One of the questions we get asked a lot is “what’s it like driving in Spain?” As with many things, there’s good and bad. On the good side, the roads are generally excellent, especially the motorways (aka freeways for those in the US), and Spanish drivers’ lane discipline is outstanding. You know those times when you’re driving up I - 5 and you’re stuck behind some idiot sitting in the left lane at 50mph because he’s got just as much right to that lane as you do, goddamn it? Doesn’t happen here. You get in the left lane to overtake, you overtake, and get back over to the right. With good reason. Usually because some dude in a Porsche SUV (or sometimes, amusingly, a white van) is about to come screaming past at over 100mph, and you don’t want to be in his way. Truck drivers here seem to have some sort of death wish. They tailgate all the time, and not just a little bit. You’ll often see three trucks nose to tail, barreling along at over 60mph, with barely a car length between them....
When we moved to Spain, we expected there to be challenges, like the language barrier and the bureaucracy. We also expected some things to be interesting and different – the people, the culture, the history and so on. What we didn’t expect was to find those challenges and quirks combined in the supermarkets. On the surface, the supermarkets in Spain seem simple. There are multiple chains here, and they all look a lot like supermarkets anywhere else in the world. But when you dig a little, things get interesting. Let’s use Carrefour as an example. Carrefour is a French supermarket chain with a presence in most major Spanish cities and towns. These are usually superstores, where you can buy a wide range of goods in addition to typical supermarket fare, like TVs and appliances, hardware, and clothing. A bit like Fred Meyer in Portland. We first encountered Carrefour on our scouting vacation to Spain two years ago, and it wasn’t an auspicious start. Kim set off a security alarm by usin...