After a 45-minute conversation with the rental car lady, we had been given our car. Chuck had been eyeing a certain grey mini-van in the lot (don’t ask us why he liked that), and was hoping that was what we had been given. We had not. Instead we were given the largest silver van we had ever laid eyes on. We eyed the van from afar, scared to go any closer, and not 10 feet from the car Barbs broke and decided we couldn’t handle a mammoth this large, especially in Europe. She walked back up to the counter demanding another (smaller) car. Finally after we had been given a car to our liking, the loading process began. We then spent 15 minutes trying to fit our bags into every crevasse of the trunk. Turns out maybe we could have benefitted from the mammoth.
Next step, get the GPS up and running (NOTE: The word “Tom-Tom” has been banned from this trip because it was used too many times in a 3-minute span). 5. The number of times the GPS fell off the dash because we couldn’t figure out how to make it stick. Finally, we got it together. But we still couldn’t leave the parking lot. The emergency brake was on, and no matter how hard we yanked and pulled on it, it wouldn’t come loose. After a few minutes we agreed that perhaps we were doing it wrong. Again, Chuck took matters into his own hands, and somehow managed to get it working. What a fix-it man.
FINALLY we drove out of the lot. Who knew that the scary part was to come. Because Barbs had been the only one at the counter, she was the only licensed driver on the car, and therefore she had to drive. We thought maybe she could handle the foreign roads along with the manual transmission. The car was swerving all over the Spanish roads, but then again she was eating a sandwich while driving and drinking water. Then she started brushing her teeth!! While driving! So you really can't blame her for the swerving.
The Dalí museum was by far one of the wackiest things we have ever seen. It felt like a cross between a fun house and a haunted house. A lot of the exhibits were super neat, but much to our surprise we all wished there had been an audio tour to explain the madness.
By the end of the tour we were starving and Hannah stated “my stomach is eating its own lining.” It was then that we agreed to grab some lunch. Walking down a cute European alley, we passed all of the Spanish Tapas bars that we had grown a little sick of, and were drawn in by an English Pub’s photos of pasta. We practically ran down the street to get inside, and when the hostess began to ask if we might be interested in dining here, Cedar already interrupted her to say “Cuatro!!” Boy was this place a mistake. We’re pretty sure they served us some Chef Boyardee, fresh from the can. The pasta dishes were so awful, that we ate until we were no longer ravenous, and left behind about half of each dish; a very uncharacteristic thing for this family to do.
Since getting here, we have absolutely loved it. It’s beautiful, breathtaking, and like a postcard. “We” are a little rusty on our French, as Barbs was trying to find out how to ask for the check and said “como se dice?” (Spanish for “how do you say”). And Chuck keeps saying “Sí”. On the plus side he has lost his Spanglish. For now. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t pick up Franglish…
We had a killer dinner but this is too long already so we will pick up here tomorrow.
Until then!
-Hannah and Cedar