CHAPTER 3 --- Shopping
Spain is a country with 39,000,000 inhabitants, but it attracts over 40,000,000 tourists every year. While a considerable number of Americans make their way to Spain, most of these tourists come from other countries in the European Union. Principally from England, Germany, France and Italy. Thus Spain has the largest number of tourists of any country in the world.
Most of the people who visit Spain arrive with very positive attitudes and expectations about what they think will happen there. If they are coming to the Andalucian region of Spain they expect that they will enjoy unlimited sunny days, be able to sun themselves on beautiful beaches covered with white sand, bathe in the ocean, and while away the nights in bars, clubs and discos. In this they are not disappointed in that they find themselves in a large beach side hotel with a courteous staff. Most of the hotel attendants will speak some variation of their language. Meals in the hotel dining room feature a sampling of the local cuisine with fish being the main staple. The hotel arranges for supervised day trips to charming and quaint neighboring villages. On Saturday evenings the hotel brings in a local group, usually composed of has been flamenco guitarists, singers and dancers for the obligatory flamenco show. Video cameras whirl, flashes go off and the tourists have a lot of videos and pictures to show to bored guests at their next club meeting back home. On their last day as they rush around to take their final videos and pictures, a bus is waiting to whisk them away in air-conditioned comfort to their waiting aircraft at the Malaga airport. They arrive home and tell everyone, willing to listen, about the great time they had during their holiday in Spain.
Thus it goes for most people who visit Spain. My experiences have been somewhat different in that I have never vacationed in Spain by staying in luxury hotels. However, when visiting Spain it is probably better if one does not need any kind of special treatment like a special diet or out of the ordinary service. You might tell the waiter that you would like your steak cooked medium well, but the chances are that it will arrive at your plate the way the cook thought it should be prepared, that is well done, regardless of what you requested. The waiter’s body language and attitude tells you that you should probably not send it back, because it will make no difference anyway.
Another thing that will happen is that you will be told by someone who should be providing you with a service what he or she think you want to hear. Recently I was in a restaurant and I asked the waiter if the garlic chicken was greasy or dry. I was assured that it would be only slightly oily. I interpreted that to mean that the chicken would be just a bit moist with oil. Usually in such situations I try to get a visual sighting. In this case stupidly I ordered the garlic chicken, without a visual sighting. When it arrived it was floating in about a quarter inch of grease. When I pointed this out to the waiter, he assured me that this particular dish is usually served with about twice as much grease.. However, all was not lost. I am accustomed to carrying some paper towels when I eat in Spanish restaurants so that I can dab most of the grease off the food, usually the meat, and this time was no exception.
My first remembered shopping experience was while I was living in the Malaga camp site in my VW camper during the fall, winter and spring of 1972 to 1973. I bought a small transformer from an electrical shop in the center of Malaga. On one side you connected the power cord to a 220 volt outlet and it reduced the voltage to 110 volts to an outlet on the other side of the transformer. As I was trying to gently disconnect the male plug from the 110 side the entire plug pulled away from the rest of the transformer and so it was hanging out like a naked thumb. The wires were still connected to the female plug and the transformer still worked.
I put the transformer plus the sales slip in a plastic bag and made my way down to the store. I imagined as I sat on the bus on my way into town that I would be given a new transformer with appropriate apologies and then be sent on my way. Thus with great confidence I entered the shop, got the attention of the sales clerk and showed him the damaged goods together with the receipt. I got a look from him that told me that this was a case that wasn’t going anywhere. "Why had I brought the transformer in?" I was asked. "Because it broke the first time I tried to use it.", I replied. "Well why haven’t you fixed it? Why bring it here?", he responded. More of this circular conversation continued for a few minutes. Finally he glared at me as if he was saying:" You must be another dumb foreigner." He took the transformer, went to a scotch tape dispenser and taped the broken piece on to the body of the transformer, put it in my bag, returned my receipt and thus let me know that our transaction was over. Admittedly this was a minor emergency that the store was not ready to deal with, since apparently it had never occurred to anyone that there would ever be such a creature as a dissatisfied customer trying to return damaged goods.
A few days later Paul and I invited a few young American female backpackers to join us for lunch at an "El Cheapo" restaurant that we often frequented in the center of Malaga. The girls had asked us about inexpensive dining and we said this was the place to go. The restaurant had about ten tables and was a typical mom and pop operation. The husband was the waiter; a teen-age son worked behind the bar and the mother was the cook in the kitchen. There was no printed menu, but the food items available each day were listed on a chalkboard above the bar. We all decided to order a salad, merluza frita (fried hake) with french fries, wine and flan for dessert. Total coast for each meal was about a dollar.
From the very beginning of the meal the American girls were worried about the cleanliness of the restaurant. They asked repeatedly if we thought the lettuce had been properly washed, was the kitchen clean, did the cook wash her hands before touching the food and so forth. Paul and I both reminded them that we were eating in an cheap restaurant and certain allowances would need to be made.
The salad was served first. One of the girls, upon close scrutiny of the lettuce leaves, shrieked: "There is a worm on one of my lettuce leaves!" Upon closer scrutiny, we all agreed that there was indeed a small quarter inch transparent worm residing on the leaf. Some time was spent trying to get the waiter’s attention and when he finally arrived, the offending lettuce leaf with the tiny worm on it was shown to him. He looked at it and us then laughed and said: "Si, ensalada con carne!" What did he say," I was asked. "He said yes, salad with meat." "Was there no apology?" she asked. "No apology," I replied. "Is he going to bring me a new salad?" she asked. ‘I don’t think so," I replied. But Paul, who enjoyed nothing more than rubbing a little salt in a wound, chimed in: " But I bet he is not going to charge you anything extra either."