East Indies — which he got wrong by landing in America in 1493 —
the big debate was not about whether Europe should choose
austerity over growth but whether the world was flat or round.
Like Columbus, with my phone GPS not working, I ended up at the
Casa de la India (House of India) instead of paying my homage at
the Christopher Columbus House Museum that was pointed out to me
from the balcony of the mayor’s office overlooking the
magnificent plaza that served as the model for the main square
of other Spanish cities including the modern capital Madrid. I
figured that if the Genoan seafarer couldn’t make his way round
the Cape of Good Hope to the ‘real Indies’, I might as well
spend my time before going to Casa de la India where I had to
attend a panel discussion (‘India in the 21st century:
Challenges and opportunities for Spain in a global (sic) world’)
to my real pilgrimage — the Casa de Cervantes, where the author
of Don Quijote lived between 1603 and 1606 and where he finished
his masterpiece. Put a bunch