Back in London...
Well, if you thought Spain is nice in January, you are up to a rude surprise. But it was a great lead-in to our return to London. Sevilla was nice and sunny but chilly. Barcelona was just plain wet and cold.
We arrived in Algeciras after our boat left Tanger 2 hours late because the previous boat couldn't leave (for unknown reasons). This made us miss the last bus to Granada (and subsequently where charged 50% of the room fare for our hotel in Granada given we called to cancel the day of the booking... tip: never give the correct credit card number to confirm reservations.)
We decided to make our way directly to Sevilla. It was a good choice given the city is just so beautiful. Although we missed the culture and the amazing history in North Africa, it was so nice to be in a beautiful european city once again (and have a McDonalds in walking distance). Our hotel was great (with hot water all the time and toilet paper! Yes, these things were priceless. There wasn't even a smell in the room. Closest thing to paradise in a while!)
We visited the city the next day and tried to change our reservation in Barcelona from one night to three nights given we had changed our plans (wanted to spend some extra time in London before Jessica's departure from London on the 10th of January). We unfortunately had not chosen the right hotel in Barcelona. Hotel Mari-Luz (not to be recommended to anyone) had a clever policy. If you modified your booking less than 48 hours before the beginning of your stay, you were automatically billed for 2 nights. This was in the fine print in the four-page e-mail sent to us to confirm the reservation (and not mentioned in the phone call made to confirm the reservation). We were blatantly told this on the telephone. Not wanting to carry out a dispute over the payphone (especially when the euros were ticking away on my card), we decided to fight this more appropriately on their turf.
While in Sevilla, I also discovered that my Spanish was not only lacking in vocabulary but it was not being very well understood. I blame the many dialects in Spain but I must admit that people were hurtfully rude when you tried to speak Spanish. It was like I was spitting on them. I decided to speak English, faking an American accent and received much better results. Mind you, not a bloody Sevillian spoke more than 5 or 6 words of English but they pointed, smiled and made wild gestures to explain things when I spoke English. Strange, eh? It's like they didn't want me to speak Spanish. Much different from my experience in Mexico.
Once we arrived in Barcelona, we intelligently avoided a fight with the management of the hotel by explaining we were both tired (it was past 10pm). We had to wait till the next morning to argue our way out of paying for 2 nights. Not that the price per night was that much (40 euros per night or 50 CAD) but because in principle, given I had called a day in advance of our arrival to modify my reservation when every other hotel would have gladly made the change free of charge and because they were so rude about it, I decided to fight it for 30 minutes until the guy gave in, gave me back my passport and relinquised his threat to bill us. Jess was very proud of me and said I did great (you could hear our argument accross the hostel given the walls were paper thin).
We flew out of Spain on the 6th arriving in London and greatly releaved to hear the Shakespearing tongue again (even if they call underwear, pants). We spent the next 2 days resting (i.e. watching a lot of TV and movies... we were entertainment deprived for 26 days!). And yesterday, we saw Brokeback Mountain at the movies (a real movie!). We also walked on the Thames, had a pint of Guiness and ate at Wetherspoons (fish and chips, baby!). Isn't it great to be back?
We arrived in Algeciras after our boat left Tanger 2 hours late because the previous boat couldn't leave (for unknown reasons). This made us miss the last bus to Granada (and subsequently where charged 50% of the room fare for our hotel in Granada given we called to cancel the day of the booking... tip: never give the correct credit card number to confirm reservations.)
We decided to make our way directly to Sevilla. It was a good choice given the city is just so beautiful. Although we missed the culture and the amazing history in North Africa, it was so nice to be in a beautiful european city once again (and have a McDonalds in walking distance). Our hotel was great (with hot water all the time and toilet paper! Yes, these things were priceless. There wasn't even a smell in the room. Closest thing to paradise in a while!)
We visited the city the next day and tried to change our reservation in Barcelona from one night to three nights given we had changed our plans (wanted to spend some extra time in London before Jessica's departure from London on the 10th of January). We unfortunately had not chosen the right hotel in Barcelona. Hotel Mari-Luz (not to be recommended to anyone) had a clever policy. If you modified your booking less than 48 hours before the beginning of your stay, you were automatically billed for 2 nights. This was in the fine print in the four-page e-mail sent to us to confirm the reservation (and not mentioned in the phone call made to confirm the reservation). We were blatantly told this on the telephone. Not wanting to carry out a dispute over the payphone (especially when the euros were ticking away on my card), we decided to fight this more appropriately on their turf.
While in Sevilla, I also discovered that my Spanish was not only lacking in vocabulary but it was not being very well understood. I blame the many dialects in Spain but I must admit that people were hurtfully rude when you tried to speak Spanish. It was like I was spitting on them. I decided to speak English, faking an American accent and received much better results. Mind you, not a bloody Sevillian spoke more than 5 or 6 words of English but they pointed, smiled and made wild gestures to explain things when I spoke English. Strange, eh? It's like they didn't want me to speak Spanish. Much different from my experience in Mexico.
Once we arrived in Barcelona, we intelligently avoided a fight with the management of the hotel by explaining we were both tired (it was past 10pm). We had to wait till the next morning to argue our way out of paying for 2 nights. Not that the price per night was that much (40 euros per night or 50 CAD) but because in principle, given I had called a day in advance of our arrival to modify my reservation when every other hotel would have gladly made the change free of charge and because they were so rude about it, I decided to fight it for 30 minutes until the guy gave in, gave me back my passport and relinquised his threat to bill us. Jess was very proud of me and said I did great (you could hear our argument accross the hostel given the walls were paper thin).
We flew out of Spain on the 6th arriving in London and greatly releaved to hear the Shakespearing tongue again (even if they call underwear, pants). We spent the next 2 days resting (i.e. watching a lot of TV and movies... we were entertainment deprived for 26 days!). And yesterday, we saw Brokeback Mountain at the movies (a real movie!). We also walked on the Thames, had a pint of Guiness and ate at Wetherspoons (fish and chips, baby!). Isn't it great to be back?
posted by Serge LeVert-Chiasson at
10:23 AM
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