{"id":1555,"date":"2011-12-01T19:10:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T19:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2011-12-01T19:11:02","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T19:11:02","slug":"oh-the-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=1555","title":{"rendered":"Oh, the irony!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just over twelve hours after nearly being run off the road by a maniacal Galician driver I got pulled over by the Guardia Civil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’d decided last night that a lack of LPG, money and food meant that it would not be possible to postpone my trip to Ribadeo until Saturday morning as I had originally intended so I plugged the iPod into the Landys stereo and set off in the hope, rather than expectation, that nothing new would go wrong with my fragile chariot.<\/p>\n

Business in Ribadeo included the aforementioned LPG (the automatic pump eventually agreeing to accept my Spanish charge card), a quick visit to my solicitors to collect any post (read bills), and a trip to the bank to see Jesus who kindly gave me two Ferrari baseball caps (can you guess our Spanish bank) and explained that the reason I couldn’t withdraw any cash was because I was pressing the wrong buttons on the ATM. In my defence they are a lot more complicated than our ATMs, and in Spanish.<\/p>\n

Then I set off back to Casa Ramon for a spot of lunch before an afternoon at the house. Half way home I pass through Vegadeo, the first and last town between Ribadeo and Taramundi, and as I entered the town an officer of the law stepped out into the road and indicated for me to pull in.<\/p>\n

I knew I’d not been drinking, but being pulled is never a nice thing. I thought about asking where he was last night when some maniac in a white van tried to kill me, but decided that it was way too long a sentence for me to compose on the fly, and that it might not go down too well. I decided to play my trump card. ‘Buenas dias, lo siento, no habla Espa\u00f1ol<\/em>‘ (Good day, I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish) I said. He didn’t look impressed.<\/p>\n

He asked me for my drivers license, I opened my rucksack and gave him my Landys V5, with a quizzical look.\u00a0 He took about a minute looking at the totally alien form and then said ‘For you, not the car’. I showed him my old style driving license, one of the ones without a photo. ‘No photo’ he said. ‘Passaporte<\/em>‘ I volunteered and he nodded. I could tell he was losing the will to live and regretting pulling a British registered ancient Land Rover.<\/p>\n

I handed him my passport and he opened it at the photograph, me with a couple of days stubble, rather that the muslim fundamentalist type beard I am currently sporting. ‘Sin barba<\/em>‘ (without beard) I said, and laughed. He didn’t, but handed me my documents and ushered me on my way. He didn’t even get as far as asking me whether I was carrying my spare spectacles or fluorescent jacket (I was).<\/p>\n

It’s a good job that it isn’t illegal in Spain to; leak brake fluid, drop a little oil, stink of leaking LPG, or drive a car that is ludicrously uneconomical.<\/p>\n

I’d survived my first brush with the Spanish law with a smile and ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just over twelve hours after nearly being run off the road by a maniacal Galician driver I got pulled over by the Guardia Civil. I’d decided last night that a lack of LPG, money and food meant that it would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42],"tags":[44,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1558,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}