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I like to say I was born with an internal compass. Throw me in the middle of a forest, large city or corn maze and I’ll be able to get out. With a map, I’d get out quicker. The Achille’s Heel of this gift is that if and when I lose my bearings, I literally feel uncomfortable, even sick at times.
We got lost driving into Santiago de Compostela yesterday. Josh had the map turned the wrong way, and we spent at least half an hour driving around the city. Today, while driving from Santiago toward Madrid, the gas light went on. I pulled over in Ourense to find petrol. I wasn’t worried about not having a map or a record of where to go. Instead of driving around the city, I turned onto the equivalent of a county road toward Madrid. My Spanish driving experience had taught me that county roads have stops every 20 km or so, when driving through a tiny town. Sure enough, five kilometers later we pulled into a full service gas station.
After Pamplona, we silently agreed I’d be driving in and out of cities. I’m excited to drive around Madrid, down the wide Paseo de la Castellana, Paseo de los Recoletos and Paseo del Prado streets.
We picked up the car this morning — a Citroen 4, 1.4L injection, automatic. Josh calls it a “fake automatic,” I think it drives like a glorified go-cart. We were excited to pick up the car and get out of Barcelona, which Josh now understands how it’s my least favorite city in Spain.
I got us out of Barcelona, and traffic wasn’t too bad. I had a little too much fun changing lanes and driving in traffic circles. Cars and trucks would stop in the right lane to unload things, so lane changes were many.
Converting the litre/kilos reading, the car has been getting about 38 miles per gallon. We probably won’t have to fill up until after the Picos. Gas is about $3.25 a gallon here, and luckily the car takes the cheapest diesel.
More photos of the car to come…
How are we blogging this?
I’m working out of two moleskine notebooks, taking notes and writing entries as we go about our day. Josh ahs been taking photos and commenting on the novelty of Spain. We stop in the evening — I type up the entries on the public computer and Josh edits photos on his Macbook. We have a flash drive for transferring files from his computer to one attached to the Internet (no WiFi here.)
We post in the local time zone and change timestamps to be for when the entry was written, usually on paper. Since we’re 7 hours ahead of CST, that change doesn’t really affect most of you, who are reading about our day while procrastinating at work in the afternoon.
Posts may be delayed. They might appear out of the past. Photos might be posted the next day on the previous day’s entry. So you’ll just have to check back often.
Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport
Hearing the first foreign words in France made this trip real. Our plane floated over the Atlantic, insulated with English speaking flight attendants and Don Cheadle´s latest blockbuster “Hotel for Dogs.”
Dinner and drinks at 6 a.m. felt somewhat ordinary. But ¨bonjour¨meant we had traveled.
5:45 p.m. CST, Kansas City Airport
The first flight (to Atlanta) is boarding, and Josh still doesn’t have a boarding pass. They’re asking for volunteers to trade their seats for a $400 travel voucher, hotel and meals. He’s been there for a while, and they haven’t been calling names.
UPDATE: 6:00 p.m. CST, On board
We made it on the plane. I went to the counter to stan with Josh and about 5 other people waiting for seats. The travel voucher went up to $500 with no takers. I put on my best puppy dog face and talked loudly about how we were going to Spain, I had a seat and he didn’t, two connecting flights, the whole nine yards.
A woman stepped forward from the crowd and said, “I don’t have anywhere to be. If it gets someone to Spain, I’m volunteering.”
Two minutes and two hugs with our new best friend later, we boarded. What do you know – they made a mistake and there’s one empty seat on the plane, right next to Josh. Thanks, K.C. an your friendly Midwestern people!
*filed from the iPhone.
I fell in love with Spain while studying abroad in Madrid in 2006. I wanted to stay, but came back to the U.S. promising myself I would return, several times. Josh knew this and said back in November that he wished I had some time after graduation to travel, maybe go to Spain.
Three weeks ago, I realized I most likely would not have a job after graduation. The day after we settled on a road trip in Mexico, swine flu took over the cable news. What about Spain? Miraculously, there was still some loan money in the bank and flights to Spain were cheap. So we came up with a few crazy itineraries and chose the one we’re doing this week.
We are flying into Barcelona and out of Madrid. In between we’ll be driving along the northern coast of Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. GoogleMaps estimates at least 20 hours of driving. I drove 11 hours from New Orleans to Missouri last week and Josh drove 15 hours each way to Virginia the week before, so we’re in pretty good shape to drive. (Excusing Josh’s mishap in the driveway last Friday…)
The itinerario
May 18: Kansas City to Atlanta to Paris
May 19: Arrive Barcelona, Spain
May 21: Rent car, drive to Pamplona and San Sebastian
May 22: Bilbao
May 23: Potes (El parque de los picos de Europa), La Cueva de Tito Bustillo, A Coruña
May 24: Santiago de Compostela
May 25: Drive to Madrid
May 26/27: Madrid
May 28: Madrid to New York to Kansas City
We’ve mapped out the trail and secured places to stay with access to wi-fi. People joked that I can write and he can shoot, so let’s see if we can make it work.
