Griping in Granada

In brief, here's my gripe. In every city of any size, anywhere in the world, one of the earliest survival skills one learns is how to be a pedestrian. That is to say, one recognizes that the orderly ebb and flow of pedestrian traffic requires that each member of the crowd make certain accommodations, that people learn to anticipate and to allow for the movement of others; eventually, adjustment to the pace of traffic becomes as automatic as breathing, or walking.

Apparently nobody thought to mention to the fine citizenry of Granada the advantages that flow from good pedestrian behavior. Frankly, I question the right of some of these people to walk the streets, so hazardous is their behavior to themselves and others. I'm not referring to jay-walking here, which one simply accepts as a normal facet of Spanish life. No, it's the random stops and starts, right there on the sidewalk, for no conceivable reason. The completely unheralded 90-degree turn, without so much as a glance in the direction taken. The trajectory that appears designed to mimic nothing but pure Brownian motion.

Get a grip, people! This is not an exercise in statistical mechanics. In any other city in the world your licence to walk the pavements would be taken away from you if you continued in this fashion. And for God's sake, caballero, watch what you are doing with that umbrell.....OW!

(editor's note: the remainder of this post has reluctantly been cut short, as being inconsistent with content guidelines for blogger.com)