The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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1:49pm on Saturday, 14th July, 2007:
Anecdote
Wow, those pastries in the pastry shop windows look so tempting.
There's a peal of bells in a nearby cathedral or church or someplace which is very reminiscent of one of the peals in the game Darklands. Apparently, they're a famous Asturian anthem, though, so it seems unlikely given that Darklands was set in Germany.
There's a debate in the UK over whether to be on British Summer Time the whole year round, instead of going to Greenwich Mean Time. Spain is more west than England, though, so why don't they have the same debate? Answer: they don't even work to the same clock as in the UK — they behave at 10pm how we do at 7pm.
They clean their streets a lot in Oviedo.
Praise be! Four ice cream stands in a row — the only ones I saw in three hours of looking for one.
I saw only one person selling things illegally from a sheet in the street (counterfeit DVDs).
A shop assistant able to tell me in English that she doesn't speak English. I was able to tell her in Spanish that I don't speak Spanish.
I don't know what that liquid I sat in was, and I don't want to know.
Pop songs being played in shops, the words of which are entirely in Spanish except for "baby". There seem to be a lot of them.
They have a covered market. I love covered markets — ever since my grandparents took me to the one in Harrogate when I was little.
Asturian bagpipes are no more tuneful than Scottish ones.
If you'd asked me yesterday whether I knew the Spanish for "haberdashery", I'd have said no. Today I saw a shop sign with "merceria" on it and knew what it meant. That's how foreign languages seem to work for me.
I saw no women in burkas or other moslem wear.
A chapel with a roof that needs weeding.
The belief that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun is false. Not all those dogs I saw were mad.
Other than me, I saw only four men wearing jackets. Two were priests, two were wedding guests.
Spanish airport security doesn't care if you take full cigarette lighters through with you. The guy in front of me had three.
I really like this city.
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Copyright © 2007 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).