Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I like to think of myself as a pretty bright girl. I consistently separate my white laundry from my dark. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out the traffic light system in Granada.
It has been a source of frustration for weeks. As far as I can tell, there are three scenarios which can occur at a light.
1. When you reach the pedestrian light, it's red and the cars are indeed rushing past. This scenario is easy. Do not walk into the street...unless of course, you are coming from a previous stoplight and have decided to throw in the towel on this whole life thing.
2. The light is green, the cars are waiting patiently and the pedestrians are crossing in an orderly and calm manner. This rarely happens. If you find yourself in this situation, be sure to capture the moment on film, on paper, via smoke signals, whatever you can get your hands on. It may not happen again.
3. At the light, you seem to have entered some sort of time warp. The cars wait on all sides of the intersection, expelling exhaust like animals snorting, ready to stampede. The pedestrians are waiting as well, with toes balancing on the edge of the curb, because their light is also red. And you stand. The people begin to shift impatiently, transferring their weight back and forth. You eye each other anxiously. And you wait. And then the tension snaps. One desperate soul lets out a frustrated sigh and hurries across the road. The rest follow in relief. This person is usually me. I am not sure what that says about my mental stability. Impatient to the point of recklessness? I haven't gotten hit yet.
It is this scenario that happens most often and has led me to this theory: no one here actually understands the lights. It has been a running joke in the Spanish government for years.
I thought that until tonight. When I was walking home, I got to a stoplight and the traditional wait of the pedestrians began. After a few minutes, Cast Away Tom Hanks arrived and decided to stand much too close to me, smelling exactly how he looked. Splendid. But then, he moved, and it was not like the agitated fidgeting the rest of us were doing. He learned forward in anticipation and took a step into the road just as the pedestrian signal turned green. I'm pretty sure that Charles Manson's long lost brother had predicted the light system. He cracked the code. There is hope for the rest of us after all.
So, what did I learn from this? First and foremost, I learned that traffic lights can be hard. But I also learned that maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge. Today, dirty Gary Busey outsmarted us all. You just never can tell.
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Agreed.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there is nothing I could´ve done to prepare myself for the complexity of Granada crosswalks, except for maybe a few goes at Frogger before I left home. I´ve learned to just forget about the red and green men telling me to stop and go and to use my animal instincts when crossing the street here instead. If there are no cars coming, run. If there are, run faster.
Also, i´ve encountered yet a fourth scenario where the light is green for and there are people passing as you would expect. However, the cars that should be waiting in their respective spots across the intersection are right next to the crosswalk waiting for pedestrians as if to threaten that if there is a big enough space between people, they will pop the clutch and speed off like they heard a gun shot start the race.
How is this possible? is this some sort of entertainment opportunity for the cross traffic that should be passing through the intersection and is now waiting? Who knows.
Like I said, I think animal instincts are all we can trust here when crossing the streets.