Habla ingles? NO!

Oh what a start...ha ha ha ha! We woke super early, 4.30am and people were still leaving the bar downstairs. We chilled out and blogged and decided to head downstairs to put the bikes back together.  We spoke with the man at reception, by that I mean confused facial expressions...he could understand us enough, and I had a couple of meaningful words for him, but he replied in super fast Spanish to which I responded with the raised single eyebrow and the Billy Idol lip curl. He played charades whilst speaking, and my foggy brain picked out a few words to gather he was asking us how long it would take to put the bicicletas together. Will tells him less than 1 hour......Really?

Black Betty getting sorted.

Now for Yellow Dog. Easier for the second time. 

After an hour and a half of squinting, blinking and dropping fiddly bolts and Allan keys, we are almost fighting, desperately in need of coffee and food, but have Yellow Dawg and Black Betty standing with flat tyres in front of us. Phew, thank god we didn't decide to do that at the airport after flying for 20hrs.

Bikes successfully stowed, we walked across the lane to eat and discuss the next plan. To the train station to do a reckie for our departure to Alicante tomorrow. Finding the station was easy, it is almost on our doorstep. It is huge. Very well set out and plenty of signs in both languages. We planned to use the Renfe fast train, but after speaking with the customer service desk, (when I say speaking, immediately imagine us playing charades or pictionary) we had to decide on another plan. We went to the ticket (venta) sales desk and found another customer service desk. I ask "Habla ingles, Por Favor", he mumbles something but nods...yay! He tells us the slow train is all we can do and writes down the tickets we need, then directs us to yet another area of the station to purchase tickets for tomorrow.

Yay,  breakfast at last.

Atocha Train Station

Wow, this is not easy, but a bit fun. So we get to the desk to buy the ticket and with more confidence I ask the guy in Spanish if he speaks English and he says firmly NO! What, why not? Shit! Pressure, now I have to find some more words, shit. I thrust the paper, the other guy gave us, forward and say "Dos ventas, with bicicletas?" And point to the paper. He looked very annoyed and disinterested. Must get sick of us gringos not speaking good Spanish....We got tickets to somewhere but no idea where to get on the train. More investigation and holy cow we have found where to go tomorrow with our bikes. I was lead to believe that most Spanish people speak English, but that has not yet been our experience. I think maybe one in five.

We headed out of the station to find a supermarket. We walked for a couple of kms looking, but only found small markets, like delis. We went into one, but that was a bit limited and we only got shampoo, toothpaste and some muesli bars....then we came back to the hotel to regroup. What a fun, tiring start to our day. Still need to find SIM cards.

Our little lane way.

After a nice rest, we decided to go in a different direction in search of the Supermercado we needed. We walked about 1.5kms and it started to rain, just as we spotted the shop we were looking for. Yay, oh but it was closed. What to do now? La Comida! ( Lunch). So we went into the first cafe/bar we found, Casa Ruth!

First La Comida. ..at Casa Ruth

Ruth was a very friendly and accomodating hostess. She helped us with our Spanish and fed us well with a three course ( small sizes) meal, including ice-cream, oh and some local beer. Just to get the pub crawl going.

Our wonderful hostess Ruth

We did not eat all that! We headed back towards our hotel thinking we will try a few bars out around there. We decided on one, (can't remember the name), which served olives with Will's beer, while I had a cider that tasted disgusting, but I finished it. We moved on to a little bar opposite our hotel, called Copas Rotas, advertising itself as the cheap bar. Well, it bloody well was.

The Ministry of Agriculture

Continuing the pub crawl

The Cheap Bar

All night? Only till midnight. ..long enough.

And yes, it got messy. Way too many Vino Tinto Toro's for me, which has resulted in me being a little "tired" today. But what a great night, in the young people's bar....