Ferrol

Ferrol

I would like to announce that in Spain when you go to a wedding you match your shoes to your wrap, and neither needs to match your dress. You may ask how I know this. There was a wedding party staying in the same parador as we were staying. But, I am getting ahead of myself...

We set out from Bilbao at a decent hour (9AM, thank you very much) and headed West. The whole way to Ferrol was SUPPOSED to follow the same road, the A8. However, the entire A8 is under construction. At different intervals. The whole way across the top of Spain. We would go about 10 miles on highway, and then the GPS lady would announce that we should exit at the next left and then take the third exit from the roundabout. This would put us on the N634 or the N632 or some other two lane road (which, at one point was a dirt road with cork screw turns). This was the detour route. If it hadn't been for the fact that everyone else was following the same detour, I would have thought that our GPS lady was having a laugh at our expense.

However, we followed this same dance of highway, detour, scary road, highway for about 7 hours. At the end of the road, (literally) we reached Ferrol. We entered Ferrol and immediately locked the doors of the car. I looked at Maureen and Maureen looked at me.

"I think we are just going to hang in the hotel tonight, if this is any indication of what kind of a city this is..."

We finally found our hotel. Hotel is not really the correct term for where we stayed. We stayed in a PARADOR. We were really excited about staying in this PARADOR. A PARADOR is a state run lodge which is, typically, a former castle, palace, monastery or other similarly luxurious place. They have a reputation of being the best travel bargain and are usually hard to get into. We were surprised that we were able to get reservations for this particular weekend because, being so close to Santiago de Campostela, and being the feast day of St. James, the patron saint of the region, we figured every place would be booked. Indeed, we had wanted to stay in Santiago de Campostela, but Ferrol was the closest we could get, and that was even about 45 minutes away.

So, we get to the PARADOR, which was actually next to a dock... a working dock... like where longshoremen work. This was also immediately next to the offices of the ministry of the navy, which actually looked abandoned for some time. There were also flocks and flocks of seagulls, and not the singing kind... well maybe if you count their incessant squawking singing.

As we were unloading the car, we noticed a bride, a limo and a bridal party at the front door of the parador. They were all getting in one last smoke before the big walk down the aisle. This is where we noticed that Spanish women have this odd sartorial habit of matching shoes and wraps independently of their dresses. We figured that the reception must be at our hotel but didn't think anything of it. Besides, it was only about 4PM, and if the reception was at 5:30 or 6, they would definitely be done my midnight...

Famous last words...

We went down to dinner at 9. They party had not even started yet. We finished dinner at 11. They were just warming up. We went to bed at 1. The party was in full swing. And you could hear them through the floor. At 4, and by 4, I mean 4 in the morning, there was no sign of the party letting up. We had opened the window because it was hot as hell in our room. Our room overlooked the parking lot, which is where the party guests went to smoke and talk, loudly all night long. This loud talking in Spanish was made worse by the fact that the aforementioned seagulls, which are apparently nocturals creatures, continued to squawk all night long. It was a never-ending dialogue of Spanish and squawking for hours and hours, all punctuated by the pounding bass coming through the floor of our room.

When the alarm went off at 8 AM on Sunday morning, I had only just drifted off and was annoyed that it was now time to get up and embrace the day. The only thing I wanted to embrace was a seagull, by the throat, or a wedding guest, also by the throat. But, being the good sport that I am, I got up and cheerfully announced to Maureen that she had better say something to the reception desk (since she speaks the Spanish, and all), about the fact that we had just paid for at the worst night of sleep of our lives.

When we went to check out, both of us looked like we had been run over by trucks, being driven by oddly matching Spanish wedding guests. Maureen told the man at the desk how disappointed we were about the noise and before she even got another word out, he stopped her and said 'don't say another word. The party went on until 5- something AM and others have been complaining, too.' The next thing we knew, he was handing us the bill which reflected a 30 euro discount for our troubles.

I was pleased to have gotten the discount, however, I would have rather have gotten some sleep.