Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain.
If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here. Garish but informative.
Correction
- As smarter readers might have speculated, this sentence should have ended with '2017' . . . The hotel's card has a handy calendar on the back of it. If you're still living in 2018.
Matters Wuppertal, Bonn and Cologne(again).
- Yesterday we went to Wuppertal to see this marvellous suspension railway, which you can read about on Wiki here. Worth the trip.
- And we went to Bonn to visit the impressive museum there – the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland - which addresses Germany's history since 1945 and pulls no punches on the Nazis and their brand of fascism.
- And now we're back in south Cologne, in yet another German hotel in which the wifi is poor to non-existent. And where sitting in the doorway doesn't help much. But standing in the corridor does.
- The place is clearly owned by Asians, possibly even Mongolians as it has a (large) Mongolian restaurant attached. One massive difference between this place and a Spanish hotel is that there was no TV blaring away in the corner when we breakfasted today.
- Another is that none of the 3 staff we saw at breakfast said a single word either to each other or to us. Not even 'Good morning'. And they all sat and ate at the same table in total silence.
- Which reminds me . . . As I was writing yesterday's post in the lobby of the hotel in Essen, there was a group of 5 young-ish women chattering away quite loudly. But nothing that would be at all unusual in Spain. So I was rather surprised when the receptionist came over and asked them to dial down the volume. Which they did. For a while.
- I think I've mentioned there are some very strangely dressed folk/volk walking around Cologne. One tentative conclusion I've reached about Germans is that, when they're ugly, they're even uglier than ugly Brits. Which takes some doing.
- One group I know I have mentioned is the people collecting cans and bottles from the rubbish bins, on which (as Maria guessed) there's a deposit to claim. You see them walking around with a big shopping bag of additional bags, which they presumably aim to fill during the day. We even saw one such chap get on the tram on the southern outskirts of Cologne, making his way to his work in the city centre. Beats begging, I guess. At least from a 'victim' point of view.
Matters Merseyside
- Yet another reason to visit Liverpool some time soon. I suspect this is very true: The safe money says any Scouse graffiti attacks will be more imaginative than Nevada’s.
Finally . . .
- I've long argued that the most effective counter to Fart is to lampoon him, particularly as a loser. As someone puts it here: Autocrats may survive protest marches and impeachment proceedings, but they have no defence against ridicule.
© [David] Colin Davies: 22.10.18
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