We made a great team today, Eric and I!

We couldn’t get a definitive answer from the booking agent yesterday, so went to bed uncertain whether we had a confirmed booking in Seville – or needed an extra night in Madrid.

This meant we couldn’t let our Madrid Hotel (Vincci Soho) know and couldn’t confidently book a car hire. So, this morning after breakfast we called the agent in the UK – and after about 20 minutes the answer was that we were definitely booked into Seville tonight (Monday).

So, okay – quickly hire a car and off we drive approximately 530 km – on the wrong side of the road!! We got some directions from Europcar – but Eric was nervous! A miracle! He was driving slowly and cursing heaps – I had my eyes on the road and my finger nails embedded in the dashboard! 🙂

Actually, the only really scary part was getting out of Madrid. Once we hit the A4 it was a direct route – with the biggest challenge being not getting off accidentally. We were brave enough, after a couple of hours, to jump off the highway for lunch.

Then we hit Sevilla – and holy guacamole! We just followed the traffic, pretty much. We were looking for signs, but since most street signs in Spain are written on buildings – and we were in large entry roads with no buildings; we had no idea where we were AND we didn’t have a Seville map. We had a printout from Google Maps with step by step directions into Seville and our hotel – but for coming in from another direction!

Eventually we found somewhere to park and Ricco ran off and got help. He got directions (to the other side of the city) and found ourselves in narrow cobblestone streets – mostly one-way.

I stuck my head out and asked for help ‘por favor’ and our hotel was about 20m up ahead! Great news!! Except that before then we hit a 4-way intersection – where our road ahead suddenly was coming our way … and we could only turn left. So, after we held up the traffic for a while ( 🙂 ) we got back around the block to the hotel! YAY!!!

We didn’t have a booking!

They cancelled our 3 night booking because we were no-shows last night and the last they’d heard from the agent was that we were rescheduling for arrival on 18th September – day after tomorrow! The agent confirmed our booking was still okay – so, the good news is that they had a room available; the bad news is that we may lose out on 100 euro. We’ll talk to the agent tomorrow. It was our own mistake in the first place – so we aren’t too stressed at anyone. The room is okay, we aren’t on the street, the receptionist is very nice – we went out and found pizza and beer for a late dinner – simple and yummy!

So, Eric is busy putting together a tender on a job that has come through, while I write this up. It’s 11.30 pm and we are knackered – we’ll sleep in a little and the next adventure will be driving through Seville to drop off the car!

The ‘laugh out loud’ moment of today was when I was navigating and looking at the map said “if we take the wrong turn, we won’t be heading in the right direction!” 🙂

Buenas Noches, Amigos xx