we left Andorra TOTALLY fogged in again, couldn't see a car length in front of yourself. Of course, we felt under the gun as we left about 9:30 and had to have the car turned in by 12:30 and theoretically it's a 3.5-hour drive. so creeping down the hairpin turns in second gear was raising the blood pressure a bit, both for us and for the bolder folks behind us.
Happily my hopes were realized and as we descended, we got below the clouds and could potter along at the speed limit (still frustrating to those behind, but I can only do so much public service at a time...). The day cleared out to sunny and fine, Gabe had some fun getting camera shots in the large tunnels. Then the GPS lady took us on a back-roads tour of some lonely part of France -- very pretty, but very unnerving as well. A nicely paved but absolutely one-lane road, where I suspect the locals have figured out that anyone coming from our direction is lost and doesn't know the rules -- the several oncoming cars we faced all dived into a little turnout and we slid past. Maybe luck of the draw (I didn't see many little turnouts on our side of the road) ... but ya' wonder if the local lore has picked up on the results of creative GPS guidance. "Henri, recall when we only saw neighbors on the local roads?" "Oui, Marie, and these strangers all seem to be hearing voices!"Drive to Barcelona photos
we were much more efficient in our return to Diagonal Mar than we were in our loopy (literally) attempts to leave it a week ago. Had time to dump all possessions at the hotel, find the gas station (which I remembered being near and on the left, Gabe remembered being far and on the right ... it was far and on the left) and top off the tank ... we barely used half-a-tank of gas the entire trip, we were impressed with that ... and then dump the car into a random parking space a level below where we picked it up. We thought carefully about taking the exit and trying to go up a level, then said to ourselves ... best leave THAT to the pros! the Hertz guy can put his car where he darn well pleases ... long after we're gone.
There's a pool deck at the 2nd-floor level, so Gabe suited up and we had a (VERY) light lunch of deep-fried chicken skewers and a tossed salad -- actual protein and fresh greens, HEAVEN! Of course, at ungodly cost, but whatever. Gabe swam a bit, I hung out in the shade; eventually we got back upstairs and got the room organized just a little. Gabe got into major furniture moving so as to put enough distance between he and me that our respective night noises would be somewhat diminished. Quixotic, eh??
So here we were, with some chilled wine and beer, and decided to watch the Harry Potter Part 1 since we will see Part 2 back in Milwaukee Thursday night (Gabe definitively did NOT want to see it dubbed in Spanish, and I certainly would have missed the entire thing that way). After that lunacy, we ambled down to the main restaurant and had a delightful meal; Gabe had fish and I had pork, then we split a couple of fruit-y desserts. We slept well!
This morning we hit the breakfast buffet and then the child simply melted back to sleep. Hours and hours later I finally get him roused; meanwhile navigating the tar pit of trying to print boarding passes & the tickets to the guitar concert tonight. Internet access has been an unending money pit except for the community center in Andorra. To print the flippin' documents was 35c a minute AND a page. The printed balked out and I had to go access the stuff on another laptop ... growf. But to my amazement, checking in for our morning commute to London via Frankfort ALSO generated the boarding passes for the Tuesday flights from London to EWR to ORD. We are discussing checking one of our bags so we can carry on the more fragile stuff, and based on the boarding pass parade, I'm thinking if we check it here it will be tagged to O'Hare ... awesome. Gabe's response was not so positive -- his initial position was that NOT ONE ITEM OF HIS would be in any such bag. Don't know if he's calmed down a bit now, guess I'll find out when we pack later.
We're just back from a brief visit to the beach, I couldn't leave without having waded in the Mediterranean, and he had a nice swim with some big old waves to catch from time to time. The plan is to pack, dine, and head out to the concert (which, very Spanish, curtains at 9PM). In the morning, take bags down to breakfast and eat'n'run. Wicked tickets tomorrow night in London ... then back to the grind. I truly don't think I'd like to live this way forever, but there surely have been some lovely aspects to running away from home for a while!
No comments:
Post a Comment