Historias de la Gran Patranha

DAY 2 (part I)

Even though we were right on the Grande Rue, we fell asleep pretty easy. Lots of anxious dreams regarding whether the alarm clock was on or not and Phil's nighmare about having a conference call, mean we aren't yet quite switched off. Phil discovered mobile phones turn themselves on for the alarm clock even though they are turned off (he wouldn't believe me but voilá, the wonders of technology), and he also discovered that the Euro bank notes are not decorated with a puffer fish in the north west section of the map (yes, that's Iceland...).

So wake up for our second day of holidays. We were the first ones for brekkie in a bakery right opposite our window. We sat indoors to avoid the rain and were besieged by cheeky sparrows that would come and wait patiently for us to finish off our toast to jump at the crumbs. They are all over the place, used to entering shops and restaurants alike, perched in groups on the walls, pecking for bugs.

Once us and the sparrows were fed, we queued under the rain for half an hour to enter the Abbey. Nothing compared with the amount of time other people had to wait for later on.


The inside of the Mont's Abbey was as amazing as we expected it. Entrance €8.50 each plus audio guides for €6 - this forced us to stop and look at things.




The day was overcast so the view of the bay was somehow even more striking with the patches of sun and cloud covering everything in dull or bright light.


I took quite a number of photos so we may have to "cleanse" the camera card later on in the trip. We also saw the tide go up, slowly covering sand islands and creating whirpools.

We left the Mont before the throngs of tourists blocked the Grande Rue again and are now driving through the - grey and rainy - countryside laughing at the very lazy cows which seem to always be having a siesta under trees or in the corners of fields. They surely must be on strike, á la francaise. Lots of Calvados farms and rooms / zimmer ads, but pretty views despite the stench of manure - one of the downsides of open-top driving is that you get the smells in stereo...

DAY 1

Our plants will be dead when we return, but this holiday is well worth the life of the couple of semi-defunct cacti that are decorating our mantelpiece.

We woke up at 5 (figure that, I didn't even have to be kicked out of the bed for this), got on the road at 6 with the sun, and eventually arrived to Dover well before our ferry was due.

On the road from home to the port, the fog was so thick, it could have been sliced with a knife and spread on toast. After half an hour of cautious driving in the foggiest of fogs, somewhere in Surrey the "intelligent" panels on the road kindly reminded us motorists that there was some sort of fog hazard around (thanks for the tip, guys). In the deep haze, the sun looked spooky and unreal, like a round cheese floating in the sky, slowly changing colour to a potent yellow disk. No wonder the Mayans had the jitters every time the heavenly bodies behaved funny, on a day like this they would have been rushing to their pyramids to start a sacrifice binge.

Still, Dover did receive us with less and less of that fog, and we were able to check out the famous white cliffs (I had been banging about this for a long time now and can tick the box of being there and doing that at last). Unfortunately, only the white cliffs were worth it; Dover, at least the way to the port, was ehm....

... nice or what?

Of course we were not sorry to leave the country after this view. Do they do it on purpose to discourage immigration? We hoped things looked brighter, warmer, nicer on the other side. And well, they did start looking much better from the boat... white cliffs bye byeeee!


We reached Calais in 2 hours; long flat beaches, blue sea, concrete blocks & towers... just like a Spanish seaside resort in grey. In fact, right after the big sign indicating CALAIS (in case you had gotten on the wrong boat), we were welcome by the wonderful view of "BooZers, Spirit of Calais" a shopping centre designed for the classy tourist.


Yes, it didn't look any prettier on the other side. Thankfully, the road took us away from the concrete-hole of Calais avoiding as much of it as possible. And now it did start feeling like a holiday - roof down, warm weather, tidy fields of grain with big rolled-up, lined-up, stacks of hay, and long, straight, empty motorways. Finding our way was so smooth that we wondered how travel was possible before the advent of the Tom-Tom. Kinder Bueno & Lion Bar for lunch (melted before reaching the mouth).

After the absolute rip-off péage (for the long empty motorways aforementioned), we hit Le Havre. Not as horrendous as Calais, jewel of the crown, only because it seems like a functional industrial port - thus with industrial stuff, not masqueraded with a sheen of cheapo tourist make-up. Also, extra points to it for not having a BooZer supermarket for its most wonderful bridge (rip-off part 2 but wonderful structure!)



(20 degrees; 13:45, 5€ to cross)


Stopped for petrol just before the entrance of Le Havre 52€ for a life-saving tankfull of the black stuff - we had just depleted the last drop in the tank! Phil changed to flip-flops and decided to drive bare-footed, what a hippie. Also noted the unmanliness of wearing sea-sickness bracelets, but better safe than sorry!

Further péage and all the cows seem to be sleeping siestas under trees, thirsty for the shadow, what a life.


We arrived pretty fast to Mt. St. Michel; not worth stopping anywhere around a motorway anyway. In fact, we arrived early than predicted so the 1 hour queueing to get from one side of the parking to the other side and our specific spot didn't bother us that much. Of course finding our spot took us a couple of "bon, bof, behs" with pouted mouth from the parking attendants who were more concerned about their cigarettes than sorting the stagnant traffic situation.



We enjoyed the majestic presence of the Mont over our heads and the priceless people spotting (all the annoying ones were Mediterraneans, doh!). Then, it took us almost another hour to find the hotel - well, me running up and down the alleys and stairs in the Mont, which are many and of different shapes and widths, fighting against the hordes of baby prams, slow tourists, old tourists, tourists taking photos and tourists choosing cards or calling Manolo!!! while blocking the road, and Phil sitting with the luggage in a corner.

Granted, I should have known where I was going, planned as I had all the trip, but so it happens that to get the key to our room we had to go to a hotel which was not our hotel (get it?) and then they would give us they key and show us the way... which was through a shop, through the shop's back door, trawling through dresses and corridors full of boxes, and up a spiral and dark staircase.

So, seeing the "magnificent" entrance, I was already expecting the worse. And, voilá, our room, in a sort of turret whose entry is actually at the very top of the Mont (well, almost under the abbey), you just have to get lost a bit to find it, then go down some quirky stairs and alleys, and before you get to the cemetery, a little door: Logis St. Sebastian; go downstairs to the bottom through that spiral staircase (yes, the one that ended in the backroom of a shop), and there we were! On a room facing the main street (I feel like opening the window and emptying the contents of the bedpan on the tourists), so narrow one can almost see inside the rooms of the building opposite, the Hotel le Mouton Blanc (in fact, the main hotel, where you get the key for the Logis - are you lost yet?).

Labels: Calais, France, holidays, Mont Saint Michel, road trip, summer

It is bugging me.... I've asked in Twitter but no reply yet

SYLAR vs. SPOCK, face to face in a duel, who'd win & how?

I've got a sort of scenario in my head, but would like to hear how you play it...

[and yes, I've got nothing better to think about than random scenarios in my head]

Labels: battle, duel, pajas mentales, question, random, Spock, Sylar, thoughts

Labels: desventuras, lo que pasa en el mundo, Mariquita Díaz, pajas mentales

Labels: art, dibujo, doodle, drawing, illustration, Illustration Friday

Labels: art, dibujo, doodle, drawing, illustration, Illustration Friday

Pues qué envidia, que manhana mismo empieza el festival de Ortigueira. Por lo menos la lluvia torrencial, el frío asqueroso y los cielos plomizos mantienen el "feeling" aquí en la isla de la Gran Patranha, y las gaitas siempre las puede escuchar una en la radio (o se llevan en la cabeza).

Es en momentos como estos, cuando un evento de relevancia está ocurriendo "back home" y que en realidad tú te has enterado sólo de potra (por escuchar la radio en el internete), en los que uno se da cuenta de lo lejos que se está de casa.

No, no, no es que me haya entrado la morriña, pero los eventos que marcan el paso del tiempo o las distintas temporadas del año, tal y como los conozco, aquí no existen.

De ahí que, por ejemplo, me enterase de que España ganó la Eurocopa a través del camarero de aquí del curro, que es Portugués, sólo porque en vez de decir "buenos días" me vino a abrazar emocionado diciendo "congratulations!". La verdad es que tardé unos segundos en caer en la cuenta (después de estrujarme el cerebro pensando "no estoy embarazada, no me caso, no me ha tocado la lotería... aaaaah, el fútbol"). Si hubiese estado en casa me habría enterado quisiese o no, y eso que chez moi el futbol es anatema.
La emoción del Portugués se debia, a todo esto, a que España había "vengado" a los de su terruño contra los malvados alemanes...

San Juan... pasado por agua, ni playa, ni hoguera ni sardinas (a ellas no las eché de menos).

Los San Fermines... aquí oscurecidos por el luto del 7/7, pero vamos, que no hubo ni una mención en el periódico de la fiesta favorita de Hemingway y de la mitad de los patranhosos estos. De hecho, la foto del día no era el chupinazo ni nada por el estilo, sino "a rapa das bestas"!!! (me dieron ganas de darles las gracias a los del periódico)

Por lo menos me entero de las navidades y el fin de año, claro que lo de comerse las uvas con el Big Ben es una mierda pinchá en un palo (hablando mal y claro) ya que siempre cortan el sonido de las campanadas en la tele para poner los petardos...

Pues eso, que se está muy lejos de la empanada, de los pimientos de padrón (aunque este año encontré una bolsa huérfana en el Waitrose) y de los "malacatones" como dice mi abuelo, aunque he de decir que casi se me han quitado las ganas de volver a casa a comer "all of the above" de sólo ver los precios de Clickair (y los "extras" que se han sacado de la manga... pero eso es para otro post)