My wife, Sue, and I sat comfortably in a small, friendly bar in Sober, south of Monforte de Lemos in Galician Spain. Glasses of wine were set in front of us. All day we'd been treated royally.
The centre of the Amandi wine-growing area, Sober saw few tourists but had, on that very day, opened a tourist information centre.
Word got around that we had come from Scotland and, although few of them spoke much English, the local folk became quite determined to do all in their power to make us feel welcome.
A television in the corner was tuned to a local cable station, until someone persuaded the proprietor to find an English-language channel for our benefit. He flicked through the channels until a chat show came on that we confirmed was in English. The locals cheered, ushered us forward and turned to watch the screen. Then, to our horror — and the Galicians’ hushed amazement — an elephant filled the screen, and the show’s guest proceeded to lever his head into the elephant’s rectum. We were being looked at a little oddly at that point and decided to finish our wine and leave before the hospitality extended to finding us an elephant.
Sometimes we are as others see us. Sometimes we very much hope that we are not.
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