Recently I’ve been suffering from frustrations with the fantastic “customer service” here in Spain. Sometimes things get done efficiently. Sometimes. And it’s not that the “agents” aren’t always friendly or trying to be helpful, it’s just seems that the different parts of the company don’t communicate with each other. What happens typically is this: agent A claims to understand my problem, and is dealing with it (sounds promising, right?). Then I phone back a week later and explain the still-unresolved situation to agent B. They then say that this is “very unusual” and don’t know what could have possibly happened (on a good day — normally there is no apology or acceptance of “error”). Agent B then assures me they are dealing with it (sounds promising, right?). And on it goes. Agent C. Another week later, D. I’ve been trying to open a new (”online”) bank account now for almost a month, and still haven’t received the initial forms to sign. I simply need to keep phoning every few days and try again… Foolishly, I remain optimistic — “Phew, this time it really sounds like they’ve sorted it out!”

Anyhow, I’ve recently had similar problems dealing (from afar) with customer service folks at a Canadian “online” company, so it must be universal. A symptom of our glorious digital age?

How about this one…? We have a painter “here” this week, painting our flat… He came Monday morning for a few hours of good work. Said he’d return in the late afternoon. He never showed. Didn’t show (nor call, nor could we get in touch with him by cell, email, etc.) on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. We were worried he’d been killed in a traffic accident or something! Finally, my Dulcinea got in touch with him at home (I hadn’t known she had his home number) on Wednesday evening. Oh yes — turns out he’d badly injured his hand on Monday afternoon, and couldn’t paint right now. Well, we don’t blame him for being injured, but we certainly do for not having the courtesy to inform us of the situation, so one of us (that would be me) wouldn’t have to stay locked at home, on the off-chance he shows up.

Anyhow, on Wednesday evening he promises to come Thursday morning at 9am. Dulcinea is certain he won’t, but I am brimming with optimism. After all, he said he would, right? I stay home. Thursday (surprise, surprise!) he doesn’t show. Is never accessible on his phone (I can’t leave a message, because MoviStar informs me that he is perpetually offline or out of range). Thursday night Dulci calls him back at home. What happened? No apology or anything…simply says he’ll be there Friday morning. Well, let’s hope so…but we both doubt it, this time.

Even worse, he was recommended to us — the relative of a good friend (el enchufe, right?). You’d think he’d try to make the best possible impression, no? We both really can’t believe it, even Dulcinea who is more used to “the way things are done” here. There is no notion of apologizing, if you make a complaint there is no “sorry,” just a statement of what he plans to do next (which he subsequently doesn’t). Aaaaargh… Meanwhile we are living out of “cardboard boxes”, since the whole house’s contents is stacked in the living room. Not an ideal situation for one week, let alone (it now looks like) two. Two? Now that’s being optimistic.

Epilogue (maybe more of a “mid-logue”):

Murphy’s Law? No. A watched kettle never boils? Something like that. Or the reverse. Because of course, just moments after I write this irritated post, the buzzer buzzes and it is the painter. He at least paints the spot behind the radiator, so we can connect it back in place and turn the hot water back on (showers again, yay!).

And then, just after he leaves (he promises to return tomorrow, even though it’s Saturday), the buzzer goes again. The documents I’ve been waiting to sign, for a little less than a month now, arrive by courier from the online bank. Après la pluie, le soleil? (knock on wood) Thank you, agent E!

New News

Last summer, jellyfish (aka las medusas in Spanish or les meduses in Catalan) ruled the waters of the Mediterranean. It looks like this year will bring more of the same, because we saw huge schools (if this term applies to jellyfish as it does to fish) of them pulsing through the water. White ones, large translucent ones, ones that seemed to be made of amorphous black disks.

And how did we see these swimmer-torturers? Fortunately, from the safety of a boat. This weekend we did something new — my Dulcinea and I took a sailboat for a couple of days. Sailed up the coast from Barcelona some 20 (nautical) miles (~37km) to Arenys de Mar. There, we docked in the marina and explored the town, which was a bit sleepy as the summer madness (fortunately) hasn’t kicked in yet.

We “overnighted” (a fancy term for “slept” ;-) on the boat before returning back to Barcelona. In Arenys, we enjoyed drinks at sunset with Bob, a delightful Scottish man (whose sailboat was tied up next to ours) who is just wrapping up eight years (!) of sailing every nook and cranny of Mediterranean. He’s headed back to France to de-mast his sailboat and cruise it up the Canal du Midi, which he came down in 2001. Then finally, (mast back up and) across the Channel and the home stretch to Glasgow. When I commented admiringly that he must know every inch of his boat, he replied with a grin: “More like I hate every inch of it!”

The weather was beautiful: sunny but not hot. In fact, cool enough to require a jacket at night. It was a new adventure for both of us, and somehow those two days of sailing under a bright sun made it feel like we’d taken a week’s vacation! Back home, the solid floor of our flat seemed to rock and swell beneath us as we ate dinner, so I guess even in that short time we got our sea-legs.

Middle-Aged News

I discovered that my favourite (Montreal-based) singer Lhasa de Sela finally had a new album out, her third, after a six-year hiatus. Although it was available on the Spanish iTunes site, this was one case where I wanted the booklet and a tangible disc in my hands. I went down to FNAC the next day to pick up a copy. I’ve been enjoying it ever since, but I do wish she hadn’t chosen to write and sing exclusively in English this time — I loved the Spanish and French songs (as well as the English) on her wonderful earlier albums The Living Road and La Llorona. Nonetheless, I still really am moved by her voice and the poetry of her lyrics.

Having completed my Canadian taxes for the end of April (and, as an ex-resident, hopefully for the last time), I am now settling down to…enjoy doing another set: the Spanish income taxes, which are due at the end of June!

Meanwhile, my experience with Spanish bureaucracy took a wonderful turn for the better a few weeks back, when I went to get an international driver’s licence. I had fussed about filling the forms, photocopying documents, worrying about the fact that I didn’t yet have my new residency card (even though it’s approved and in the process of “being physically manufactured”)… When I got to the motor vehicles department, I somehow was able to bypass all lines, all number-taking and waiting. Even the pre-filled form wasn’t necessary — they had them there on-site for you to fill out if necessary. There was a special “line” (which, amazingly, was empty) for international licences. There was no need to go out to a bank with a modelo de tasas to pay — they had their own cashiers on-site. After that, I went upstairs where a woman asked if I had all the required elements (I had done my homework, thus had all my proverbial ducks in a row). The woman shrugged (doing the universal sign of: “whatever”) when I tried to explain about my in-progress residency renovation, and I actually left the building in less than fifteen minutes, with a freshly-made licence in hand!

Old News

A couple of weeks back, we stayed the long weekend in Arnes with a group of friends and their kids, hiking around Els Ports Natural Park. Ancient towns on hillsides. Honey, traditional farming, a 2000-year-old olive tree. Countless streams, bowls, waterfalls, all surrounded by vertical walls of limestone. And crystal clear water, which is more than can be said of the plastic-bag-(and-jellyfish-)riddled Mediterranean waters near Barcelona. Yet another beautiful break from the “drudgery” that is living in Barcelona…ha ha.

Well, hello there, you! It’s really been a while, hasn’t it? Description of our Nepal travels began, very promisingly, and then…nothing! So did I drop off the face of the Earth? No, not exactly. Just lost my momentum, with the blogging at least.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my “new life” in Spain. I’ve submitted all my papers to renew my residency, but so far haven’t heard anything back. Does this mean that I am officially “sin papeles”? I suppose so — my foreigner’s card does expire today. I hope they don’t decide to just toss me out! (At the very least, they could do like Spain has been doing with some other foreigners: buying them one-way tickets back to their home countries.)

Seriously, I feel very much that this is my home, now. In fact, it felt like that very early on. Perhaps I’m the kind of person who adapts easily to new surroundings? Although it took me a while to start connecting with people (other than my “Dulcinea” and her family) here. Recently, I’ve been expanding my horizons a bit, socially speaking, which is nice.

I have started learning Catalan, a new language (for me, I mean) which is somewhat like Spanish, somewhat like French, yet presents plenty of new challenges — not least of which is the pronunciation…it’s harder than Spanish because there are more “variables” or rules.

Generally, people say I speak quite well (Spanish), although I still find it very frustrating that I often feel “out of it” in group get-togethers. When people get speaking full-tilt, when there is background noise, when I’m not 100% focused and working hard at it, I still miss a lot of what’s said. Getting the gist is one thing, catching the details and subtleties is another.

It’s frustrating — to the point that at times I wondered if my hearing was failing…but a trip back to Canada, chats with folks back home, and a trip to the U.K. at Christmas made me realize it’s just the language. In English (and Quebecois French), I can listen “in the background” — the meaning seems to filter into my consciousness without effort…in fact it’s hard to tune out conversations around me, for example at nearby tables in a restaurant. But in Spanish (or Catalan), unless I really try hard, it is far too easy for the words to just become sounds, background noise my brain is happy to filter out.

Other than that, it’s cumpleaños feliz…and set the sails for Year Two!

P.S. It’s World Poetry Day, so be sure to read a poem: to yourself, to your kids, your lover, your dog. Even better, write a poem of your own, then read it to someone!

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!

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)

Last night, after 17 days in Barcelona, I dreamed of fútbol. Sure, I’m aware of the extreme passion people here feel for their (our) team, Barça — which includes meeting them with hate-filled protests at the airport and cursing them through the fence as they practice after another disappointing loss. But I, myself, am no sports fanatic. If I were to have any sporting thoughts right now, they’d likely be about my Montreal Canadiens, as they head into the playoffs after wrapping up their season triumphantly.

Yet, there I was, on the soccer (er, football) pitch. Argentina versus Brazil. It was never clear which side I was on (hidden meaning?), but I was with my Argentine friend from elementary school, so one might venture a guess. We weren’t doing well out there, and I in particular wasn’t very effective — but what would you expect? I’m no pro (besides, I don’t have the right hair to be a soccer star). What on earth was that coach thinking, putting me in?

So far this may sound like an anxiety dream, but I don’t think it was: I was really enjoying myself. It was exhilarating to run up- and down-field with all these soccer greats (even if we couldn’t seem to put the ball in the net). And everyone, on both teams, was very supportive of me. (Hmm, I should have realized I was dreaming, because it’s not like that would ever happen…least of all between those two nations!) Anyhow, what’s the message I’m supposed to take into my waking life from this? Perhaps: the ball is in my court…so what am I going to do with it? (Or perhaps, as a friend of mine would say, it was just random neurons firing.)

Question: is fútbol so much “in the air” here that you can’t help it seeping into your skin (and dreams), even if you try not to pay attention? More likely, the dream stemmed from a minor incident in real life: a kid’s ball bounced toward me the other day, and I actually managed to stop it in mid-air with my foot. While I didn’t subsequently “bend it” like anybody in particular, I did direct it back toward him in a reasonably competent way. He politely said gracias, then went back to the serious business of blasting it off the concrete wall, to the delight of all the gran gent out for a quiet “sit” in the park.

In other news: my crate of worldly possessions has finally left Canada (a week late). Actually, looking at the information from the shipping company, I was disappointed to see that it seems to have actually departed from Halifax (must have gone on a truck from Montreal; sigh). I had romantic notions of a port-city-to-port-city delivery. At any rate (or, more precisely, at an average rate of 19 knots against a strong headwind and 6m waves), it is now on voyage 14 of the ZIM Haifa, in the mid-Atlantic (track its position here!).