I would ask people for the time

AOG, Madrid

A few months ago, maybe as far back as last September, my watch's battery ran out. 

I did nothing for a couple of days thinking, or rather, hoping in the most procrastinating manner, that I would get around to changing the battery in a couple of days.

A couple of days turned into a couple of months, and a couple of months turned into roughly 9 months. 

I have now been without a wristwatch for almost a year and, yes, there have been many times when I have missed it. 

Last November I took it to a local watch shop only to be told that, because of the type of watch it was, they could not do it. 

A couple of months ago, a lady from work told me that a relative of her husband's could change the battery. 

A couple of days later she said she was really sorry, but, "Being an Omega, he doesn't have the proper equipment to open it up". 

When I lived in London, changing the watch's battery had never been a problem. I had a local jeweler who changed it in a couple of days, and it was not very expensive. 

Getting Around

Of course, these people also exist in Madrid, but they are not within walking distance, and my life these days is all about walking distance. 

Having been spoiled as a child and a teenager growing up in America, where I drove everywhere and had a passion for cars, these days I live without the benefit of personal transport and rely on public transportation to get anywhere. Buses and subways are my method of braving long distances.

When I lived in London and I had a car -my much beloved 1988 Volvo station wagon being the last of the crop, I would move about the city using public transport too. 

However, come the weekend, out came the car. 

Drive here, there. 

To the West End or South London, to Windsor's Great Park or the art galleries in Hampstead or Whitechapel.

But in Madrid, I don't own a car. 

I really don't need it, so public transport has become, after walking on foot, my preferred mode of moving about town.

Also, there's the element of fatigue. You, the reader, may be able to relate to this. Why is it that as children we had humongous reserves of energy but, as adults, we can hardly make it through the day?

It is a recurring theme that, when I get out of work, I make it home, and do my best not to fall asleep on the sofa. I have zero energy. 

So, when faced with the task of taking my watch and finding a jeweler who can change the battery, I just can't spare the few 'joules' I may have in my body doing anything other than dinner, and, maybe, doing some reading. 

I also want to add changing the channel to that list. 

Alternative Trinkets

So I live with no watch. 

Oh, but you own only one watch? No, I own five watches. All five have no battery, but it is the Omega -the one my mother bought as a birthday gift years ago- that I use on a daily basis. 

My wrist is now so used to not having a watch, that the pale, white, mark I had on it, has disappeared and now my entire arm is one color.

So, what have I done in the mean time? 

Well, when I was younger and this happened, I would ask people for the time. 

But now that I'm an adult, I ask no one for the time. 

Instead, I use my old mobile/ cell phone when I need to know what time it is. 

I don't have an iPhone or a smart Android phone (other than work's BlackBerry) but I think that my regular, old-fashioned, mobile Samsung mobile phone (which slides open and I love that), is apparently more important a machine than my watch.

Eventually, I'm not sure when, I'll replace the battery and that will have been that.

But after I do I'll continue to carry a mobile/cell phone on me.

 
I'm not sure about when it is that I'll stop, if ever, carrying a phone on me. It has become one of those indispensable machines without which we could not really function very well.

No, I don't think that my life would end if I didn't have a phone -and I have thought about not having a land line at all- but, curiously enough, I am aware of how big a part of our daily lives it has become. 

Just like the iPad.

I wake up and, before I go to work, I turn the radio on and start to quickly peruse the morning news. 

I think our lives these days are 'connected' to something, for better or for worse.

And where will it all lead?

Two days ago I was having dinner with some friends (walking distance from home). 

One of them, an American cartoonist living in Spain, mentioned very casually that people will "eventually grow tired of the internet and will move on to the next thing". 

Yes, it was one of those "excuse me... what?" moments. 

Will the internet change... or disappear?  

Well, yes, it changes all the time. 

The internet in 2013 and in 1993 are two very different beings. 

And, like television, it seems to be here to stay. 

Will people grow tired of it?  If so, what will come next? 

Yes, I'm sure that someone, somewhere, will be thinking of it, but I'm not sure about how successful they will be with their idea in my lifetime. 

After all, Da Vinci thought about submarines in the XVI century (1515 I think), but we didn't really see those until 400 years later...  

Peculiarities of the Spanish streets

AOG, Madrid

One of the things that strike me most about livig in Spain, is the amount of old people on the streets. Used as I was to seeing a few OAPs (Old Age Pensioners for those of you not British) in London here and there, mostly in Post Offices, or at the corner shop, in Spain, you come accross hundreds of older people at all times and in all places. many of them work. Yes, some old people in the UK also work, but here, some of them run shops, or drive taxis, or work as waiters, well into their old age.

When you walk the streets, there they are, hand in hand the women, side by side the men. When you take the underground (subway), the bus, when you take a stroll. They are everywhere I go. Their lives don't just end in Spain. They don't hide and wait for the end. Like little ants they scurry forth, at their pace, probaly as they always did. I guess in Spain you are always you well into old age. Perhaps they don't realise they are old? And by this I mean that compared to other countries, the elderly strolling the streets appear to be very energetic.

They also appear to have a devil-may-care attitude. I am not saying they are aggressive, but most (certainly not all) do appear to be quite able to tell you off should you cross them. Perhaps it is defensive.

The kind old lady stereotype is a little bit harder to find in Spain. Of course, there are kind old ladies in Spain. I would venture that most are kind. But their number is certainly challenged by very straightforward ladies who will -sometimes- tell you to get off your seat on the bus and let them use it. Some will just look at you hoping you'll get up.

Others, and remember that animals work best in packs, will, if with a friend, start to tell their friend in a loud voice that some people today have no manners; that it is incredible how some people are rude enough to occupy a seat; etcetera. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the person they are alluding to wil get up and apologise, then the old ladies will apologise too and one of two things may happen, they will sit down (if there are two of them they will have a small argument over who should take the seat) or they will remain standing because they are either getting off at the next stop, or for some other reason. Perhaps pride. I think this is what keeps the running. Pride.

But not only old people roam the streets of Spain. Everyone roams here. I have seen more blind people walking the streets than anywhere else in the world I have visited. Of course in Spain there is an organisation called ONCE which provides many blind people with jobs, and they have a weekly lottery which provides them with funds. The blind are also very likely to appear on television. Participating in game shows, or very often, in the news. Not as newsreaders, but to illustrate their plight. And this is not an infrequent affair.

Not a day goes by that I don't see somebody with a deformity, or in a wheelchair, or in crutches, or with a medical condition they choose not to hide, or missing a limb (well, these are a bit rarer but they do exist), out in the open, living life to the fullest. They do not get hidden away as perhaps they do elsewhere. They seem to have an abundance of spirit in this country that permeates most everywhere and affects most everyone. And everyone is polite to each other when they take public transport. And if you are pregnant, all the seats are yours! Everyone gets up.

Of course, I am sure that many people in Spain do get hidden away. You hear stories about people being locked up for years. But you wouldn't know it by just walking up and down the streets in any Spanish city.