 The Queen of the Pigeons surveys her domain from atop the head of the lady representing Seville in the fountain at the heart of this ancient city. They say to err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer. But I believe that proverb does our species an injustice. Because when we really put our backs into it, Homo sapiens can achieve acts so breathtakingly muttonheaded they’d make ChatGPT blush. Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." Case in point: the sudden appearance of parking meters in my California village (pop. 12, 645) this summer. One minute they were no more than an uneasy rumor, the next our peaceful sidewalks sprouted four-foot obelisks labeled — tauntingly, and with obvious sarcasm — “Fast & Easy Parking Payments.”  Not quite as fast or easy as advertised The instructions were so incomprehensible they had to add a sandwich board on the pavement next to each one, re-explaining in yet more elaborate detail that no, it doesn’t take cash, and to use a credit card, you have to enter your car’s license plate number — yes, that means hiking back to the car, often blocks away, to note it down. Then you come back and enter your zone number. What zone number? Sharpen your wits, people! It's no wonder local merchants reported that long-time customers were showing up in tears of rage and frustration. And then not showing up at all. Petitions to scrap the whole ill-considered project were circulated. Town hall meetings were held, allowing for a free and frank exchange of views. And then ten days ago, just before I left for Spain, I heard the joyous news: the parking meters were being removed. I spent much of the overseas flight picturing my neighbors hauling the obelisks and sandwich boards into the street, dousing them with gasoline, striking matches, and dancing around the bonfire singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.” More realistically, I expect the maintenance crew whisked everything away under the cover of darkness. Village officials have declared this a victory for the democratic process and are busy convincing themselves everyone will forget about the whole debacle before the next election cycle.  "Our recent polls show that most of the voters like you except when you mention the words 'parking meter.'" When I arrived in Spain, my international friends gave me a warm welcome tinged with amazement that I had managed to squeak through six months in America alive, reasonably sane, and without a stint in the maximum security wing of a foreign prison. According to a recent poll, 97.8% of Europeans are following US politics, but luckily for me they are fair-minded enough not hold individual citizens responsible for the actions of the government. This generosity of spirit even extends to vacationers; despite all the overwrought headlines about anti-tourist attitudes, Europeans do not judge the conduct of American visitors nearly as harshly as we judge ourselves. According to a recent survey, while more than half of us worry we’re perceived as the archetypal “ugly Americans,” only a quarter of Europeans see us in a negative light. We’re regarded as loud, friendly, and not significantly better or worse than visitors from elsewhere.  Polling and graphic: Upgraded Points Are Europeans more critical of us now, in the light of recent political events? “Yes,” say 80% of American tourists polled. “Not at all,” say 80% of the EU respondents. Perhaps our EU hosts don’t see much difference because they have always considered us mad as a box of frogs. They remain utterly baffled by our attitudes and values. Like what? For a start, our obsession with money. A hundred years ago, Nancy Mitford (you may remember her as the literary sister in the Netflix series Outrageous) observed, “Americans relate all effort, all work, and all of life itself to the dollar. Their talk is of nothing but dollars.” Nancy's point was illustrated yet again by an American visitor who recently wandered into Seville's beloved Cervecería International (International Beer Hall).  Cervecería Internacional, in downtown Seville near the cathedral, has been family owned and operated since 1987. As he stood sipping a cold one, the American concocted a foolproof plan for leveraging the bar’s popularity. All the owner needed to do was upgrade the food and stop closing for the afternoon siesta, so foreign tourists could spend more time there drinking, eating, and generating profits. The owner could double his income practically overnight. The American went to the owner and explained, with all due modesty, that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. You’re welcome. The owner politely dismissed the idea. He already had the one thing almost no one in the US can even imagine obtaining: enough. Enough money to live on, enough status to be comfortable in the community, and enough time to go home and have lunch with his family every day. Why upend a good life for a few extra euros? The American is still shaking his head over the man’s foolishness.  It’s easy to see how Americans became so transactional. Our nation was founded and continually enriched by people willing to leave family and friends behind to pursue fresh economic opportunities. Today millions of us move across the country for college and work, leaving families and friends scattered in our wake. We typically uproot every six years, moving 11.7 times during our lifetime. How often do the Spanish move? I couldn't find a statistic. Apparently moving is so much less of a thing here that nobody is tracking the numbers. But then, numbers never tell the whole story anyway. Pollsters’ statistics about attitudes won’t help me figure out how each of my neighbors actually views the current geopolitical upheavals, or help me convey how much America has changed — almost beyond recognition — in recent months. I suspect I will have a lot of splanin’ to do.  Is there a sensible explanation? I haven't found one. These days it’s easy to feel that the earth has tilted off its access and we’re all tumbling into a state of cosmic chaos. But if I’ve learned anything from living in Seville — my Home 2.0 — it’s that we humans are incredibly resilient. The Visigoths, Romans, Moors, Inquisitors, Great Plague of 1649, Fascists, and international tourists have all invaded this city, yet somehow Seville is still standing. And still fueling the dreams of those who want to explore the world with open eyes and hearts. There is risk in every experiment and adventure, and when things run amok, the best we can do is try to learn from our mistakes. “Success,” said Winston Churchill, “is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” I like to think that even as I type this, the last of those ill-advised parking meters is being hurled onto the scrap heap of village history, never to be seen again. As Truman Capote put it, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” Comebacks are the sweetest. Just ask Jimmy Kimmel.  Welcome back, Jimmy! HOME 2.0 This is the first in my fresh series of blog posts exploring how the new world order is affecting the lives of expats, travelers, and local families in Spain and throughout Europe. Join me on the journey of discovery. DON'T MISS A SINGLE STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “I regret to inform you,” wrote Mike Sowden on his blog Everything Is Amazing, “that despite what your eyes are yelling at you, these lines are parallel.”  Artist Victoria Skye's version of the classic café wall illusion, from the blog Everything is Amazing. Hesitant as I was to call this guy Mike a boldfaced liar, it was blindingly obvious those lines were zig-zagging in all directions. Right? Will you back me up on this? Sorry! It turns out Mike was giving us the straight skinny. This is a clever modern variant of the café wall illusion, which dates back to 1894 and relies on the fact that lighter shapes look larger than darker ones. Still rolling your eyes and suspecting trickery? You’re not alone. I had to consult Wikipedia, which put the controversy to rest with these two images, which both show (as God is my witness) identical squares in perfectly parallel rows; the only difference is the colors.   Both of these images are by Fibonacci. Rich refused to believe me. I had to place a Post-it note on the screen covering all but the top row to convince him the black and white blocks were perfectly identical squares. (I’ll pause while you do the same.) I know. It’s mindboggling. Take deep breaths. You’ll be fine in a moment. These days we’re all struggling to make sense of a world that seems as cockamamie and cattywampus as the café wall illusion. Reality feels profoundly out of kilter. To restore any sense of order to the universe, we must keep working for change, helping those we love hold on to what's left of their sanity, and celebrating things we humans (and our animal allies) have managed to get right lately.  Take the new murals at San Quentin. When I was in the prison in May, I was struck by its ominous, so-this-is-hell, brutalist look, the one favored by penitentiary architects throughout history. But San Quentin’s style is now being transformed from traditional dungeon to Scandinavian modern — and for extremely practical reasons. The experiment began twenty-five years ago, when Norway’s prisons were as overcrowded and violent as ours, with 70% of released prisoners becoming repeat offenders (compared to 76.6% in the US). Norway went all in on a new approach, based on rehabilitation and resocialization rather than retribution. Today their recidivism rate is just 20%. To recap: Norway reduced crime, made the population safer, and saved billions of kroner. Our governor, Gavin Newsom, saw the win-win-win potential here in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, his $239 million makeover budget didn’t include a dime for art. But the prisoners themselves, led by an innovative community group called San Quentin SkunkWorks, got permission to raise money and reach out to muralists. Artists across the world offered their services, and this summer, South African Faith XLVII transformed a prisonyard wall into The Heart of the World. Her son, Keya Tama, came to help and stayed to contribute an untitled piece of his own, made even more dynamic by the shadowplay of barbed wire. “The murals aren’t just about making the place look better. They change the mood out here,” San Quentin Correctional Sgt. Freddy Brenes told reporters. “A calmer yard means a safer yard — for staff and for the people living here.” Of course, it’s not just us humans who are stepping up. In Victoria, Australia, paddleboarding pups are pursing platypuses to protect the population of duck-billed mammals. (Try saying that three times real fast!) The dogs’ keen sense of smell lets them locate platypus habitats so they can be tracked without disturbing the burrows. Michigan State University researchers gave Maple, an ex-police search-and-rescue K-9, her own beekeeper’s suit and a new mission: sniffing out American foulbrood, a bacteria that destroys honeybee larvae. She’s way faster than humans, who rely on sight inspections that can take days.  Do you think they got Maple to wear this outfit by telling her it was a spacesuit? Photo: G. L. Kohuth / Michigan State University It’s a good thing dogs are diversifying, because one of their time-honored jobs, searching rubble for disaster survivors, is now being outsourced to another beast with a sensitive schnozz: the African giant pouched rat. These supersmart rodents are being fitted with tiny backpacks and sent deep into wreckage that dogs, robots, and even camera probes can’t penetrate. They’re trained to pull a microswitch on their vests when they locate someone; a tiny microphone lets rescuers speak with survivors. When their shift is over, the rats scamper back up to the surface to enjoy well-earned treats.  RescueRats are also being trained to fine landmines, as their weight is too light to set off the explosives. Photo: APOPO Animals aren’t achieving all the glory; I’m pleased to report some of us humans are also finding new ways to bring relief to others. “Spain is having a moment,” writes the New York Times’ Omar G. Encarnación. “At a time when many Western democracies are trying to keep immigrants out, Spain is boldly welcoming them in.” Why? Because birthrates are down, the economy is booming, and workers are needed. The undocumented are getting amnesty so they can stay and help Spain continue to outproduce its neighbors. “Pro-migrant measures stem from society at large,” explains Encarnación. “The push for the undocumented immigrants’ amnesty did not originate with the government, tellingly, but with a popular petition that garnered 600,000 signatures and was endorsed by 900 nongovernmental organizations, business groups, and even the Spanish Conference of Bishops. The government, in turn, has designed a humane and pragmatic approach, offering an example for other countries to emulate.”  The Minister for Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, Elma Saiz (fourth from left) stands with representatives of the groups that helped forge Spain's new immigration regulations. Spain is really on a roll right now. It’s making major efforts to reduce food waste (doggie bags are suddenly a thing), to moderate the impact of tourists in overcrowded cities, and in Seville, a popular destination for rowdy stag and hen parties, to enforce a modicum of decorum in the streets. But not too much decorum, I hope. I’ll never forget sitting with friends at a sidewalk café in Seville and hearing gusts of laugher rolling up the street. A stag party came into view, half a dozen young men walking beside a motor scooter, where the groom-to-be was standing up on the back foot pedals, dressed as a matador, waving the traditional bullfighter’s hat to the cheering crowd. As he swept past us, I realized it wasn’t a real matador’s suit, it was an apron, with nothing beneath, giving us all a splendid view of his naked posterior. The entire city roared with laughter. I hope the new laws aren’t so strict they deprive future generations of that kind of fun.  This is the kind of apron the young man was wearing. You'll have to mentally subtract the potholder, the wooden utensils, the shirt, the pants, and everything else to get the full picture. If you're into that sort of thing... Legislative change is just one of a thousand things I need to catch up on when I return to Spain later this month. Friends and readers keep asking me: How is the mood over there? What do my Seville neighbors think of the new world order? Do my expat friends still feel welcome in pubs and cafés throughout Europe?  Seen outside a London pub and sent to me by a Croatian friend. Amigos, I am on the case. I’ll spend the next six months in tapas bars and taverns, checking in with expat friends to discover what they’re seeing and hearing, how they’re feeling about their place in the local and global society, and whether they’re returning to America any time soon or hunkering down abroad for the duration. With my own country feeling increasingly like a funhouse filled with trick mirrors and shifting floors, I am hoping that Europe’s thousand-year perspective will help me find solid footing again. Because in the end, so much of how we feel about life depends on how we look at it. "Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got." — Art Buckwald I'M TAKING A SHORT BREAK In the days ahead, I'll be busy organizing my transition from California to Spain, so I'm taking a little time off from this blog. As soon as I get to the other side and catch my breath, I'll be back with new posts about the state of the world. Thanks for all your support, good wishes, and insightful comments this spring & summer! FINDING HOPE This story is the last in my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA  Front window of Rebound Bookstore, San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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