When I’m in Madrid, I always take my morning coffee in a place just a little north of the Plaza del 2 de mayo. Essentially because it’s the only one open at the early hour of 9am. This is how things went between me and the waitress during the 3 days of my latest visit:-
Day 1: The waitress asks whether I want my coffee with hot, warm or cold milk and whether I want my croissant ‘as is comes’ or toasted. I say hot and as it comes. I discover she’s given me cold milk and so I ask her, politely, for a hot milk top-up. She insists I asked for cold and I insist I didn’t. She insists again and so do I, to the contrary. She silently tops up my drink and goes for my croissant. It arrives toasted but I decide to let this go.
Day 2: I ask for hot milk and – because I liked it – for a toasted croissant. I’m duly given what I requested and the waitress now both apologises for the previous day and solicitously asks whether my coffee is OK. I say it’s fine.
Day 3: As I sit down, the waitress asks whether I want hot milk and a toasted croissant. I say that I do and she duly brings them, apologises again for Day I and asks how my coffee is. I say it’s perfect and we smile at each other.
I like to think that this is a nice little vignette of life in Spain, encompassing the troughs and the peaks of service. I also like to think that it would have happened even if I hadn’t established myself as a big tipper at the end of Day 1. Which, admittedly, doesn’t take much in Spain.

By the way, I should warn you that croissants in Spain resemble their French counterpart and inspiration only in their design. They really are better toasted and spread with butter and jam. Unless you like stodge.

I had another bit of excellent service from a teller in, of all places, the BBVA bank. When I indicated I wasn’t interested in exchanging pounds at a rate of 1.16, he apologised, said that the commission was high and quietly pointed me in the direction of money changers on Gran Via who wouldn’t hit me with this. He was kind but misguided. Or, rather, I was. For the first of these fine folk offered me a rate of 1.10 and the second a scarcely more interesting 1.11. At which point I gave up and decided to wait for the European Monetary Union to collapse. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to try to change pounds on the day the Central European Bank raised interest rates yet again.

Based on quite a few experiences, I’d say that one place in Spain where the convention of immediate and incessant chat is suspended is in the sleeping compartments of a night train. To date, I’ve only once ever heard things develop beyond a courteous Good Evening. However, this observation clearly doesn’t apply to the very early risers who make for the corridor and who give the impression of believing there’s a phenomenal layer of sound insulation between themselves and those of us trying to remain in the land of nod. Or of not caring a jot about us.

Galicia Facts

In the 2 years since a new system of points was brought in, 1491 Gallegos have lost all theirs and have had their driving licences taken away. Only 6% of these were women. The conclusion that men are more reckless at the wheel was treated as an item of news in today’s Voz de Galicia. Some surprise.