Hotel San Jorge Zaragoza

Spent another night on a parking lot near the city centre. When trying to find a decent place to park our van near all the sights, we got caught up in a lybyrinth of narrow streets, filled with cars (sometimes even in the middle of the crossings...). Well, Boštjan is a very good driver, but my nerves are not as good as I thought.

With the help of a security guard at a bank in one of the ...

... of languages. I think I've attained a new, slightly higher level of Spanish comprehension on this trip, though it'll be short-lived, given that I'll soon be leaving Spain. I've been struggling for years to break through to that next level, and it honestly feels great to finally get there, if even only for a week.

Anyway, the guy was really cool, a physiotherapist in town for some seminar. According to him, it's easy to get by in Spain, but ...

... short ones. We are on our way to Zaragoza on the west side of Spain.

We go through farm land, then fruit orchards, we couldn't figure out what they grown, but there are lots of fruit packing plants along the highway. I kept thinking there would be fruit stands somewhere, but they never materialized.

At lunch time we stopped at a rest area along the highway. It is quite warm, but the clouds are ...

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.

... get Mauritania visas a lot more difficult, the forms were all in French so had to try work out what it said, every other nationality had there info on there passport in English and French but good old New Zealand have Maori so had no idea, after an hour we all filled them out and Gary went to embassy and we were to pick them up next day at 3pm, so he jumped in the taxi the next day to go collect the 28 passports and they wouldn't open the gates so he was told to come again on ...

... the home town of Elena where everyone refers to each other as a maño o maña being the collegial term of one of the inhabitants. quite weird to to hear really as its not like "mate, son, boss, etc" its something that everyone uses through all ages, status, walks of life or whatever i mean being English can you really imagine talking to your gran and calling her "mate", or having a chat with a bank manager and then he/she just shouting out "alright son"to one of his ...

... years old built of dry fit stone and stil standing: From Zaragoza we travelled ,ore easterly toward Lleida Catalan. Amongst the ochre coloured rocks and mist blue with mountain ranges were immense wind farms. Turbines and tozers several hundreds of feet high. Onward our lovely 1 litre Fiat Punta purred toward LLieda.

I woke up about 9am, my latest start for about a week, and hauled myself downstairs to check out, before dragging myself three kilometres to Delicias train station to get a reservation on the evening train to Madrid. After some frenzied negotiation with a friendly woman who spoke no English I managed to secure myself a seat on the 14.32 train instead. I'd still get to Madrid that day, but it sadly left me just over four hours to explore the Aragonese capital ...

... beers and just hung out with some friends. We met some interesting Spaniards at the bar and while walking and we had funny conversations-mostly starting with, "Sois americanos?" But that's okay. I love this culture because it's so chill to drink and I never feel this intense pressure to get drunk. Drinking socially is perfectly acceptable and actually normal. However, Spaniards have much higher tolerances than us so 'socially drinking' is like 10 shots. My family ...

... arrived. Together there were almost 20 of us sitting outside in the autumn night, drinking, socializing, laughing, and getting ready for the wedding of the year in this town. Excitement for the wedding was visibly pulsating in the air; as it was the talk of the town. Everybody in this small, friendly town knew about the wedding, and they were curious to meet the arriving Americans, family and friends of John. On Friday evening (Sep 29, 2006) will be the rehearsal dinner ...