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Hi All,
First a question…Do the posted speeds on the highways in Europe actually mean the maximum speed or is it just a recommendation? The drivers of Portugal and Spain do not really use them for either it seems. We picked up Trevor and Claudia from the airport in Lisbon and headed out on the toll highway, over the Vasco de Gamo floating bridge. It was kind of like Kelowna’s floating bridge, except it was about 4km long and architecturally wonderful. The toll road was set up great for gas stations, because you can’t get off of them without paying your toll—you pay at the end based on the distance traveled. You just scoot off the highway, grab some disgusting pear juice (bad choice!), have a pee, and are back on your way. We filled up with gas just outside of Sevilla, it only cost us 57Euro, about $75 for the tank (and it was only a 45 liter tank!).
The Portuguese countryside was beautiful. Heather and I are headed back there later this month (to the town of Evora). The Spanish countryside wasn’t as nice, but it did feel good to be able to enunciate ‘coca-cola’ in the
correct sounds. We determined along the way the right way to enunciate Portuguese is to speak Spanish, but in a heavy Sean Connery Scottish accent and it comes out Portuguese. An example—Two is dos in Spanish (D-oh-s) and Two is dos in Portuguese, but if you put the Connery accent to it, voila! Dosssshhhhh.
Sevilla is really, really beautiful. The only problem is the almost complete lack of street signs, which make driving navigation incredibly difficult (even if you had a map, which we didn’t). Also when you do find a street with a particular name, it usually changes in three or four blocks anyway. You can tell it has a strong history of medicine, as there is a street named after a doctor every few blocks.
We had some troubles getting to our accommodations in the old town. Some of you might remember the story of our last Euro Trip when I had to drive on some tram tracks in Vienna, well, oooops I did it again. I topped it this time though when we realized that it was not only a tram track, but one with pedestrian access only….kind of like driving down the seawall. I
just put my head down and kept following the tram. I figured if I didn’t make eye contact with anyone it wouldn’t be too embarrassing. It eventually got worse and I had to drive over a sidewalk to get out. Now I can safely assume all tram tracks are not good places to drive.
The old town of Sevilla was wicked. At first, in the late afternoon, it felt very touristy and not the kind of place that Spaniards use themselves, but by the evening it was packed with locals. We had an early dinner of tapas and sangria (mmmmmm) and a late snack of tapas and sangria (mmmmmm). I love cured meats. The hostel we stayed in was not bad, but getting up at 6:00am was painful to fly off to Morocco.
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Dan
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Hey guys, Enjoying the blog - although with no small measure of quiet, seething jealousy. All's good here, nice and sunny and all that. Master Batters going great guns - won the first 2 games on Wednesday, and how! Both were called due to the team's dominance and an insurmountable scoreline. Can we keep this up? Doubtful. Marathon was grueling and way tougher than I expected but awesome. On the fence about doing another...might take up something a little easier on the knees. Keep the posts coming! Take care, Dan