As mentioned yesterday it was an early departure this morning. 6:45 AM was “bags out” and breakfast; 7:45 AM on the bus to make it to Madrid at a reasonable time. We are getting used to these days, but I have to admit – the long travel in a coach is the most difficult part of the trip. If one could just “beam” to the location, it would be much better!
There are very strict laws about how much the driver can drive the coach and all of the stuff is controlled by a monitoring device that is apparently very hard to fudge. This usually means that every couple of hours we stop somewhere for a leg-stretch break, to grab some snacks if desired and to use the facilities. It’s nice to get up and walk around as I’m starting to feel like my backside is getting a little square. Not long after we crossed the Spanish border, we were pulled aside by the Spanish police and they ran a check on the computer to ensure that our driver had been following the rules. You could tell he was a little shaken by the whole thing as he was having trouble finding the paper work that he had to produce on top of the printout that the police performed. His hands were shaking a little bit. It’s the law in Europe that on the coach, while driving, the passengers are all supposed to be wearing their seat belts. For most of the trip, none of us have been wearing them. When the pulled us over, Kassie (our Travel Director) whispered to the person in the front to put on their seat belt and pass it on down the row. It was a good thing, because one of the police officers walked all the way through the coach checking to ensure that we were bucked up. Got away with one there for sure! They eventually found what they needed and we were allowed to continue on our way.
There was not as much to see along the way as there has been on the city excursions. As a matter of fact, the countryside might look very familiar to those reading this blog.
We arrived at about 5:30 PM to the hotel in Madrid (Rafael, Atocha), and we had about an hour before the optional excursion for the night. We had a slight altercation with the elevator in the hotel. Laureen, Myself and Say (Lady from the U.S.) jumped in the elevator and pressed what we thought was 2. It was actually -2 (yes, they have minus numbers on the elevator console). When the elevator stopped, the three of us got out and were sort of trapped in this little room that we could either exit into the underground garage or try and get back on the elevator. What was really funny was that while we were waiting for the elevator to come back down, two other groups did exactly the same thing. We busted out laughing as the door would open and there are three or four of our tour group all cramped in the elevator looking strangely at us while we were doubled over laughing. What a trip.
A number of us (I think it was 12 people) had not signed up for this particular optional outing, so we gathered in the lobby shortly after the folks left, and we found ourselves a Spanish pub, and had a dinner together. I was using Google Maps and had this whole gaggle of people following me. They nick-named me "Captain Curt" (probably because I was wearing my Star Trek T-shirt) It was a lot of fun chatting and just relaxing in each other’s company. It appears as though we are going to have to make our way to Australia sometime in the not too distant future to visit some of the new friends we have made.
We came back to the hotel and Laureen and I decided to turn it for the night (‘cause I have a blog to write). Should have more pictures in tomorrow’s blog as we will be doing tours both morning and evening.
Curt & Laureen in Madrid, Spain
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