Planes, trains and automobiles

Hola Amigos greetings from Spain,

Given the whirlwind of the last few days mainly due to my poor admin, I am actually quite surprised I have finally made it to Oviedo.

The last 4 days have included an unexpected extra night in Melbourne with a brand new yet very connected friend, an overnight in Singapore followed by a late night of dinner and cocktails and straight on a plane to Barcelona.

Barcelona, arrived at 8am and we dropped our luggage at the hotel and then spent the day wandering Barcelona, I just love this city, the architecture old blended with new, full of art, colour and earthiness. A city who knows who it is, you can see and feel the pride, a great example is the number of flags that hang from balconies.  Back to the hotel where we discovered, I had actually taken us to the wrong hotel, so after heading to the right one, we also discovered that I had also booked us in for the night before, and as we had not arrived, the hotel decided to use the little private laundry in our apartment to wash towels?? Huh ?? and so we are now in our apartment with the laundry lady changing cycles on the machine?  Tapas and Sangria and a noisy night in the pool, saw us actually fined .. Huh?? We checked out …  not my finest booking …

Jump forward …  where we discover that I have screwed up dates again, as I thought I could wedge in F1 before heading off on the walk, not possible, my friend and I have now agreed to part ways, in more than one sense of the word.  He is now heading to F1, and I will make my way to Oviedo, over breakfast & giggles we realise that I have booked my internal flight on the wrong day (well as you know, I am not the best at detail), after a scan of every possible flight option, Barcelona to Oviedo, Barcelona to Leon drive to Oviedo, Barcelona to Madrid and then connecting, Girona to Oviedo etc .. we accept there is no flights that day that will get me to where I need to be.

Plan B ...  train, we head to the station, surely not that many folk travel by train, there are 4 trains that day, all FULL.   Grrrr … lucky all buses depart from the station, so we try the coach option …  1 coach … leaving in 4 minutes … we can’t find the departure area in time …

Plan C ... drive ... hire a car ... not a great option as the drive is nearly 9 hours ... we try every car hire place at the station, thrifty, enterprise, sixt, avis, budget, gold, hertz (we ignore europcar as the queue is huge), there are 0 cars for hire without reservation in Barcelona, (due to F1 and a long weekend).  Head to europcar, queue 1 hour … they have a car ... yahoo! Booked …

Oh my …. a mini … and lots I had forgotten about driving in mainland Europe ... 99% of cars are manual (mmmmm that last happened about 15 years ago) … left hand drive ... opposite side of road … overtake on the left, slow on the right, roundabouts switch completely … no GPS (was in Spanish, I don’t understand it enough) my roaming is not working so can’t google maps … everything that comes naturally is challenged, I have change of gear (they now have 7, was only 4 back in my manual day), but with gear stick now on right hand, clutch on the far left … ahhhhh

Max refuses to take the wheel, cheers MM, (I guess, he has never driven in mainland Europe and never driven a manual, growing up in London, cars not needed) we jump in the car so I can drop Max off at pre lap warm up breakfast before I head off …  disasters everywhere …  wrong way down a three lane freeway, wrong way around a 4 lane roundabout, bunny hops driving the wrong way down Pau Claris …

Farewell to Max who is one in a million, and I start the drive to Oviedo …. which gives me 9 hours to drive across Spain, see the countryside and to really think about the ‘why’ I am doing this …

Why am I bloody doing this?