How I Know What Country I'm in

When the alarm sounds each morning, I usually forget what country I’m in. As the day goes on, however, it’s easy to remember and here are a couple reasons why:

Last night I went out for dinner with Julie, Paco, and Paco’s friends. We left the apartment around 9:15. Sat down to eat around 10:00. They served our first appetizers around 10:45 or 11:00, but we let them sit and get cold until at least twenty after because the last person still hadn’t showed. No one even brought up the fact that the appetizers were sitting there getting cold and maybe we should eat them. Everyone simply waited politely, kept chatting, and didn’t give it a second thought. When the last member of our party arrived, we dug in (to some lukewarm patatas bravas). Never did anyone complain about having to wait. We left the restaurant around one, went to the bar for a while and got home at 4:30.

A couple days ago I had gone for a run in Retiro Park and approached a man in his seventies walking toward me. At this point I, too, was walking. I had my earphones on, but noticed that he was shading his eyes to look at me. Then, when I got closer he started to talk to me. Well, not wanting to be rude, I turned down the volume so I could hear him. I thought maybe he needed to tell me something important, like that he was having a heart attack (he was old!) or that I had dropped something. Um, no. He was trying to tell me how good-looking I was. Okay, thank you, Grandpa.

Gosh, it’s good to be back!