Loes de La Mancha

“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.

“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some giants have them about six miles long.”

“Take care, your worship,” said Sancho, “those things over there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are their sails, which are whirled round in the wind and make the millstone turn.”

“It is quite clear,” replied Don Quijote, “that you are not experienced in this matter of adventures. They are giants, and if you are afraid, go away and say your prayers, whilst I advance and engage them in fierce and unequal battle.”

And with these words Don Quijote – the unlikely hero of Castilian prose – strode towards his towering monsters and consequently into literary history. Needless to say, he was proven wrong as the windmills shivered his weapon in pieces, dragging his horse and its rider with it.

A couple of weeks ago my mother Loes came to visit and we decided to find out if Don Quixote really was an old nutter. We went on our own little exhibition to Castilla La Mancha, the rented Toyota Yaris serving as the steed Rocinante and Carmen, Tyler and Kirsten (our friends from Oklahoma) taking on the role of Sancho Panza.

Tyler, always in the mood to surprise Europeans with American way of thinking, excelled in the responsibility of being the trusty – but rather slow minded servant of Don Quijote. Somehow the discussion had meandered its way to launder habits. After Carmen had explained that although the hanging out of clothes outside the house was considered ‘rather gypsy’ we hardly ever used the drying machine, as this is a clear waste of energy. Tyler – without shame – admitted that before he had arrived in Spain he had never even thought of the possibility of drying clothes on a washing line. This confession took some courage, a characteristic worthy of Sancho Panza.
Tyler: a man of laundry principles

After a day driving through La Mancha – and seeing more than our fair share of Castilian windmills we came to the conclusion that Don Quijote might have gotten it all wrong after all. But who cares, is the answer of about every Spanish person. The book is not about right and wrong but about a knight with principles and a man who is ready to stick by them, whatever reality might think of it.

These last couple of weeks I engaged in a Quixotian battle of my own. This time my opponent was not a windmill if not another type of monster: bureaucracy. Neatly disguised in the form of the Dutch embassy. Read below about my quest against the prototype administrative ogre which stood between me and an interview at the Ministry of Interior Affairs.