For instance, since we’ve arrived in Valencia, we’ve had to learn about shop opening times. Shopkeepers like to open in the morning until a late lunch, of impressive length, followed by a second opening in the evening.
That wasn’t a problem, in principle, until we discovered that the reality doesn’t always correspond to the theory.
It’s particularly confusing with restaurants and bars. You look them up on Google. It tells you comfortingly that the place is open right now. You walk thirty minutes to get there only to find a firmly locked door. You look at the sign next to it. “Open”, it says, “from 10:00 till 22:00 without interruption”. You check your watch. It’s 15:00. But the door is indisputably locked.
Sometimes you’ll find a little handwritten sign saying something like “we’ll be back at 19:30” which at least tells you what’s happened – the staff needed a break and, hey, who’s going to let a mere notice of opening hours dictate their lives? I mean, such notices aren’t posted under oath. They’re not a commitment or anything.
I particularly enjoyed the visit to a pet shop I made. I wanted some chews for the poodles who’d been looking at me pathetically all morning. What did they want? I’d wondered. And, since we were out of chews, I decided that this mght be what they were missing.
At the pet shop, I pushed at the door but it wouldn’t yield. I looked inside. It was a bit dim but there were lights on. Alongside the door was a sign proclaiming that the shop was open from 10:00 till 14:30 and from 17:30 till 20:00. My watch was unambiguously clear: it was 11:30. The shop should have been open.
And then my eye was caught by a large sign in the middle of the door, one it was hard to believe I’d missed before. “ABIERTO” it proclaimed in letters that filled an A4 page. “OPEN”. No mistaking it.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but having read the word I tried the door again. I suppose unconsciously I assumed it was enough to have read the statement that the shop was open for it to prove, indeed, open.
Unsurprisingly, the door remained locked.
A terrible picture of two disappointed poodles was beginning to form in my mind. In my desperation, I looked around again and saw – oh, joy! – a doorbell. I rang. Moments later a woman appeared from the back of the shop and, smiling at me through the glass, opened the door, let me in and sold me some chews. She didn’t apologise or even explain what had happened. But I noticed as I was walking away that she was busily locking the shop door again.
The poodles were happy, anyway.
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| Fallas sculpture on a Valencia street |
The Fallas are probably one of the greatest fiestas in Spain. Men, women, children, the old and the young, parade through the streets in glorious traditional costumes. Great sculptures appear on many street intersections, only to be burned in a huge series of bonfires accompanied by fireworks on the final night. And, throughout, the city is filled with firecrackers being let off in all sorts of places by all sorts of people.
I don’t just mean the ordinary firecrackers that sound like a cap gun. Oh, no. In Valencia, one kind of cracker sounds like a pistol being fired. And then there’s the other kind, in the form of a tube about as long as a coke can and a half, which explodes with the sound of a heavy artillery piece. And it wouldn’t be so bad if there were only one of these at a time, but Valencians like to hang up garlands of the damned things so that ten or twenty of them fire in rapid succession.
Did I say they were let off by all sorts of places by all sorts of people? I should have added “at all sorts of time”. There is no quiet moment, day or night. Oh, no. This goes on 24 hours a day. The firecrackers turn Valencia from a pleasant, welcoming, friendly city into a simulation of Beirut at the height of the Lebanese civil war.
I have to confess to a certain wimpishness over these matters. While some people travel great distances just to take part in the Fallas, I do appreciate having a certain amount of sleep each night. Valencia in the Fallas is not a place to encourage such ludicrous aspirations.
We suffered the Fallas experience last year and decided that once was enough. So this year we’ve taken refuge in the Madrid area. We’ve rented a flat. That proved an interesting exercise when we first arrived.
Danielle told me to approach the porter at the gate into the complex and explain which flat we were taking, so he would hand over the keys and raise the barrier.
“We’re looking for the Radinslov place,” I told him.
He looked at me completely blankly.
“The Radinslov place?” I tried again, hesitantly.
How was I going to explain this in my broken Spanish? After all, the name suggested something Slavic, and how many Slav families could there be in an apartment complex outside a small village some kilometres from Madrid?
“Do you mean the Radins?” he asked.
It turns out I did. When I explained the misunderstanding to Danielle, she showed no sympathy with my predicament.
“We’ve rented the Radin family’s loft,” she explained, and to rub the point in, “Radins’ loft not Radinslov.”
The whole business particularly tickled her. On two nights in succession, she’s woken up laughing at the memory of my discomfiture. I don’t see what’s so funny about it myself but, hey, I suppose it’s better to spread laughter than tears.
Even unintentionally.
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