Race - questions of perspective

(I have added some text at the end of yesterday's, mostly about Salvador Dali's ecstasy at Perpignan station.)

Grenoble-Pierrelatte-Orange-Avignon-Montpellier-Narbonne-Veronica's-Perpignan in six days, and today on to Girona. It may seem that I'm racing through places but I'm not, I'm heading somewhere specific much more slowly than anyone who flies and I'm choosing my stopping places carefully. But travelling a short way once a day, and taking time to visit the area around each new sleeping-place, is making this trip feel much longer than it actually is.

My solitary travel (which people keep telling me wrongly is 'brave') gives me lots of time to muse. This morning, as I walked through modern Girona to the medieval city walls, I passed a couple with a child, all with the same sun-skin tone that is common in this part of Europe. Why did I notice that he was a fair African and she was a dark Spaniard? Why did I do a double-take then register from his features that he was probably mixed-race? And if so, why did I label him 'African' not 'European'? Why have I learnt to notice such categories so quickly and what sorts of subliminal assessments are going on in my brain when I do?

The musing continued as I walked round the wall where I first engaged, through smiles, with a young man (two more categories there) who told me he was from Poland. But the group of young men talking Russian with their intrusive loud banter and music appeared not even to see me. Why? Russian? Male? Young? A crowd? Boors? 

In places the path on the top of the wall was narrow. Some people let me go first, some didn't. Some thanked me when I let them go first, others seemed not to notice that I'd stepped back. With each interaction - haughty, polite, oblivious, friendly, arrogant, smiling, rude, kind, selfish, engaging - I found myself listening for languages and accents. I know perfectly well that they are all individuals with their (his?/her?) own characteristics and preoccupations and that none of this correlates with race but my own systems for categorising were working flat out.

Could they see my obsessive categorising or were they all doing the same, consciously or otherwise?

I'm not even sure I can claim that my sensitivities were heightened by having, this morning, crossed a national border but remained in the same language-territory (Catalunya), though of course the political sensitivities here interest me. There is a highly visible campaign for Catalan independence in Girona - slogans, flags and yellow ribbons everywhere - and I wondered whether people would prefer to speak to me in Spanish or that even-more dominating language, English. My unscientific sample from the day showed that they didn't mind - the overwhelming category they fitted into was kindness.

Girona was a revelation. Before I'd even left the railway station I had a map with recommendations of places to go, and had acquired - easily, cheaply, with humour and a Spanish lesson thrown in - a Spanish senior railcard (I was wrongly informed that the convoluted French one covered Spain).

The walls provided a fine overview of the town and surrounding area but apart from looking at washing, I enjoyed it more when I got to ground level. I was totally smitten by the Beatus de Liébana - a commentary in the cathedral treasury on the Apocalypse written in 975 by monk Emeterius and illustrated by nun Ende. Such perceptions of heaven, the world, the horsemen, trees and animals, especially snakes! And I'd happily take a tour into Ende's hell and meet her delightful devil.

I did the sort of absurd rate of visiting that tourists do (Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London and the National Gallery all on the same day?!) so after the cathedral I saw the Arab baths (actually shared, and with a star of David in the ceiling), the Basilica and the Lion, which was created presciently in the 12th century ready for the invention of selfies. But the best was just wandering around the town. I'd been told to cross a bridge over the river Onyar and look back but had no idea why. My first extra and about a hundred others (one here) are why. Wow!  (I know that they'd garner more blip-attention than my main but you're also more likely to see this sort in a google image search for Girona.)

And I had great fun watching photo shoots, some more skilled than others, on the cathedral steps. My second extra was a role change, with one of the models taking photos of the other with the photographer. Wish I could have compared shots. I suspect the cathedral door was prettily in the back of all his.