This morning I was faced with just such a dilemma.
You might wonder why I would stoop to such a level and even consider the question. It's kind of a long answer, but since I have you here and I have all the time in the world, why don't I explain it?
Let's start with the fact that banking in Spain is an interesting enterprise. It's not the easiest thing in the world to set up an account. In Spain everyone and their mother want something called your DNI. This is basically you national ID number, what in the US would be your Social Security Number. To open an account at most banks, the big banks, you need either a resident number or a DNI.
We have neither since we are here (at least until the week after next) on tourist visas.
However, some banks, the smaller ones, the ones who charge fees, do not have such issues. As a foreign national you may open an account here with a passport, cash and a recommendation from someone else who banks with them. In this case we have this, via our landlord (who is lovely!). And so we came to bank with Banco Sabadell Atlantico. This is a small bank whose symbol we found to be hysterically funny when we arrived at the bank as you might imagine we would:
Upon opening our account we were told that we could use any ServiRed machines, but that only the BS (LOLOLOL) machines would be free of charge and only then if we took out over 60€. No problem we thought.
No problem that is until we came to learn that there was but one machine in our area. And that one machine was right in the Puerta del Sol. In other words, it was in the heart of Touristlandia. But no matter. I could walk right past it on my way from dropping the Kid off at school. As long as we only took cash out every other week or so, we were fine.
Since moving to Spain, certain things have been a bit surprising to me. For one thing, roughly half the public bathrooms lack both toilet paper and soap. This includes the bathroom in the Kid's school. His current assignment in Art class is to create a sign to put up in school that warns students of a hidden danger. He chose to make one that warned potential potty goers that the bathroom lacked soap and paper. No one thought this was funny. They looked at him like he was nuts. Why, they wondered, would anyone care about that? Bathrooms often lack these things.
The Spanish are impeccably dressed, coiffed and cologned. Their clothing is always neat, pressed and matching. They (unlike Americans) would never be caught dead going to the grocery in sweatpants. As a whole, people here are beautiful, and I always feel that it is important to look nice whenever I leave our apartment.
However, this does not extend to hygiene necessarily. And I don't meant o make blanket statements, because it's no one's fault if they can't wash their hands in the restaurant bathroom when there is no soap provided them. But it's not a hand washing kind of place. Hand sanitizer is expensive (or impossible to find in some places). And people do not cough or sneeze into their arms, but in their hands, which they then use to press the buttons on the elevator, open the metro door with, or place on the escalator.
In addition, like Latin America, Spain seems to be a place where trash is discarded rather than kept upon the person. Cigarette butts are thrown willy nilly on the streets as are tissues, cans, and other detritus. In Mexico once, a woman throwing her trash out the window explained her disgust of Americans to Ricardo thusly: "Why would you want to carry trash with you? It's so dirty!" Which seems to be true here too. And since there is a huge army of people out cleaning the streets at all times, the city is extremely neat despite the way that littering takes place, with people sweeping, mopping, and even bleaching and hosing down the streets daily.
Which brings me to my lugie this morning. There is but one BS machine in my life. And it is in the middle of tourist land. Whether the lugie was placed by a Spaniard with a cold and bad aim, a stupid American without regard for others, an angry Ecuadorian wanting revenge on the Spanish who employ him, a German who missed the hanky, or someone else, it ended up on my BS machine. And I had to make a choice.
Would I spend 3.50€ to use the La Caixa machine next door? Or would I touch the machine with the lugie on it?
We've been in Spain nearly 90 days to be exact. And in this time, I have watched people exit bathrooms where I know they have been going number 2 and not washed their hands. I have seen people kiss hello after they have sneezed into their hands. I have been to dinner with people who have no soap in their own bathrooms (and these are professionals).
3.50 € is milk for a week or more. I used the lugie machine.
And then I came home. And I washed my hands.
