Odds and Ends

Or everything ends well that ends oddly.

Due to internet restrictions (like in not existing in places) I never got to share many of the wonderful twists and turns of our vacation adventure so buckle your seat belts or get some caffeine I can't tell what you will need to get through this.

First of all when we went to pick up the rental car they didn't have the dinky model we had booked and instead we got a nice size Puegot that was automatic (not that common in Europe apparently) and it had a built in GPS. We had a our GPS with us although our confidence in it's abilities has been shaken thoroughly. Now we had dueling GPS. Yes, cue the banjo music. The car one had a nice English accent and ours apparently hails from Detroit constantly "Recalculating" in a some what miffed tone of voice. At any moment I expected it to break down and say, "No the OTHER right! Ding Bat!" Add to this that Billy and I are both oldest children and were armed with three maps, and two guide books. Oh did I mention that we both have iTouches with downloaded maps?

That's right, "Bring It GPS" and you better be right!! So where we might have been playing highway games like "Slug Bug" (if you don't know this one don't get started). We instead had a running dialog with the GPS units, albeit somewhat one sided since even though you can make them talk they definitely stick to their "talking points". Most of the time they agreed....with each other....not necessarily with us. It did add some interest at times and coming into to a large town and trying to get through it or around it they were definitely helpful. At one time our GPS went missing for a day (we found it hiding behind a box on a table how did it get there??) and we were down to the English lady pleasantly telling us to take a "Half Right" turns here and there. Not bothering to chide us when she had to "Recalculate" and I have to say I missed the uptight one just a little.

Up at the top is a picture I took on the Costa do Morte (Galician for Death Coast) hopefully you can see that it shows Leslie Howard (yes the star of Pygmalion, non singing version of My Fair Lady). It turns out that about a year before D-Day he went on a secret mission to Spain to get them to agreed to not enter WWII on Germany's side he was shot down on his return on the coast by a German war plane. Who knows maybe he accomplished his mission because Spain never entered the war.

Now last but well, OK probably least...you get my observations on bed pillows and bidets.

First the bidets we never saw one in France but in Spain every place we stayed including the Casa Ruals had bidets in the bathrooms. They are very useful and particularly handy if you are doing a bit of laundry!

Beds pillows are a separate topic and know some of you just sighed in relief....didn't you? Growing up in the ole US of A I thought I knew what a bed pillow should be, a nice puffy rectangle. In France they are square puffy bits, and in Spain they are long tube like affairs meant to go directly across the bed to be shared by all or in our case both. I am not sure what it means except that I noticed IKEA in all three places so one thing it means it that they have to make at least three different pillow shapes.

We are finishing up here, one more tasty French meal and we catch the night train to Paris hopefully getting back to Seattle by 10 pm Sat. It has been amazing trip and fun writing this blog thanks for reading! Cris

PS We only have about 3,000 pictures to show YOU. Just giving you a heads up ;-)