road tripping

Originally, Gwen was supposed to arrive the same day the mom and I did. With this in mind, we rented a car so we could, you know, get her to Lugo and stuff. As I mentioned before, the kerfuffle with her papers means she won't be arriving until next Wednesday; but we still had the car. Why we didn't cancel it and take the bus, I don't know, but either way, yesterday we drove the five hours from Madrid to Lugo.

the first time I have ever driven in Europe!

Despite the length, it wasn't actually that bad. After we got out of Madrid, there are zero (yes, zero) turns to make until the exit for Lugo. The cattle fields of Castilla y Leon (pictured above) weren't the most diverting things in the world to drive through, but we did see a lot of castles from the road, which was pretty cool. We weren't really in the mood to stop, since we started out on ahem, Spanish time (which is to say two hours late), but on the way back to get Gwen, we plan on exploring some of 'em. The drive got more interesting once we cleared the flatlands and hit the mountains--everything changed from bleached-out wheat to vertiginous green slopes, populated with wind turbines and electrical towers accessible only by mountain goat.

By the time we got to Lugo, we were too tired to do much more than check into our hotel, hit up Carrefour for dinner fixins' (and wine), and collapse. Today we've done a bit more exploring, around the old quarter and las murallas, but knocked off the touristing for some quality siestas.

I match Lugo! meant to be?

flowers, balconies, and Roman walls

Next up: acquiring a cell phone. As soon as I feel sufficiently reinvigorated from dawdling around the hotel room, it's off to Orange to get a phone.