On protecting my anonymity

I went to see the doctor this morning. Like all the doctors I've ever encountered, doctors in Spain make you wait. This is obviously because a doctor's time is much more valuable than mine or, indeed, yours. In truth, nowadays, nearly everyone's time is more valuable than mine in a financial sense but, as usual, I seem to be straying up a branch line.

I've been to the doctor a few times over the years in Pinoso but not to the point that it's second nature to me. I was quite decided to be decisive today. The last time I was there there was a little printed list stuck up with sellotape outside the doctors door. The appointments were arranged in 15 minute blocks. Inside the fifteen minute block there would be three names; three people had the same appointment time. I couldn't remember whether the system was first come first served or whether the list order gave the order. My decisiveness amounted to no more than asking rather than muddling through.

I was stymied on two counts. First of all there were three Britons, a couple and a single, outside my assigned door and they were people that I knew. Conversation was to be struck. The pair were in with "my" doctor before me so, until they moved, there was no hurry. They weren't sure where they were in the running order so I asked the people waiting on the plastic chairs. It was an easy conversation. I had the same time as a young woman but the system is first come first served. "It has to be that way now," said someone. "There used to be a list but the data protection act has stopped that". "Ah", said someone else. "That's why the nurse now calls people by numbers rather than names I suppose". "No matter", I said, "Spaniards like to talk". I was relieved that they sniggered rather than stringing me up by my thumbs.

I suppose that the data protection thing is to do with consent to use personal data now being clear and certain. Just because I want to see a doctor doesn't mean that I gave anyone permission to release the fact that I am there. Maybe I want to remain anonymous. Actually as I booked my appointment using an application on my phone I suppose that the list would have contravened that rule about data on a person not being used for another purpose. Maybe I should read the data protection stuff more carefully. When we visited Jumilla Castle a few weeks ago I was asked to send an email with certain details. Nothing too Edward Snowden but name, address, email and my ID number. The woman on the phone said it was for data protection. Odd though, now my data is protected they know all sorts about me whereas before they would just have known that Chris and Maggie were on their list for castle visiting.

Two down, three to go

Avoiding people who aren't looking where they are going because they are glued to their mobile phones is an unremarkable modern day hazard. I was surprised though by a couple of lads riding their bike down the pedestrianised bit of a tree lined avenue in Albacete yesterday. No hands riding for both as they scrutinised their phones with one saying that there was a Pokemon in another fifty metres. The next three groups of lads I passed were also engrossed in the display of their phones, apparently, also in search of Pokemons. Pokemon Go in Albacete?

I'd gone on the train for a bit of a lark. It was one of the mid distance trains so I was a bit surprised when the TV monitors revealed that the train was doing just a tad over 160 k/h. My ticket was on my phone. The lad next to me was watching an episode of Vikings on his laptop whilst he whatsapped to his chums and those rolling Manchego plains slipped by. Most of the passengers were doing something with their phone so that the woman with a paper newspaper seemed a bit out of place.

I have an English exercise I use with students on the subject of Spanish stereotypes pulled together from  a series of travel guides published in Russia, Japan, the UK etc. The cliches aren't the bulls and sangria type but things like body hair on women, particularly underarm and on legs, being socially unacceptable or that nobody gets drunk in public. One of these supposed cliches is that RENFE trains are clean and efficient. Both my trains were dead on time and clean.

Maybe I'm on a bit of a Munro type mission to bag all the provincial capitals of Castilla la Mancha - Ciudad Real last week and Albacete this. The city has a bit of a reputation for being boring and it's true that there's not a great deal to see  but it seemed very clean and tidy to me with lots of open spaces and a lot of greenery. It's not the first or even the tenth time I've been there but it was still a pleasant enough day out.

Part of that was down to the tourist office. I really appreciated that, after the question as to whether I could understand his Spanish or not, the man talked to me like any other tourist rather than as someone who knew nothing. He gave me a map with some tourist routes on it, explained what was open and what was closed (nearly everything) and sent me away.

That's it really. A bit of an empty post. I didn't even buy one of the knives the town is famous for. I actually meant to but a queue at the bank machine left me a bit strapped for a while and, by the time I'd monied up, the shop I went to had closed for an early lunch because of the reduced summer hours. It certainly was warm enough, around 36ºC and sunny which is a nice temperature for a city hike