole game isn’t just a front to keep Spain’s thousands of driving schools (and medical clinics) in business…

I’ve read some ex-pat driver’s-licence-seekers joking that as long as they were able to open the door and walk into the medical clinic, they were deemed fit enough to get the doctor’s seal of approval. In the same vein, I’ve been told by several people (including the driving school receptionist): “It’s a bit of a joke.” In my case, there was a basic vision test (just the ol’ wall chart — no depth or colour tests as we have in Quebec), a few health-related questions, and a co-ordination test. This last was videogame-like, in a 1970s kind of way. I had to two rotary (pong-like) controllers, and I had to dial them independently to keep two (pong-like) green blocks inside a pair of scrolling “tracks” on screen. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, because it gradually got faster, and you had to be looking in two places at once, controlling two “unlinked” things. All those years spent pumping quarters into arcade machines in the 1980s paid off nicely.

Finally, the doctor (was he a doctor, or a technician?) had a few questions for me. To my surprise, these turned out to be questions about English language usage: what is the word for someone who gives interviews? “An interviewer.” Is an interviewer, then, the same as an emcee? “What? No,” I insisted. Then what was the difference? Perhaps he was confused about interviewee and emcee? I explained it all. Besides this strange obsession with interviewers, the doctor wanted a few corrections of his pronunciation. He was beaming. This apparently was not part of the licence validation, merely the unbridled excitement of a man finally having a native English-speaker at his beck and call.

I joined a great gym last week (DiR), and one of the requirements — for their insurance — was that today I had to go for yet another physical exam. (Yes, of course I asked, but they weren’t at all impressed that a doctor had just given me the once-over for a driver’s licence). Once again, there was a huge lump sum to pay (54€ this time); something mysteriously omitted in their glossy marketing.

This exam was much more professional and high-tech than the old-school driver’s physical. I felt like a pro athlete, having myself measured and analysed in all kinds of ways: at one point I had twelve electrodes stuck to my chest for a “VO2 max” test on the treadmill. (I wonder it really was a “max” test, because I didn’t feel exhausted — as if I’d been in anaerobic activity — at the end of it. They likely had to move on to the next patient…my heart rate was around 162 but I was going strong). My V02 max, according to the report, is in the Bueno-Medio cardiovascular fitness classification. “In order to reach the Bueno classification, you would need to improve your max VO2 by 1%.” Uh, okay, that should be doable.

The final report was printed in a funny mix of English and Spanish (like the buena phrase above). Other examples included: “Your blood pressure of 118/63mmHg si está en el tramo Normal.” At another point, I had to step on a pad that graphed the pressure of my feet on the floor(?). An arm strength test. They pinched and prodded, and I was informed that I have an very low (but apparently still healthy) body fat measurement: 6.4%. “Good job, tu porcentaje de grasa está en el tramo Excelente.”

So that’s it for now…no more tests, please! The next big thing, I guess, will be my driving sessions and practical test, but likely not until after I get back from an upcoming visit to Canada. It may even have to wait until September, since so many things (driving schools, traffic departments) shut down over the summer — or at least August — here.

Speaking of shutdowns, right now (you may have heard on the news) there is a massive truckers’ (technically, transportistas) strike. It’s amazing how quickly things disappear: many gas stations are shut (although yesterday police were escorting some tanker trucks), and yesterday at the supermarket I was shocked to see plastic curtains covering large sections of empty shelves. Let’s hope it doesn’t go on too long, or things will really get nasty. Already, someone was killed in Granada, when a picketing trucker was struck by an angry blocked driver (who, thankfully, was subsequently caught). Another trucker in Alicante was badly burned when his vehicle caught fire (looks to have been intentional). Most of the protests are due to the huge increase in diesel prices in the last few months.

…Oh yeah, really can’t wait to get that driver’s licence…

(The title is from a spam I received today, which poetically reminded me: “Long ago did fashionable wrist watches become an integral part of image!” Ah, long ago…)

Yesterday, I sat with dozens of nervous people in the waiting area outside the DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico, aka Dept. of Motor Vehicles) theory exam room. I hoped for “unexcelled precision” in my answers. After all, I did not want to repeat this experience.

After my intensive 16-hour course of two weekends ago, I spent the past week pretty much entirely focused on studying for my examen teórico. I realized that although the course carried me forward a long way, and I was (artificially) boosted in confidence by getting a perfect score on a couple of practice exams, there were still many things I didn’t know. A book of sample test questions came with my course manual, so I wrote a computer program that would randomly pick sets of 30 questions from the list (without any repeats), and started slogging through them. The goal was to cover every question, and also to make a table of ones I didn’t know or wasn’t sure of, to help me know where to focus my last-minute efforts. With 460 questions, that gave me 15 1/3 tests (I also did some of the tests on the DGT website). It usually took 15-20 minutes to do each one, plus around 15-45 minutes more to mark and go through the book to understand ones I got wrong or wasn’t 100% sure about. Plus, I kept reading or re-reading various sections of the book. I learned a lot, but also forgot plenty that I’d read (in one neuron, out the other). And the book was awful: very user-unfriendly. Even when I asked my “Dulcinea” for help understanding certain sections, she’d often have a hard time deconstructing the complex wording.

When I finally finished all 460 sample questions (Thursday night), I discovered that on average I got 12% wrong. This was not a good sign, because you are only allowed to miss 10% (3 out of 30) on your test. So it would be a bit like gambling in Vegas, where the house has a marginal edge over the long term. In my case the house edge was 2% (although the whole point of going through every question meant that I should learn from my mistakes — hopefully getting some of those right next time around — thus cutting their edge and swinging the balance in my favour). In reality, this meant that although for some tests I got zero, one or two wrong, for many of them I missed four (occasionally five, and once even six!). As in Vegas, it felt like it was going to be partly (or largely) down to luck of the draw — would they ask things I knew really well, or things I kept getting mixed up on (like whether a ciclomotor de tres ruedas was comparable — in road rules — to a quadriciclo ligero)? Would I continue missing the odd question that, although I knew the answer perfectly well, I was tricked by the Spanish wording? It turns out, too, that each person in the exam room gets a “unique” test, because we are all handed three question sheets (questions 1-10, 11-20, 21-30) which are all different. Of course, although there can be no copying, neither can there be comparing of answers once you get out of the room. (”Did you put ‘a’ or ‘c’ for that one about highways within city limits?” “I don’t remember seeing any question about travesías…”)

A few questions are almost laughably easy (especially if you already know how to drive). A few things (like signage) are fairly different from North America. And they can also be very tiquismiquis in the detail demanded. I mean, do I really need to know all the regulations and restrictions that apply to commercial trucks, if all I want to drive is a turismo? A few tricky examples include knowing the generic speed limit for a car towing a “non-light” trailer (i.e. more than 750kg maximum allowable gross weight) on a highway with 1.5m of paved shoulder (80km/h). Or how much a truck’s load can extend beyond the front and back projection of the vehicle (not at all if the load is “divisible”, otherwise up to 1/3 off the front and back if the truck is 5m long or less, otherwise no more than 2m front and 3m back, but in any case, never exceeding 12m total — whew, that’s a mouthful!).

Unlike in Canada (at least when I did my driving test nearly 20 years ago) or California (where I got a licence over ten years ago), we also had to know first aid, and basic vehicle maintenance (Q: “what might it mean if your car is emitting black smoke?” A: “that the air filter is blocked or dirty and needs replacing” — I actually understand why, now, and it has nothing to do with my intuitive guess that the dirt might be somehow getting into the engine).

Never mind the fact that all this studying and test-writing was done in Spanish, which multiplied my difficulty. Apparently you can do a translated (English) version of the test, but I wanted to learn this stuff in Spanish — also, I’d heard that sometimes the bad translations make it even more confusing! I’ve learned many, many new terms, but still sometimes got the occasional question wrong because of “language difficulties”. At times, even the verb usage threw me off — in yesterday’s test I lifted my hand twice to ask them to clarify things for me — it so happens that in one case I would have gotten the right answer regardless (I thought extravío might mean theft, while it actually means a loss/misplacing — either way it wouldn’t affect my answer to the question about driver’s licences). In the other case, though, I truly was unsure of whether they were asking whether I (3rd person singular; that is, usted in the question) or the cyclist (3rd person singular; that is, él) should yield the right-of-way. It’s an easy question, but it’s kind of important to know which of us they’re talking about! Luckily, one of the examiners confirmed what I suspected, that it was asking whether I should yield to the cyclist. For a non-native speaker, some such questions are quite trickily worded.

I have to admit, though, that although the process is a bit ridiculous (rote learning and all), it does probably give the traffic ministry the desired results. You really have to know the stuff inside out. With bad luck, you may fail when you “should” pass, but it’s quite unlikely you’d pass, purely based on good luck or guessing. The confusing wording is quite clear if you’ve seen it before and really know it. The problem (especially for this guy, who wanted to compress what should be a three month course into a couple of weeks!) is that it’s hard to remember it all.

I won’t have my results until Monday, but I think (fingers crossed) I passed. I know for sure I got at least one wrong, and there were a few others I wasn’t 100% sure on, so we’ll see. Sometimes I surprise myself (in a bad way) on the sample tests. So, you never know: I may be back…

Overall, I have to say I enjoyed the experience. Even though I (like most other guiris) moan about this trial by fire, I really do enjoy learning new things. I enjoy the challenge. It’s a double-edged sword: I hate being evaluated, but on the other hand I love being able to prove myself. Of course, I’d rather not have to do any of it, but, being obliged to do so, I find I enjoy learning more about this new country and its rules. You have no idea how much stress it relieves to be able to read all the signs on the road (and to discover they have a satisfying kind of logical consistency — in most cases). Not to mention learning more of the language…I mean, how would I otherwise have ever learned what a salpicadero was, catadióptricos or the luces gálibo? (good luck looking that one up in the dictionary)

A few weeks back I enrolled in an autoescuela (driving school). It has the unlikely name of “Racing School” (something you’re not likely to be doing on the busy streets around here). Although I got my first driver’s licence 20 years ago, and have no demerits or anything…my Quebec licence is worth, um, nothing, here. Ironically, I can drive with it (and an international licence) for up to three (or six?) months, but after that I need a Spanish licence. And this means going to school — there’s no way around it.

And you can’t just flip through the rulebook (the one I have here is 350 pages!), take a theory exam and then take a driving exam. In California I did that all in one day, for something like $25. There’s no such thing as a learner’s licence here, either. Nope, you’ve got to spend a fortune (300-500 Euros at least in Barcelona) to enroll in a school, take some classes, and then you can do your theory exams. After that it’s into the car for practical sessions, until you’re ready for the practical (in-car) exam.

So tomorrow, I’m off to an intensive classroom session. 10am to 8pm, with two hours for lunch. Same again on Sunday. There goes my weekend (but better than another school, which insisted I spend three months on daily one-hour classes, slowly working through all the material). Hopefully this weekend will cram enough of the subtleties of speed limits for all vehicle types, all road types, the multitude of signs and road markings, the first aid rules, how many demerits you get for various offences, etc, so I can pass the theory exam in a few weeks.

Then I get to hop into a car for the stressful experience of preparing for the driving test. Apparently, in some parts of Spain it’s a breeze, but the various schools have warned me that here in Barcelona they’re especially picky. You have to learn exactly what they watch for (even if they’re things you wouldn’t normally do in “real life”) and learn to do them right. And for the exam, you have at least two other people in the car with you, with the examiner sitting in the back seat giving you directions. In Spanish, and likely with a Catalan accent (which I still find harder to follow). Sounds like fun.

I’m actually impressed with the driving school system (though it’s annoying if you feel you should be “entitled” to drive). What I don’t understand is why, in spite of all this great training, Spain still has such bad accident statistics!

I’ll be glad to eventually be done with all this, and hopefully without spending too much more money… The minimum you could spend, if you pass all tests the first time, would be maybe 300 or 400 Euros (if you find a cheap school). If you were learning “for real” (i.e. had never driven before), you might need 20 or 30 practical sessions in the car, which could easily reach toward 1,000 Euros.

It’s a good reminder that driving is not a right, it’s a privilege. Here, in fact, it really is a luxury.

P.S. After I finally get my licence, I’ll get to slap a big “L” (I call it the “Loser sign”) in the back window of the car, whenever I drive. For a full year. And I won’t be able to go faster than 80km/h, even on the autopistas!

P.P.S. I don’t understand why Spain refuses to accept licences from Canada and the U.S., yet happily converts licences for people from Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, …(not saying they’re all bad drivers, but…) Obviously, all E.U. licence-holders can also just do a canje (swap) as well. I’ve even heard of people going so far as to get residency in Ireland, swap their North American licence there, then make their move to Spain, swapping the licence again. Just to avoid going back to school and tests. To me, this is a bit too much — sure it’s stressful and no fun(*), but just get on with it!

(*) Actually, it is kind of fun. My teacher (Josep) is a brusque, jovial, loud Catalan man who likes to pound the desk with his fist or a pointer, bellowing at the student who got something wrong. In my earlier years this kind of teaching behaviour would have traumatized me, but now that I’m a “mature student”, I just find it entertaining. Hopefully, his antics will make the 16 hours pass en un plis-plas.