OCTOBER 4th, 2012 THURSDAY BLOG #24

OCTOBER 4th, 2012 THURSDAY BLOG #24

The drive out of Guadalupe is up to the top and along the top ridge of the  Sierra de Viejas mountains, like driving across the top of the world where you can see for miles  and down thru/across the valleys below. Spectacular as a word falls well short of being descriptive.  Along we went toward the A-5 and past our favorite Parador at Oropesa. Carmen Garmin kept pace and tracked all of the recent highway renumbering without missing a beat. She led us all the way towards the apartment complex of Alexis and Guillermo; we found the town did not find our way to their area of town. And so we stopped for lunch at Tres Hermanas restaurante menu of the day turned out to total 17.40 euros and that is because we had an extra bottle of water no less!! Gps does not recognize the area they live in, but the girls at the restaurant were most helpful and sweet and finally gave us directions to their part of town.

We met up with Guillermo after he picked the girls from Kiddie care. They are so darling! Both very blonde and the baby is very happy and smiley. Alison is darling and as they only speak English to her, she understands and replies in Spanish because all day at daycare she speaks Spanish. It is very cute. Gill said  Alexis did the same thing until about age 3. I guess that is the way to raise a bilingual child!  Alexis came home from work and we had a nice visit, I wish we could have spent more time with them but they are trying hard to juggle 2 jobs with differing shifts. Guillermo works as night manager at a NH Hotel in Madrid and Alexis just started back to work at the BBVA bank after her maternity leave so things are a bit hectic for them.

We finally got to the Parador at about 8:30 and we were pooped; however at this time of day the Madrid rush was well past and Garmin skirted the big city with ease but failed miserably in finding the Parador in Alcala. Afterall it was dark so she couldn’t see well??  This Parador is built into a 17^th century convent and is very modern. They have done a terrific job with it, it is very comfortable. Our nice chap in Guadalupe had called ahead to let them know we would be late and everyone was so nice and helpful to us old folks. We did manage a walk into town and a bite to eat but that was about all she wrote! Aah…tomorrow is another day.  Tomorrow we are going to see our family at their new piso in Madrid .