dagfooyo.com

That’s right, I’m in Spain! Mainly ’cause Morocco sketched me out as I was doing final travel plans. Little details like the directions to the hostel were, in their entirety: “Not far from the train station” And the number for the hostel was disconnected when I tried to call. Plus, the surf forecast was deteriorating. So I did a quick check and found that the best waves this week are hitting off of Santander, Spain. And here I am! This place is BEAUTIFUL. I was too busy getting lost trying to find the hotel to take any pictures, but now that I’ve finally gotten settled in, I figured I’d send everybody an update since you’re all probably imagining me all in black and white in my fedora, comparing lives to piles of legumes and requesting that Sam provide encores of that song, when in fact I’m not.

The hotel is great, although it did not live up to the promise of wifi – the lady at the desk said it should be fixed “late this evening”, but I’m not holding my breath. Fortunately, I picked up some wifi courtesy of the local bar, and a pint of Guinness to boot! (when in Rome, right? Wait, no. I’m getting the Spanish confused with the Irish again. Yo Tengo los blarney stones, Shillelagh mi amigo!)

But despite minor setbacks such as the hotel’s wifi being broken, and not making it to the surf rental place in time, I’m in good spirits. This place is way more beautiful than I’d imagined, looks quite a bit like southern California, really. I can see why the Spanish took such a liking to that region, it felt like home. But yeah, before I figured out how to actually commit my GPS navigation device to the destination I requested, I accidentally follwed it to the last destination in its record, which was a gorgeous scenic overlook of the craggy ocean bay. That was a nice pleasant surprise in the midst of a lot of cursing.

I won’t go into details about my afternoon of driving but will sum it up with these points: This area is hilly, full of stops and impatient drivers. The car is standard transmission, bane of my existence. The GPS I rented couldn’t find the hotel. I’d printed out the wrong google maps directions. Basically I drove all over this part of town, finally parked, and, GPS unit in hand, I set out trying to find the damn street, which I did just as the GPS’ batteries died. Then I had to find the car again… 🙂 It’s a testament to grim determination. Or something. It was an adventure, and I actually had a lot of fun. Angry fun.

Sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll get some photos and vids up tomorrow.

Right now I’m gonna polish off this pint and head back to my room. After that last hostel room in Amsterdam where, due to the extensive night life of the city, no two tenants’ sleeping hours matched. Last night was the worst, since I was trying to get to sleep at 10 PM so I could wake up at 5 AM to catch my flight at 8. On a Saturday night? Fat chance. I think I got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep total, between all the people coming and going, knocking around, turning the lights on. So I’m gonna go catch up on some sleep and luxuriate in having some space to myself.

Peace out y’alls. Tomorrow I catch some waves!