my new summer time love...

That´s right, i have fallen in love. No disrespect to my wife, whom I adore dearly, but this is an attraction I cannot deny any longer. This new love of mine is full of sass, spunk and just as easy as Sunday mornings. I see her everyday, mostly after dinner but on the weekends, I have her all day long. Carme is not the least bit jealous because she and I look forward to having her together. Oh, and her name is Sandy.

Before your mind wanders and goes all in the gutter, I am talking about a summer drink that totally is refreshing and satisfying. If Spain is offering me anything worthwhile, this drink is the top of the list. A Sandy is a mixture of beer and lemon soda in a wine glass but i take her in a tall glass. the more the merrier. She has a cousin called Clara which is beer and Sprite or Tonic water but i am not brave enough to cheat on Sandy just yet.
One might cringe at the mixture, but on these warm summer days and hazy evening, it is more than enough to quench your thirst. It´s delicious, refreshing and smooth. The lemon and sugar mixes nicely with beer, which I abhor to no end. I am not a fan of beer in the least bit. I rarely drink it and when I do it's jut to fit in the crowd. I am more of a tequila or rum drinker and that is a rare occasion.

Carme and I giggle as we both have pains for this drink after dinner as we sit on our balcony watching the world go by. It´s my job to make them and her job to drink them with me. we even go so far as to make the lemon soda nice and icy so it´s half Slurpee and half cold liquid. I am in the process of finding a Slurpee machine so we can have them on tap when we want.

Try it for yourself. But don´t expect to get a buzz. Might take 6 or 7 to do so.

San Juan....a day to be careful

Ok I think I have had enough of Spanish Holidays. By far this is the most nerve wrecking holidays of them all. I should have headed the warning signs, but nothing prepares you for this day.

Tossa is quite the small pueblo...I can`t seem to say that enough. Until you come here you cannot imagine just how small it is. I have nothing to compare it to in America. It is literally impossible to have a town this small and still put it on a map without giggling. Tossa is so small that I could sneeze on one side of town and someone would catch my cold on the other, if not for the constant, gentle and inviting sea breeze that sweeps over us. With that being said, let me tell you about this holiday.

Well actually I have no idea what this holiday is for. Most businesses were open, as were I to avoid going to the beach with the family and my niece. Mostly the businesses were open because this is a tourist town. No high rise business offices here, no home offices of any major banks either.

Also, just about every day there is some saint´s day to celebrate. The more popular names get the most attention. every one here is name Maria so that is a huge shopping time. It´s usually treated much like a birthday but as you get older it seems you tone down the partying and extravagant gift giving. well when I asked Eric what was so important about this day, he just replied that half of the country is called Juan, namely the King. I sighed and pressed on. Carme could not answer the question ether so I am sorry, you have to look it up for yourself.

But the best and worst part of this day and leading up to it is the fireworks. I am not talking about driving in the warm southern night to Chesterfield County fairgrounds to brave mosquitoes to catch a 30 minute show of "ooohs" and "ahhs" while you kid has fallen asleep and begging for you to take him home. I am talking more like firecrackers. And everyone but me had them. Kids as young at 8 and 9 walk around with pockets full of these loud poppers and bangers. Older kids have knapsacks full of cherry bombs and beetle bombs. even the adults are launching explosive flares that burst 40 feet in the air. And this does not happen all in one day, it`s spread over a week. Many days I sit in my little store, mindfully working away on yet another website where the customer wants every animated gifs and unreadable fonts they can think of, which goes against the very fabric of effective website design. and just as I go to sip on my perfectly cooled iced cafe con leche...BANG!!!! POP!!!! SCREEEEEEEAAAAMMMM! Good thing coffee doesn't stain.

As soon as school is let out for lunch break, the popping ans whizzing starts. Carme warned me to beware of prankster throwing poppers in my store and running to startle me but I think they are afraid I would catch them in a 40 yard dash. After 40 yards I am done for a good week, but again...TOSSA IS SMALL and I would find them. There is only one school for God´s sake.

I took the startling bangs all week and got pretty used to them but when the sun started to set, the activity of pocket lighters and mischievous prankster increased. We went to have a meal at her mother´s house which I can only guess is tradition. We had plates of cheese, shaved Serrano ham and another of my favorite things to eat, wide loathed and seemingly thin sliced crusty bread rubbed with the juice of a raw tomato (simply call pan con tomat or pa amb tomata, in Catalan). Sorry if I get off on a rant here but take some bread (not the sliced bread like Sunbeam or Wonder Bread...go to a bakery or Ukrpos) and toast it if you would like. then cut a tomato (red not some half green one you got on your way to work from the Dinwiddie County gas station) and squeeze and rub on the bread so the seeds and juice are spread across the bread. Depending on the type of tomato, size of the bread, and if Jupiter is aligned with Mars, you may need the whole tomato or another half. The bread should not be soggy but the taste of the tomato will be all you need. Next dabble a little olive oil over the bread, again mind the saturation of these two tastes. And to finish it off, sprinkle a little salt to give it that extra kick. Simple but full of good tastes and quick to make or to eat with a nice dinner meal.

Back on point, so we are having dinner at her mom´s on the back terrace, with a perfect view of the town´s mostly clear sky as twilight was setting right about the western horizon. I would have enjoyed this time with my entire Catalan family if not for the random and loud explosions going on all around me. I had trouble tasting my food as I was imagining that this is what Beirut must have been like in the 80´s. and while I was yelling "INCOMING" and diving under the table. I swear it literally shook the dinner table. Out of the corner of my eyes were flashes of light and explosions louder than my thoughts. Occasionally a rocket was launched and exploded in the now dark skies. But nothing as organized at the Caroline County Fair site. Needless to say I was getting a bit shell shocked at the noises and flash bangs increased in frequency. This is why Tossa, being a small town, is such a big deal. I heard every firecracker that was purchased and lit that week and that night!

After dinner, since we had walked to her mothers, we took turns hiding in bushes and low crawling in the grass to cautiously make our way home. What normally is a 5 minute stroll was now a 2 hour duck and weave for our lives. Alex got a kick out of playing G.I. Joe but Carme was not too please when she hit a bush of thorn and brier.

We thought we are home safe. Notice I said...thought! The fireworks lasted well into the night and early morning. I sat in my widows with a flack jacket and Kevlar helmet waiting for the Nazis to come rolling thru town or the Spanish Nationalist Army or something. Finally when I could not keep my eyes open any longer I drifted off to sweet dreamland. I am not sure how long I was asleep before a thunderous explosion went off outside. I do not not how close it was but it woke me enough to realize I was drooling on my teddy bear I sleep with. I felt the shock of the sound waves in my feet but I am not sure if it was the explosion or me jumping from being startled. I was sleeping like a baby and refused to wake up. If the explosion blew up my house and took off my legs as I initially thought, then I would deal with it in the morning. Snore.

One reason why I want to go home....

In dealing with businesses here, namely those services essential for survival, there are an old cultural set of rules which I suspect come from the closed off culture of Spain. I am accustomed to the competition and customer service driven business atmosphere of America. Say all you would like about Capitalism, but the focus and aim of capitalism tends to benefit the consumer and the consumer sparks the economy, the economy sparks business...and so on and so on. When business is difficult to deal with, customers feel as though they are economically enslaved to a system that profits from this. Here in Spain, I feel as though the idea of choice is a foreign idea, for lack of a better phrase.

For so long, the state runs the necessary and essential services and in some capacity still do. There are benefits in the city supplying water and sewage to their citizens. Competition in placing separate water pipes to a home don't seem economically feasible. Still with the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in America, it took many years for other companies to get a foothold in the market share of long distance providers but today you can chose between Sprint, AT&T and so forth. Still these companies pay a usage fee for the millions of miles of fiber optic cabling provided by AT&T in the 70’s and 80’s but still a way was found to make these new telecommunication companies to provide reliable and economically affordable products.

In Spain, and most of the Spanish speaking countries around the world, Telefonica is the major source of telecommunication. Sure they provide long distance, local and Internet connections much like those companies in America, but I would say they own maybe 99% of the market share. They are the giants here in Spain and if you want a phone, you have some choices but the competing companies are far off the mark when it comes to availability and offerings in rural towns like Tossa. So when we moved here to Spain, we found it essential to get a home line connection for telephone and Internet. With the inception of my business, I knew I would need telephone and Internet there also so we set up two different accounts. In order to pay for your accounts, the norm is to give your bank account information to a representative and it is automatically debited each month. Since Spain is in the 21st century when it comes to debit card use rather than writing checks and balancing checkbooks, surprisingly Spain is well equipped to handle this idea. Still if you live hand-to-mouth, instead of risking coming up short monthly, you tend to live without certain amenities but the economy holds well enough that most people have cell phones and satellite television (don´t get me started on cable providers here…there are none).

Our problems all started when we changed bank accounts in January. At the advise of my in laws, we were guided into choosing another local bank to handle our money. Still here in Spain as it was centuries ago in America, you build a personal and daily relationship with your bank office in your town. Sure they have ATMs to feed the availability of Euros to the many tourists who come, traveler´s checks are nonexistent here. Of course we called all of our providers (gas, water, telephone, satellite, etc) to advise them of the change in account information. Still we found that the inability to change account information reliably was as poor as their common sense. One morning we awoke to no running water. Eyes crusted with last night dreams and heavy sleeping, faces caked with the oil from active glands, breath only sweetened by the use of bottle water used in brushing our teeth, I headed over to the local water company to inquire why we did not have water. It seemed that we did not pay our January bill. How coincidental…we changed our account in January. But it is now March and I hold the transcript from our new bank account showing that we paid our February and March bills. Still the local office of water, Sorea, claims we never paid January´s. Did you send a notice that you were to cut off our service for 30€ (roughly 45 dollars...that´s right, a month of water is $45!!!!)? Of course they did not, that would be too practical and cut into their profits to print a piece of paper and walk 4 blocks to my apartment. When he looked at his computer screen, I asked him what bank account number did he have…and he replied back with the old account number from our previous bank for January, the new account number for the following two months. But somehow they had the new account information to get their February and March payments.

I hope you are following this because here is when common sense comes in. If you have successfully retrieved payment for the past two months, and there was a change in bank accounts, why are you still trying to pull money from the old account? Why would you just not pull it from the new account. He replied simply…we cannot do that.

OK why did you not change then bank accounts for January? He replied we did…but I guess not in time. I figured my leading down the path of reason and common sense was in fact not getting him anywhere. He was Ray Charles looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. I was wasting time and my family sit in last night's stench, dreaming of taking a hot bath on this chilly morning. I sighed and paid in cash the balance of the bill, all the while thinking if I had indeed paid January and had not paid March, I would still have water, so it was not a fact of being late, but having a negative on my account for more than 2 months. Am I explaining this well enough?

Well it doesn't stop there. The same issue happened with Telefonica. But this time, I had my service cut off in May due to a bill not being paid in January, even though they successfully have received Feb. through May. They turned off my phone with no warning, email or phone notification…to my business. I was unaware of this due to the fact I had my phone service transferred from one location to my shop I am presently in. Since i was waiting for another state run agency to come and connect my electricity (they promised one particular day but never came stating they did not have enough work to do in Tossa to warrant making a trip for little ole me, a paying customer). I could not connect my phone or Internet to test whether it was functioning or not. When I did finally get power and opened my business, I was not surprised to see that my phone was not working, although my Internet was. When i called Telefonica, they stated I was turned off because I did not pay my January bill. Sigh. Again same story with the accounts.

So I headed to the local postal office to pay my bill and the next day I was turned back on. Well the story goes on. 3 weeks later, Carme called me at the shop and discovered I had no phone connection. I was unaware, as it is not common practice to routinely call myself from my cell to make sure my phone is working. But it sounds like a good idea if this is going to be common place. When I called Telefonica, they were unsure why I had no service. After an hour on the phone with my cell phone raking in big bucks for Vodafone, I was finally told that "the computer thought I had not paid my bill and automatically cut off my phone. Being a computer technician, I found humor in the words "the computer thought". Let's get this straight. Did you ever see the movie "War Games" with Matthew Broderick? you know where the computer takes over and almost starts WWII? Or better yet "2001: A Space Odyssey" where HAL went ballistic. Where I have a news flash ...computers will never take over the world. Computer only can do what you tell them to do. You tell a computer to cook a piece of bread for so long to make toast. If mechanically it fails, well you have a burnt piece of bread. But the little computer in the toaster doesn't say, "uh oh...we are burning the bread, EJECT!!!

So here I sit without phone service and magically, my Internet connection fails in mid conversation with this moronic person on the phone. What a coincidence. When I asked when they will correct THEIR mistake, I had to be put on hold to get an answer. I expected something along the line as "let my computer think about it." i was then informed that it may take up to 10 days to have my connection restored. Of course they would have to send a technician to Tossa to reconnect me. I am sure it may be longer if they do not have enough work to come to Tossa to justify the trip.

Luckily, 5 days went by and I had a technician show up at my door. He connected my telephone and Internet but treated it as if it was a new install. In doing so, he connected me with a new phone number. When I inquired, he informed me he had his instructions and could do nothing about it. Thinking he was an extension of Telefonica, he sarcastically replied, "do you want the service or not. If not I have to go." Right then my life flashed in front of my eyes. Specifically the portion of my life when I am thrown into a Spanish jail for assault after sticking my sized 49 shoe into his paella eating ass and deported politely back to the US. I grit my teeth and take my Spanish medicine of rudeness, frankness, and laid back "I don't make the rules" attitude.

To make a short story longer, here I sit thinking about what I have learned today and how I can grow from it. In a nutshell...nothing. I am redesigning my fliers to reflect my new number. Good thing I was too lazy to make new ones 3 weeks ago since I needed to change my address on my business cards anyhow. As i share this story with more and more of my neighbors, they take it as the norm. They respond in horror but somewhat expectant to hear of these issues. What can you do. I just hope that this feeling of complacency does not wash over me and seep deep into my being. I am American and I demand customer service. It´s in our constitution somewhere I am sure of it.

awards to be handed out...

So I thought for fun I would begin giving out random awards to the people around Tossa who have made a somewhat daily impact on my being here, wanting to stay here or wanting to swim back to Richmond.

So without further delay...I present...

Spencer Warren 1st Annual Tossa Image awards or SWTI (sweaty) for short.

Our first award of the month...goes to Best Performance by a couple or duo (don´t want to exclude gay couples) in a comedy...

and the award goes to...

Eric and Imma!!!!

Why? They are hilarious. They are always there when you need a quick laugh. Like most couples I am sure they fight, but when you see these two, they are in harmonious tandem with their one liners and rib shots. Usually Eric is the instigator of the fun times but Imma works well with his comedic timing to add her own flavor. And better yet, they each hold their own separately.

Eric is from Holland and owns a local bar here called Comics. I am very fond of this place as it was the first place Carme took me when we visited Tossa together. Also because he speaks English with me. No matter how much Spanish learn, I am only accustomed to speaking English with him


Imma and I see one another every morning. She is having coffee and the cafe next to my shop. she always has a kind word but i am sure if I give her enough time, she will curse me out for the sheer pleasure of it.