Spain (no bull)
Trip Start
May 05, 2010
1
29
54
Trip End
Jul 20, 2011
Sintra, Estremadura, Portugal
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Day:148
Weather: 15C-27C
Hola from Espanol! Well we continue our southerly push towards Morocco and struggle to cope with all the ignorant bastards that can't speak Australian. As I write, the church bell in the little Spanish village of Castrojeriz calls the blistfully ignorant to heel. We are camping in the shadow of the castle ruins of Castillo de Castrojriz in the town of the same name on the pilgrim route. Very rural and need I say, very Spanish!
The day started with a bit of tension, as the camping ground manager where we stayed the night had, unbeknown to us, the exit barrier gate programmed not to open until 8am. Well, yes you guessed it, we were hot to trot at 7.45am. Having not been informed of the rules we assumed the gate to be faulty and proceeded to try to knock him up. He failed to respond to our knocking and ringing of the afterhours bell, so we were left with no option other than to use the, unused to this time, horn. We got his attention! If only he had answered his door when we knocked and rang the buzzer. Had he asked us to wait ten minutes we would have obliged, however it would appear he was prepared to let us wait at the gate for fifteen minutes without explanation until the hour.
I can’t but mention an observation of mine over the past five or so months that we have been on the road. These observations specifically, have to do with the restaurant owned by a garish pervert who wares red boots and yellow overalls, and goes by the name of Ronald (could also be the Pope I guess, although I think he ware’s red shoes and lace).
Whilst Ronald takes pride of place on the park bench in Australia, the U.S, and UK, he is conspicuous by his absence in France. In fact France offers the Mac Donald’s customer a far more refined and adult like dining experience even down to the more up market decor. The only concession appears to be the plastic multi colored playground outside. This is in contrast to the U.S. and Australia which are much the same, and the UK which goes over the top in catering for little tykes. Helium filled balloons are the order of the day in the UK, a substance which British teenagers in situ used to do Donald Duck impersonations. Pandering to the smaller Brits appears to be just what the doctor ordered for the British mum. They appear to flock there so that someone else may do the entertaining for a while. Of the countries we have visited so far the British children must be the worst behaved of any I have ever seen. The lack of parental control is mind numbing. They kids literally run riot! All this makes for a tiresome and stressful morning coffee and internet session for these two older Australians.
In the several Mac Donald’s that we have so far been to in France we have not seen a child! In fact you don’t see children much at all, anywhere, although I did spot one in a supermarket the other day. The only reason he was bought to my attention was that at the age of about twelve he was given a substantial slap to the side of the head by his mother that would have had his ears ringing and bought a tear to his eye. They are of the old school over here.
Pissed off in Portugal
We have only had to spend a few nights it car parks since entering Europe and these have been in Portugal. Whilst France and Spain have closed a number of camping grounds since mid September, in Portugal we have yet to find one open. We hope that this changes when we hit the coast were there are hopefully enough tourists for the campgrounds to remain open as the carparks are an assault on the central nervous system. What with traffic noise, barking dogs, and shagging teenagers a good sleep is impossible! By the end of this trip I recon we will be that conditioned we would be able to get a restful nights sleep camped in Kings Street outside a nightclub.
Altogether we are a bit pissed off with Europe generally. The best parts have been whilst driving through small rural villages. But as for the rest, overpopulated, over exploited and over hyped. Where part of a town is listed as notable, you have to battle your way through dense urbanization to view another renovated ruin, if you can find it. Coastline is virtually impossible to access (could be in Goldcoast) and is flogged to death (Goldcoast again!).
