1. Don’t injure your
friends
No brainer, right? I
just about “crippled” my friend who is 13 years my senior and lives a more
sedentary lifestyle by taking her up to Mt. Urgul (topped by the Jesus statue,
and a fun little museum) here in San Sebastian. To be fair, it was the descent, not the uphill part that did her
legs in. It never occurred to me
that this might be too physically challenging for her, and had originally
planned on taking her on a really cool, much longer steeper hike over a bigger
mountain, to Pasaia. Note to
self: Get a realistic picture of
the physical capacity of travel companions before trip planning.
2. Technology purgatory: Be prepared in case of technology failure
Technology and I seem to be at constant odds…sometimes I feel like
I’m trapped in an old “I Love Lucy” episode. What else could go wrong?
Best laid plans…I had been insistent that we all had WhatsApp for
“easy” communicating because I though that we would want to separate at
times. My friend had free data
with no roaming charges with her T-Mobile business plan! (who knew that was
possible?) She was onboard with WhatsApp.
We got a SIM for my sister-in-law in Spain for about 10EU, good for a
month with Vodafone. WhatsApp is
not tied to the SIM, so setting up Whatsapp at home and “test driving” it there
is a good idea. We were all set.
I had bought a external battery (accessory power supply) in case my
cell phone battery croaked at an inopportune moment (lesson learned from our
Morocco trip in April)…but what I didn’t count on was that my own WhatsApp
would stop functioning on my phone!
Luckily my e-mail still worked so we could split up and access each
other that way…sort of.
My sister-in-law found out that her local e-mail server in Wisconsin
did not allow her to view her email while she was overseas (of course she only
found this out while overseas), It was a good thing that she had a Gmail
account to fall back on (which she normally never uses). When she finally figured out the
problem she had to have my brother forward her flight e-mails to her new
account! I’m a believer in
having 2 email addresses each from different service providers…it has saved me
more than once.
Because of my propensity for technology failure, I had a plan A and
B for meeting my sister-in-law at the airport neither of which involved
technology. I’m in the habit of
checking airport terminal maps online in advance. The Madrid terminals are very spread out (same in
Barcelona), and there is a rather long bus ride or metro ride between them, if
you find yourself at the wrong one and pressed for time it can be bummer.
3. What floats your
boat? Get a sense of your travel companions priorities and interests early on
When I thought about what to see and do in these places I didn’t
give “shopping time” a first thought, much less a second thought. Shopping shares that same exhausting
“museum pace” that does a number on the feet and back. Had it occurred to me I could have
figured that into the plan and it would have made for less tiring days. I personally will gladly physically
“suffer” my way through any art museum or history museum, or cathedral on the
planet, but am less enthusiastic to suffer my way through souvenir shops and
stores. Of course others feel
exactly the opposite. Lesson: know your companion’s priorities, to
find a balance that pleases everyone.
To me this means encouraging autonomy rather than compromise. “Meet me at this café after you get out
of the cathedral or the souvenir shop, I’ll be enjoying a vino blanco.”
4. Why can’t I use my
credit card to buy this? Chip and pin/ verified by visa issues
When my local bank’s credit/debit card repeatedly didn’t work for
online transactions I just walked across the street to the bank and asked the
teller (who probably knows us as
the “clueless Americans”) why it didn’t work. I learned that to use my credit card on line it had to be validated by “verified by visa.” While on line, waiting for the transaction to go through on
certain websites, I was sent a code on my cell phone to enter on the
website. When completed and
entered, I got a confirmation that my transaction went through.
Despite having a chip in my American credit card, I don’t have a
pin…at least not the “right kind” of pin to be able to use my card to buy train
and bus tickets from machines in stations. There is always cash!
Be prepared.
5. Overcoming the confusion
of the Alhambra experience
First of all buy tickets well in advance…The website tells you how many
days in advance they will go on sale.
It’s July now, and I see some days in October are already sold out! I learned that when you order tickets
for the Alhambra in Granada online you better check and recheck on the
dates. I had some major
frustrations, and glitches navigating the website. (Sometimes I get glitches when I click “translate” on my ipad, such as the calendar fails to translate or switches months and
I don’t notice). Alhambra tickets are
purchased through Ticket Master (ugh!) and they give you NO opportunity to
change or cancel your ticket after you press the “buy” button. Their contact number is just a recording
that hangs up on you after first informing you that you basically called for
nothing. Get tickets from Caixa
Bank ATM in town using the same credit card that you used for the online
purchase to avoid long lines. We
chose to enter the Alhambra grounds about 1.5-2 hours before our appointed
palace entry time (the time on the ticket) and walked all the gardens and
outdoor areas first. We walked
downhill back home…no need to get on a bus.
(I was a bit worried about whether I would be able to retrieve my
tickets as planned because of the original ticket debacle online and what I had
to go through to resolve it. I knew that we had
to be at the palace gate, not the Alhambra entrance, at the exact time I signed
up for online when I originally bought the ticket. At home on your printer you are really
only printing out your code to retrieve your actual tickets "entradas." I read that we could avoid long lines by printing out our
“entradas” at a local La Caixa Bank ATM by entering our ticket number, and using
the original credit card used for the online purchase. This actually worked great, and saved us a lot of hassle and time
once we arrived at the Alhambra. Apparently most of
the crowd didn’t know this trick.)
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