Day 20 Madrid

We awoke to pouring rain. That was the forecast so we had planned accordingly. After our usual breakfast we attacked the chore of packing for our return trip. We left the hotel at 11 and told Manuel that we would return for our luggage that night. We took the metro to the Prado museum. It has one of world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century. It was still raining when we got there and the ticket line was veerrry long. Luckily it moved pretty fast. We spent the day at the Prado. We left around 6 and walked to Plaza de Oriente stopping at a few places along the way. We spent the next 3 ½ hours at the Opera. We saw Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, an opera written in the late 20s. It is very political and very anti-capitalist so we were not surprised that it is not shown in the U.S. very much. It was quite well done and much more engaging than we expected. Our hotel is right next to the Opera so after a bite to eat we retrieved our luggage and set out for the airport. This was not pleasant. At 3 of the stations the escalators were inoperative. We had to carry our luggage down and up long flights. We arrived at the airport at midnight for a 6 am flight. There were no places to sit in departures; arrivals had some uncomfortable chairs. Many, many people were sleeping on the floor. Surely, the design of this terminal can be vastly improved. The trip home was long, but because we were so tired, we slept through much of it. Now, we are home and have to give some more thoughts to our original plan. Even though we didn’t find a place to buy, we discovered some important things:
1. Romantic and beautiful as it may be, we don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere;
2. We need easy and close access to a big city;
3. We particularly liked two areas: Lugo and Pontevedra;
4. We don’t want to be in a touristy area (like Santiago)
5. We really liked Galicia.

Life in Spain definitely has its positives and negatives. This is a list that our new friend from Pontevedra, Colin, created based on his experience of things that work and don’t work well in Spain:

USUALLY EFFICIENT
Bars
Restaurants. Especially menus del día.
Hotels
Utility companies. Especially in taking money from my account before I’ve got the bill!
Bank cash machines. Lots of these, though it’s important to use the right chain.
Private medicine. I’m not allowed to use the Spanish health service.
Pharmacies. Though very slow at times.
Trains – Local and national
Fiestas. Anything connected with fun is usually well done in Spain.
Concerts. Ditto.
The international wine, olive oil and fish industries (and doubtless several more)
The road construction industry
The prostitution industry, if the numbers involved are anything to go on.
The TV industry. Ruthlessly efficient at showing ads.
The ad industry. Highly regarded internationally, I believe.
The newspaper industry. Not sure there’s any day of the year when there’s no edition.
Street cleaning. Exemplary.
Long distance road travel. Magnificent roads, many of them new.
The traffic police. When it comes to speeding fines.
The national and major city football teams

NOT USUALLY EFFICIENT
Spanish bureaucrats: Whether at the local, regional or national level. Paper mad. Deliberately slow so as to preserve jobs and expand empires. Same as everywhere in the world, only worse than most.
Turismo offices: Sometimes seem to operate more for the benefit of the employees than tourists
Banks. Also wallow in paper. Dealing with a branch of your bank other than where you live can be a calvario.
Shops. Attitudes are almost invariably pleasant but efficiency can be something else.
Notaries. Still in the 19th century. Where, in fact, they belong.
Companies which don’t reply to your letters or emails. Possibly the majority.
Estate agents (Realtors). Take a huge fee for doing very little other than maintaining loose-leaf binders or, if you’re lucky, a disorganised computer database which you can
take a look at if you go to their office. No brochures. No real initiatives based on the listing of your criteria.
The judicial system: I have no personal experience but it’s reputed to be very slow and inefficient.
The property sales statistics industry. No one believes their numbers.
Driving. At least when it comes to the use of indicators.
The education system. If the international ratings are to be believed.
The property construction industry. Seems to take ages to complete projects and, judging by the piles of materials that lie around for a long time, there must be project coordination problems
Public works projects. Ditto.
The post office. Mail doesn’t arrive until around noon and parcels from the UK rarely arrive at all. Though they could go missing in Britain, of course.
The local police. At least when it comes to enforcing parking and noise laws.