Going on holiday – Caribbean

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Having packed the two cats off to the local ‘pets @ home’ cattery earlier this week, today we had just ourselves to get off on holiday.

There was a slight delay first thing this morning. The man who is looking after the transfer of registration of our car wanted to see us before we go away. We have arranged to meet him on the TF1 motorway bridge at 7.30am this morning. To our surprise and delight he informs us that the process is now complete and he presents us with our new number plates, car tax and a new car log book. Car tax is Tenerife is 50 Euros a year. it is worked out on the size of the place you live in and not on the car size. A little project for when we get home from holiday. We have an appointment booked with Motorworld in Tenerife for Monday 7th October 2011 to have the plates swapped. We will ythen be able to drive around without so much attention to us.

The car is already packed away on the driveway, so there is no issue with delaying the plate transfer until we get home. It's covered with a breathable car cover to prevent it getting covered in sand which blows in from Morroco.

As the weather at most of the places that we are visiting is very similar to the current weather in Tenerife, e.g.: about 30 degrees, we only have to take a few light clothes with us. We have two medium sized suitcases for the hold plus two half empty hand luggage cases. We also have the laptop so we can keep this blog upto date etc.

Earlier this week, armed with words recently learnt at Spanish lessons, we managed to book a taxi from the local Arico office. We felt quite proud to be able to do this. We felt even better when the taxi actually turned up. Made those lessons very worth while.

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. The very kind gentleman at the check in desk asked if we wanted to check in right through to Miami. We had hoped they would do this, so had packed the hand luggage accordingly. This means we do not need to retrieve our bags when we get to Madrid tonight until we arrive in Miami, USA Saturday afternoon.

The flight to Madrid was about three quarters of an hour late leaving, but it was a good flight.

We had pre booked a hotel for our overnight in Madrid. Not sure what it was going to be like, as we had heard some bad reports. We were very pleasantly surprised.

The courtesy bus from the airport arrived in about 10 minutes after we called them to let them know of our arrival. The hotel was quite swish and all was clean and presentable. The bed was huge and there were loads of complimentaries. The Wi-Fi / Internet was not so good.

We went to a local Spanish deli and enjoyed working out what was on offer as it was all in Spanish only. The waiter did help us with a couple of items. Had a lovely meal and an early night for the big flight over the Pond / Atlantic tomorrow morning.

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