American in Spain

In our preparenthood nesting activities lately, we found ourselves rummaging through a bag that hasn’t been opened in several years. Among the odds and ends was a strange coin. It’s exactly the same size and shape as a 1€ coin. It must be some kind of token for a specific use inside an establishment. I never went to a casino in England, and I don’t even recall going to a video arcade, but it must be from a video arcade or some place with lots of coin-operated machines. Marga suggested that we could use it for shopping carts. For those of you who have never been to the supermarket in Europe, typically to get a shopping cart, you have to insert a coin into the cart you want to take. The coin insertion releases a chain that was preventing you from taking the cart. To get your coin back, you have to chain it back up. It’s a pretty good system, and not losing a euro is just the right amount of motivation to make someone who would abandon their cart be a good citizen and return their cart to the proper location.
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On Friday, I went with Marga to her dentist appointment in Vitoria, Spain. While there, I was looking for a nearby business, so I asked my iPhone 3G to use its GPS technology to locate me, and then search for a business near me. Except when I asked my iPhone to calculate my location, it said I was in Fortaleza, Brazil. Whah?!?
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