I Went to the Shop and Bought...

Everyone has that friend. The friend who failed their driving test... twice. The friend who probably pays a little bit too much attention to the private concert she's giving to her (imaginary) adoring fans, instead of noticing the Lollypop Lady has stepped into the road with a group of blissfully unaware children hot on her heels. The friend that causes you to find God and say a quiet prayer when it's their turn to drive anywhere. 

I am that friend. 

Personally, I don't think that my driving is that bad. I'm fine until I have a passenger there to witness the tiny little mistakes - which is what most of them are!

Needless to say, when I decided to move away to foreign lands, it was a shared opinion that a car wasn't a necessity. "It's a city, there will be buses," said just about everyone. Yes, there is the occasional bus, but they're enough effort in England, they are a whole different ball game in Spain. 

It's like comparing chicken to pork: both ‘white’ meat, both relatively bland, both painfully dangerous when under cooked. It is the same with the Spanish and English bus systems: both a less-than-desirable mode of public transportation, both run at shockingly inconvenient times, both always have that one person that sticks in your mind for all the wrong reasons. However, if you were to tell me that there isn't much difference between the two - or that buses are buses - I'm afraid I must burst your ignorant bubble.

Spanish buses should be avoided. Especially when you are an incredibly English looking English woman (I'm using the term as loosely as I possibly can because I'm 20 now. Crazy) who knows about as much about the Spanish language as I do about Brexit. 

So, I bought a bike. 

To me, this was the only option. God forbid I had to walk everywhere again. I probably haven't walked further than the distance from my bed to the fridge since I got my licence. With this in mind, I did have to figure out where I could find an affordable bike.

After a lot of self motivating, I found myself walking a mile - yes, a whole MILE - out of the old town of Pontevedra up to Carrefour (Tesco's Spanish uncle).

This would have been a fine experience - I'm a young woman, shopping is what I am made for - if the supermarket made any sense! I walked around the entire shop twice looking for a pedestrian entrance, when I realised that people were coming in and out of the entrance to the multi-storey carpark.

Wonderful, I'd found my way in.  

Not wonderful. Not wonderful at all. Little ol' English me was expecting some form of pavement on which I could feel safe as I went on my merry way to find a bike, but no. Instead, I had to time my entrance to the carpark very carefully when there was a lul in traffic. I thought I'd done this quite well, until I was half way into the carpark and I remembered that people drive on the opposite side of the road in Spain.

If anybody reading is after an adrenaline rush, try and find your way into Pontevedra Carrefour and see how you feel after.

The choosing of the bike (a black beauty with a handy basket) was relatively straight forward after I'd programmed the necessary words into Google translate. Paying  was a bit of a different drama. When I was told to try Carrefour to find a cheap bike, I thought I was going to a bike shop. I soon realised that it is just the Ikea of supermarkets. Anything your heart desires can be found all under one roof. However, it is predominantly a food shop. This means that all of the tills are normal, belly-high conveyor belts - there is no check-out specifically for bikes. With this in mind, I put my clueless faith into the man behind the till.

It was going well: I'd managed to place my random few bits and bobs on the conveyor and he'd scanned them through with very little drama. It wasn't until I indicated the bike and he'd gotten out of his seat, come round to get a better look and waved me forward that things started to go downhill. I'll whizz through the episode:

Him: Waves me and my bike through.

Me: Walks forward with my bike. 

OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD ALARM GOES OFF

Him: Waves his arms around and gently pushes the bike and I backwards.

Me: Laugh, embarrassed, as I look around to see if anyone is watching.

Everyone else: WATCHES

Him: Fumbles around with my bike until finding a yellow tag and holding it up triumphantly. 

Me: Cheers a little bit too excitedly. 

Him: Scans the tag and tells me to push the bike out of the way. 

Me: Pushes bike out of the way. 

OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD ALARM GOES OFF

Him: Waves it off unfazed. 

Me: Dies inside.

Security: Shouts in Spanish.

Him: Shouts back in Spanish.

Security: Approaches while shouting in Spanish.

Him: Silence.

Me: Silence.

Security: Silence.

Me: "Hola."

Security: Laughs and pats me on the back before fiddling with my bike. 

Him: Speaks in Spanish.

Me: Stares blankly at him for about 8 seconds. "What?"

Him: Holds out the card machine as the security man unclips the security tag on the bike. 

Security: Speaks in Spanish.

Him: Speaks in Spanish. 

Me: Pays. 

Him: "Gracias! Adios."

Me: Laughs awkwardly and runs away with my bike in the wrong direction but had enough embarrassment for one day, so just plays it off and walks the long way to the exit.

The moral of the story: if you are planning on moving to Spain - or any country for that matter - try learning a bit of the language before making big purchases... Or make do with the bus. 

After that ordeal, I then had to get the thing back to my flat. You may think that that can't be any more difficult than the travesty I had just experienced, but you would be wrong. I had to do the carpark one-way system on my bike. 

I was doing well, I managed to get quite close to the exit before I met a car. At this point, three things went through my head:

1. "That is a strange looking car." 

2. "That isn't the back of the car."

3. A word that I probably shouldn't write down just in case my granny reads this.

Needless to say, the rest of the journey back to the flat was made on the pavement.

My Cyclisma!