My American guest experienced two major surprises down in Pontevedra today. The first was a stunning example of Spanish individualismo, when a car was left double-parked in the main street, bringing the traffic to a complete halt for close to 10 minutes. The second occurred when the driver finally appeared but neither she nor any of the blocked drivers said a word to each other in either apology or anger. This was despite the fact that most of the drivers had spent the previous 10 minutes furiously blowing their horns in a vain attempt to get the driver to emerge from wherever it was she felt it so vitally important to remain. A café, apparently. Now, if she had stalled at some traffic lights…..

My guest also discovered today there is a chasm here between customer reception [usually excellent] and customer service [often woeful]. He was trying to get a return ticket on the train from Pontevedra to Madrid at the discounted price which is always given in Spain. The problem was his ticket for the first leg of the journey had been issued in the USA and lacked the ‘right code’. Neither the station clerks, the RENFE agent in town nor even RENFE’s customer service personnel were willing or able to do anything to override the computer’s inability to deal with this. After 2 hours and a lot of walking and talking, we conceded defeat.

We visited another castle today, where the entrance fee was 1.43. As only a true bureaucrat could come up with such a price, my guess would be that ownership of the place lies with the local council.

Just going back to the double-parking incident – it struck me later that the absence of 'words' between victims and perpetrator was even more odd in a country where most people scarcely stop talking until they fall asleep. Perhaps a silence is more meaningful than insults in such a verbose world.