travel woes from Beteta

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Beteta,
We left our nice friendly hotel very reluctantly yesterday, we had another day of intense gallery hopping except it was raining and dull and while we never noticed the pot holes when the sun shone, we were splashed with mud and it was unpleasant dodging puddles. We treated ouselves to an expensive and delicious lunch and felt immediately better. I must mention the night before I went to the Cuban National ballet performance of Swan lake at a theatre close to our hotel. It was memorable - George walked me there and picked me up, I felt very lucky to get a decent seat and enjoyed it immensely.
We made our way to meet the ramblers coming in from London at the airport, it is always a bit stressful and we were sad to leave Madrid.. I spotted Bob (rambler’s leader) and went over to introduce ourselves. I knew immediately that we had a Dud with a capitol D. He is a curmudgeon and a prick, long winded and pompous - just my kind of hate guy. 'It doesn’t help that my chest cold is even worse. We drove for four hours through dull flat brown landscape until we got here. My heart sank when I saw the hotel - 2 star but shabby and rundown and when we got in they seemed surprised to see us. We are only 6 fellow ramblers with pompous Bob which makes matters even worse. I was shocked by the smell of sewerage in our Spartan cell but the dinner was even worse. We had turkey cutlets - which came straight from the freezer into the deep fryer and tasted of something strange. We had instant crème caramel from the supermarket for dessert. I started to question Bob about moving from our smelly room and this morning I was mad.
We came down to our breakfast set with a plate of dried rusks - a cupcake, pk of butter and jam and watery orange juice. I sat down and turned to Bob and said we would die of malnutrition if the food did not improve. He said I was ignorant of Spanish ways and this was normal for Spain - you can imagine how I responded - I think Bob will cooperate from now on - we changed rooms this afternoon only marginally better but no smell. Much to Bob’s delight I couldn’t keep up with the walk today and had to come back early. Given that this concentration camp experience cost about 2,000 pounds and the other five ramblers are quite prepared to grin and bear and definitely not make waves, I will have to suck it up too otherwise all is lost.
The village is ugly with only a church and no bars except here. The weather is still cold and it has rained during the night but hopefully tomorrow will be better. I think I have ranted enough for tonight but so far here the big joy is our kettle and tea bags Ihope things are not as bleak in the morning. I will give you the menus for last nights dinner tomorrow Ugh.
Marie and George too

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