One day, in the kitchen before the big family Sunday lunch, a young girl asked her mother why the roast was cut in half before it was cooked. Her mother answered “That is the way my mother taught me to cook a roast. It’s always done that way.” The daughter thought for a second and asked again, “But why is it cooked that way?” The mother could only reply, “Well Grandma will be at lunch. Let’s ask her the question.”
At lunch, the inquisitive child explained that she and her mother were curious about why the roast was cut in half before it was cooked. The older woman answered “That is the way my mother taught me to cook a roast. It’s always done that way.” The daughter persisted, “But why is it cooked that way?” Grandma could only reply, “After lunch, we are going over to see great-grandmother in the nursing home. We can ask her.”
At the nursing home, with the daughter and granddaughter in tow, the grandma gently spoke to her very old mother, “Mama, do you remember the Sunday roasts that you used to make?” “Yes, I do” answered the old lady with the faint voice from her bed. “Why did you always cut the roast in half before it was cooked?” asked the young child. Great-grandmother stroked her chin in deep thought for a full minute, trying to remember back so many years. Finally her eyes lit up as she remembered why. She was happy for the sign that dementia hadn’t set in just yet. With a relieved smile on her face and impressed with herself that she remembered something that her daughter didn’t, she answered, “Well, honey, back in our house on Maple Street, we only had that small old oven. The big roast only fit in it if I cut it in half and put the pieces side by side.”
Based on the ATM asking me for my six-digit PIN code today at Deutsche Bank in Bilbao , I am pretty sure that if your card has a six-digit PIN, any modern ATM in Spain (or Italy) asks for 6 digits. If it has a four-digit PIN, it asks for that. If anyone wants to see the photos of the machine, I have saved them. Just for reference, I used a new US based Bank of America debit card in the DB ATM. No problems at all, just like the last several years with my Singapore and other US bank cards.
