I had some extra time this afternoon, so I thought I would get an earlier start on this today than I have been. I had a couple of really interesting conversations this morning. One of the Spaniards is the dealership network manager for Mercedes-Benz. He says his job is to take care of the dealers, establish new places for dealerships, close underperforming ones, etc. They force him to change cars every six months, but he doesn't like to do it. When I asked why they did it so often, he said that partly they want them to drive the newest thing, and partly it is to feed the used car market with high end "new" used cars. He would prefer to keep his car longer. He owns a vacation home in Asturias, near Llanes, where his daughter will be married in August. He has been to 18 Vaughantowns. It is a benefit that his company provides (as an English learning course), so he doesn't want to miss the opportunity to come as long as they are paying for it. He showed me a really good video of Covadonga (where Jorge and I have been twice), then sent it to me - I will have to pass it on to Jorge. He also gave me some good tips for conversation starters with the shyer Spaniards.
On my second one-to-one, we spent the hour walking in the cemetery, looking for a grave we were told had a picture of a dog on it, as well as a Republican flag (the losers in the Civil War here in the 1930's). They act like it is scandalous to display that flag, and the flag and dog are on the same grave. He explained to me that these large above-ground tombs are not individuals - they are family tombs, and most of them are obviously very expensive. He said in Spain you don't buy the plot, you lease it for 100 or 110 years. After that, I guess, it's ok for them to recycle it if they want. As often happens here, when you are walking and talking, people tell you things that they might not ordinarily say. I asked if there was a particular day, like our Memorial Day, when they decorated graves and such. He did that they do that on All Saints Day, the day after Halloween, and then he added. "But sometimes on other days I go to my father's grave and I write him a letter". Then he kind of caught himself and said, "But....I don't tell anybody." He was happy that I agreed to walk in the cemetery with him. I guess he had asked someone else, and they didn't want to do it, but he really wanted to go. We didn't find the dog, but I got better instructions and found it later.
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| The dog on the tombstone. We are assuming the dog is actually buried there, too, but we don't know. |
Then we were off on our winery tour. The vineyard was actually very close by (only maybe a ten minute drive). The Mercedes guy let us use his car, which was nice. The winery was really interesting. They produce 500,000 bottles a year, which he says is a small winery, but most of their output is exported, mainly to China and the UK. They only employ 7-15 people at any one time. He said they never irrigate their land because there is a river that runs through the vineyard, and the humidity from the river is enough to grow the grapes. The only move the grapes in small trucks because they don't want the grapes to break before reaching the processing place. They do not wash them, only send them through a high-speed fan to remove leaves and stems before they are put into the specially built stainless steel tanks to ferment. Later, it is sent to barrels to be aged. Only three people are needed to operate the bottling and labeling machine, though it can process 1500 bottles an hour. The wine for export is not bottled, but sent on ships in huge tanks and bottled in the location.
After lunch and siesta, I came back downstairs to find that I had two hours of free time! There was a conference call group going on, and it required a lot of Spaniards, so there were a lot of Anglos left over. I spent about an hour dangling my legs in the pool, then went back in to hang out downstairs until time for my telephone session (we are given a scenario, then we go back to our rooms, and he has to call me and we have to go through the scenario on the phone).
Entertainment hour, dinner, and now it is time to get to bed. At dinner, the guy I walked in the cemetery with said I sound like a "professional TV lady", so I guess that's a compliment. :) Several people today have thanked me for the Beer Nuts, too, and said they couldn't believe I would bring them all the way to Spain. Tomorrow we will spend most of our one-to-one times helping them with their presentations that they will give tomorrow night. Most won't admit it, but they are nervous about the speech. Tonight, one of the newbie Anglos asked what happens on the last day, and we told her about the graduation ceremony and all, and then one of my friends from last year said, "Well, and then there is the naked torch run through the village. They have a branding iron, though, so if you don't run fast enough...." It was really funny. Eh, maybe you had to be there.
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