not only dogs do it in the park

Okay so I've decided to come clean about something I've been struggling with, which I'm ashamed of: ethnocentricism. I thought I was getting better, recovering somewhat from an initial culture shock I've felt coming to the land of the brash from polite Japan. I was adjusting, trying to reason with myself whenever the culture-judging instinct took hold, and not feeling so hostile in response to what I perceived as rampant hostility, negativity, inconsideration.

And then... Two incidents turned my head around in the space of a few days and had me resentful again. Last weekend I was having dinner on the sidewalk terrace of a restaurant around the corner with my visitor/travel mate on her last night in Spain. It was typical Spanish dinner time, which is 10:30 p.m., so it was not unusual that a family soon arrived and took the table next to us that included a little girl and two (10/11-year-old) boys who decided to play rather than sit down as their parents looked at the menu.

No big deal, it's a free world, right? Except the game that they chose to play just a few metres from our table was soccer with a soda can, which on a sidewalk makes a heck of a racket. But you know what? No one, including the parents, seemed to mind or care. I thankfully didn't have a migraine but as this went on for 10, then 20 minutes, I thought of the residents of the building directly above who may not be dining but rather trying to relax. We certainly didn't enjoy our dinners and kept shooting dirty looks at the immune parents, to no avail.

When there was a break in the noisy game, I glanced over to see that it was because the two boys decided to step off of the sidewalk onto a little square of grass/hedge and, get ready for this, have a peeing contest... Needless to say we finished up our food as quick as possible and fled.

Now I need to explain that men and children urinating in public places is super-common here and I still have not adjusted to that but I try, try, try to rein in my disgust and remind myself that my reaction is based on a taboo in my own culture and that I must not judge others.

However, should we not, please, draw the line at pooping? Yes, that's right, and I don't mean to shock you (or rather, maybe I do! so then I won't feel so guilty about my ethnocentricism? chime in with comments, won't you, please?) but a few days after that fateful dinner I was walking the G-dawg at lunchtime and entered a park full of picnicking office workers only to come upon a man in front of some bushes (yes, in front) squatted with his pants around his ankles. Okay, he didn't look like a businessman or anything, could have been drunk, disturbed, I don't know. But it was just... too much for me. Down I sunk again into my despair.

But.... here's a happy ending for you. I've been buoyed up again in the last few days by a grandfatherly fruit-store owner who stuffed my knapsack with extra (free, if somewhat wrinkled) apples and called me cielo (a term of endearment that literally translates as "sky") and an exceptionally friendly poodle-owning lady who chatted me up (as Grace smelled her Tony) and in parting also called me cielo.

So who knows, maybe the sky's the limit. Someday I could love Madrid as much as I loved Tokyo.

PS: Still not finished uploading my pix from the south to Flickr but will hopefully do so over the weekend.