07/07/2004
Vanilla communist

Living in a car kinda changes the conversations you have with other human beings, and more specifically the questions you get from complete strangers.

'How do you cook, eat, shit, shower, wash your clothes, sleep?
Very well, and you?.

This is about owning things, isn't it?
If the refrigerator doesn't stand in your own home, you can't keep things cold in it, is how most people seem to think.
And I would say their problem is their memory: they forget most things they buy and need to keep refregerated,
reside in a refrigerator.
So I can perfectly enjoy 500ml of cold gazpacho and have a natilla de heuvos con vanilla natural for desert, within half an hour after having passed a super market which to my utmost joy are very common in Spain.*
And for a cold liter of San Miguel at a surprisingly fair price there always is a gas station, which are even more common than supermarkets,
in fact so common that one would suspect some government supported employment scheme behind them.
Spain even has automatic dispensers for ice icream, and a small candy stand -often with freezer- at about every streetcorner.
So I don't mind sharing all these fridges with other people without having to own one.
Keeping wine, jamon serrano and queso manchego in the van is a privilege for the colder months, but that's fine with me.

*As an after work shopper you would have to remark now: but hey, you don't want to stand in line everyday in a supermarket, do you?
Well, in this country people don't mind letting you pass with just a bottle, they even propose it to you.

Pretty happy about the view from my study,
and probably the hill will be mine for the night - the road leading up to it was radical enough.