A New Traveling Companion

We've had house guests for a week, good friends who we have known and loved for more years than we could imagine when we first met them the year after we got married more than four decades ago. That means we have taken them to some of the traditional sites in this part of the Costa Blanca: the palmeral of Elche and the Huerta del Cura, the discount shoe factory, and an all-day bus trip to the Jalón Valley to see the almond trees in blossom.

But they have returned to Denmark and now when we drive out for a morning or afternoon trip, it's just the two of us and our new traveling companion, the Spanish lady that lives inside the GPS system that we acquired at Christmas. Yes, we were probably the last people on our block to feel the need for an electronic gadget to tell us which way to drive, but we were exposed to this new toy when other visitors with us earlier last year brought theirs, and we saw the conveniences. Truth be told, I saw the value of shifting back-seat driver observations to an objective, anonymous, and infinitely patient persona that sits on the dashboard instead of the front-seat passenger side.

The first decision to make was, how big was our world? We could buy a GPS that covers the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), all of western Europe, all of Europe, north Africa, and parts of the Middle East. I didn't see any in the stores that promised coverage of North America, so we decided to limit our sights to where we may drive without a major trip across the Atlantic. I believe the one we bought covers all of Europe.

The second decision, however, was what language to use for directions. We first selected English, since we most often speak English in the car, but neither the primary driver nor I could understand what the woman was saying! Of course, she spoke British rather than American English--but we have come to understand many dialects of English English pretty well. But when she pronounced the names of the streets and roads, she gave them a British intonation, which all too frequently places the stress on the wrong syllable, and pronounces some consonants very differently from the Spanish name. Fine for communicating with other English people about the Spanish environment, but not for our non-English household.

So we switched her over to Spanish, and this has become an excellent opportunity for me to learn certain Spanish phrases that I may never otherwise have the opportunity to hear, as describing entering rotaries and taking an exit are not the sort of conversations that make compelling Spanish lessons. It provides especially good practice for imperative mood verbs (commands, or requests), which are formed by adding the "opposite" vowel to the root word instead of the normal indicative mood vowel. Entra (from the infinitive entrar, for example. means "he enters" the rotary, but entre tells you to enter it. In 20 meters, for example, entre en la rotonda y tome (not toma) la segunda a la derecha. And then, 19 meters farther down the road, entre en la rotonda, and gire a la derecha.

We marvel that the methodical and patient GPS lady always tells us to turn right out of the rotonda. Perhaps that's a holdover from the English version, where users may need to be reminded that one comes out of a roundabout on the right in Spain, not the left.