A Little Behind

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New Year´s celebration in southern Spain. Every country has its own ways of celebrating. One of the beauties of travel is to come to different sites and take part of local customs and traditions. In many countries it is customary to make a pilgrimage just before the stroke of midnight to where everybody else is making the same pilgrimage. Usually it’s a natural gathering place, such as the main square. This is also the case in Fuengirola. People gather at Placa de la Constitution. They have brought the necessities, champagne and grapes. Champagne is a rather international occurrence. The grapes are however a Spanish specialty; the idea is to put one grape for each stroke of the clock without choking, chewing, or swallowing. In other words, stuff your mouth with twelve grapes in roughly twelve seconds. When this is accomplished it is allowed to swallow. We have no grapes, have to concentrate on the champagne part, and watch other people fill their mouths until their cheeks are blown up like balloons. After this ceremony and after having wished friends, family, but also complete strangers a Happy New Year, people take off to wherever they choose to celebrate the rest of the night. So do we, in search for a spot to be jolly and merry. After some time, apparently about one hour, we pass The London Pub, where people seem ecstatic of joy. Even in a drunken stage, it does not take very long to figure out that these people have chosen to completely ignore everything local for a moment of celebration. This little British island, on this particular night, does not recognize European Standard Time, but in honor of the motherland, is on Greenwich Time. In effect, people in this pub are oblivious to the outside world, and have decided that New Year is not when the local time is 00.00, but when the Queen says so, i.e. one hour later. Question is, is Britain compatible with the rest of Europe, or is it Europe that is incompatible with the UK…?

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