Day: April 16, 2023

Post by Wynette: Wanted to share some photos I liked.

Especially since COVID pretty much every place accepts touchless credit cards. In our case that means Apple Pay. On this trip we have used Apple Pay for just about everything. We have spent maybe €10-15 in cash and that was at places we could have used Apple Pay but decided to use cash. It is pretty convenient and we have an instant record on the phone of every payment we made.

Everyone uses the same little wireless devices that they bring to the table and you double click the phone and tap the device and you’re done. They don’t make any distinction between paying by credit card or phone.

Of course this also means that anyone with subpoena power or maybe just about anyone period, can see the details of all the charges you make. This is true of using credit cards already and may soon be true of “cash” once digital dollars are implemented. Apparently Scandinavia is already basically cashless. There is really nothing we can do about it.

A few times we have been standing around looking at our phone looking at Google maps to find our way someplace. Nice people sometimes try to help us by giving directions. Our usual response is to listen to their directions (not always easy in Spanish, even for Wynette) and then follow Google’s directions. This works well if Google tells us to go the same way but less well if Google says to go in a different direction.

We try to direct these discussions towards finding out who they are and chatting with them. People just want to help.

Xkcd nails this, as usual: https://xkcd.com/783/

(A sign I saw in a restaurant)

Henry’s comment on the “Killing time” reminded me of something that happened on our 2022 Camino. We were in Astorga having breakfast. The place had an “English breakfast” which included eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, fried tomatoes, orange juice and coffee. The bill for two was €7.60. I left the change, two euro coins and two 20 cent coins, as a tip. The waitress picked it up and went back behind the counter and looked at the tray. And then looked over at me. Then she called another sever over and showed it to them and pointed me out to the other server. They were not noting my generosity. It was clear that they disapproved and were maybe even insulted. I wanted to crawl under a rock and I kept thinking about it for days afterwards.

The point being that tipping standards are quite different in Spain. There have been threads on the Camino forum saying roughly the same thing.