Hotel Rio Arga Zaragoza

... streets and some clear and sane mind, we found a camping site to park our RV in spend a night....

I found Zaragoza very quiet town. It's got a big cathedral and a square in front of it, statue of Goya and few other nice things.

But at night it's completely different. Lots of people on the streets, bars start filling at 7 p.m. and are full until 3 a.m. So, for us it was - Party time!!!

... I need to overcome.

Zaragoza wasn't all that great, but it was nice to be back in Spanish immersion - I don't think I spoke more than ten words of English in the first seven days of the trip, and even though I spoke a fair bit of English in San Sebastian, that was balanced out by tons of Spanish conversations. Over the years I've come to really enjoy the simple pleasure of conversing in Spanish, and slowly improving my fluency in the most ...

June 14, Sunday

I think I lost a day somewhere along the line. Anyway we left this morning after a long wait for the woman to come at 10, she was late, as the elderly man on the reception did not know how to take a credit card payment. So much for being ready to leave 1 hour before our scheduled time, we left late.

We are on toll highways to get us to and around Barcelona. They are pretty cheap ...

Boring long day on the A23, highest col 1223m.

Looking for aire in Zaragoza when Brits James, Clare and Katie in their motorhome took us under their wing to the park they'd already stayed in. Left over from 2008 water based expo, with typically spanish rusty iron "sculpture".

35 degree C until light shower cooled us all off.

Bren washed her hair in the public drinking fountain, starting a trend with the other family.

... that Chris & Gary knew off, so we camped at the back of the Police Station least we had good security but not good facilities, we stayed one night and then we were going to bush camp but had to go along way out of town and not worth it as have to come into town everyday so back to police station for the night. The reason we are here is to obtain Mauritania and Mali visas we managed to get the Mali visa in 3hours which normally takes 24hours so one step ahead there, next trying ...

... when "the k dog"was over in Madrid last weekend in one of his many outbursts he inviting all of them over to London for the weekend to which they responded "how many of us can you handle"... i cant help but feel responsible. Well next stop ilkeston/Nottingham/London that is after the unavoidable last kisses and hugs from the Spain leg, but i assure you, with so many good times had and so much love displayed in an abundance i really would not want it any other way. To England!!

We said goodbye to our wonderful host Sylvia in Guadalahara. The morning light and warmth felt like late May back home. We took to the A2/E90 heading NE towards Zaragoza. One hour later we turned off the highway to visit an old Roman fort on the top of a mountain with a spectacular view, Mendinacellini. Structures ...

... vision of the Virgin Mary on the spot the church was built. Apparently they have a pillar inside that marks the exact spot she appeared on. As a rule I tend to avoid going into religious buildings, partly out of respect for the worshippers, partly because they sometimes have admission fees. However I decided that the exact spot the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared on was probably worth a look, and admission was free. Of course there is no actual evidence the ...

... before they actually went out but we didn't mind. There were about 20 of us because everywhere we walked we would pick up more people. It was really fun. I met a Spanish boy named Paco and asked him to walk me to school because that was the only way I knew how to get home. He ended up walking me all the way home and was mildly disappointed when I didn't even let him kiss me goodnight. Oh well-he'll get over it. =) Tonight we just went to a bar. I had a couple ...

... pay for everybody's lunch, but Marta's family would not see to it. They ended up paying for 16 of us amidst objections. Later we traveled to Logroño to visit the famed Cathedral. It was a very beautiful medium-sized town located 30km from Lodosa. Afterwards, everybody came back to relax a little bit before we all congregated outside the local bar, Cafe Central. John's friends from Chicago and Jackson, MI had flown in earlier in the afternoon. Marta's friends from London ...