[Quick note here from me in ways of another pathetic apology for not writing in awhile, it seem to happen a lot, and it sucks. No real excuse per se, just been busy working on other things which I hope will make up for it in one way or another in the very near future. But rest assured, whomever it may assure, I will continue the Leftover Foodie in some strange, sad way until it becomes incumbent upon me to pull the plug on it for the good of all mankind. Short of that I'm sure my blatherings will find a way to go on, even if it's not for the good of any kind of man other than one who likes to listen to himself vomit nothingness out into the void that is the internet, and maybe post some pictures he likes as well. And maybe one who wouldn't mind a hug, or a hard candy if you see him in passing, although he would never ask you outright for either. Anyways, here's some more action from my trip to Spain, just, like, 5 more and I can move on to something else! Thanks for continuing to read whomever the 15-20 people a day are that are visiting the site, even if it's just one person clicking over 15-20 times a day, then thank you to you specifically, whomever you are. ~n*]
So somehow it's only Wednesday on our trip, and as the memories fade into blissful past, it becomes more and more difficult to do anything other than post pictures and whine about how much more I like Spain than New York.
So that's exactly what I'll do!
This day we decided to explore along the coast. Our plan was to head past Pontevedra (we still had a bad taste in our mouth after our last disastrous run in with the shut-down town where we lost Chris and Nancy and then found nothing opened) into a town called Combarro, and then eventually make our way to a seaside town called O Grove.
Of course the Spanish roadways seemed to have other things in mind.
Since Liz and I had the GPS we boldly led Chris in Nancy in their putt-putt go-cart they called their car into the wilds of the Galician coast.
We were excited.
We were ready.
With my new parking brake trick in the bag nothing could go wrong. And as far as stalling out or rolling into cars behind us, nothing did go wrong. But this being Spain, didn't mean it was easy.
About half way to Pontevedra our GPS told us to take a highway past Pontevedra, and we were only too happy to comply. Except that there was construction, and the on ramp to the high way was closed.
Oops! We must have missed the temporary ramp, so we took a local, traffic filled road to the next traffic circle and came back and tried again and managed to end up right back on the road we were on.
No problem, right? We'll just find another way, or get on a stop later by following local roads.
So we take the traffic circle around the closed exit and take the next stop and start heading down the same traffic filled road hoping the GPS would re-route us.
We drove. The GPS told us "turn around."
And drove a little further sure we'd get rerouted.
"Turn around."
And drove even further.
"Turn around."
Finally something did happen. The GPS got sick of telling us to turn around and just stopped talking to us altogether.
So we turned right hoping to take back roads through the hilly towns to the on ramp to the highway hoping the GPS would take a hint and direct us.
Eventually, after getting lost in a maze of tiny residential streets she did start speaking to us again, trying to get us back to the road we were on in the first place so we could turn around and go back to the traffic circle that was closed, but was apparently too stupid to realize it no matter how much I yelled terrible things at her.
So we had a change of plan.
We'd drive through Pontevedra and follow the signs we saw for O Grove and skip Combarro altogether.
Whatever, it's fine, I just wanted off this road.
So we drive through the broken traffic circle for the 4th time but go straight this time, and head into town, past the hill we lost Chris on last time, and followed the signs to O Grove until, of course, the road was closed to traffic.
So again we do our "round and round we go" dance in the middle of town this time, looking for a detour sign but never finding one (I guess the Spanish don't believe in being detoured?).
So right as we decided to find parking in Pontevedra and just go there instead I saw a car drive through a "road closed" sign and decided fuck it and followed him.
Turns out the whole town was shut down for a carnival and roads were blocked off to make room for the rides and stands and whatnot but it being the middle of the day there was no foot traffic or cops. We hoped...
I figure once you're a criminal it makes it that much easier to break the law the next time so I proceed to take Chris on an illegal car ride through the closed off fairgrounds and around the huge, well marked traffic blocks and end up on the other side of town exactly where we would have ended up half an hour ago of lawless, not-quite-reckless driving on the sidewalks if we could have just turned right where the road was blocked.
I checked the rear-view mirror for any cops in hot pursuit, and being none, put the car in first and slunk back into traffic like nothing had ever happened.
Once we crossed the impossible-to-get-to bridge out of town we started seeing signs for Combarro again (who knew!?) and decided we'd go there after all.
So that's exactly what we did.
Here's a bunch of pictures from Combarro.
It turns out we got there at exactly the right time as immediately after finding parking tour bus after tour bus pulled up to unload passengers. Combarro, it seems, is a bit of a tourist trap. But that's okay, it still had plenty of pretty pictured to take in it...
Screw the Redbull cars, we need some of these here in New York...
Seems like the thing to do was dig for clams in this town, and thus there are many pictures of said activity.
And, yes. Lots of crosses in Spain.
And one more cause she's so cute...
More clammers...
And this was almost a great shot, if I had only moved the stupid cigarette butt... "Butt" oh well...
And here's a picture of a fish market we found at the top of the hill next to where we were having lunch. I thought I remember taking more pictures, but I guess not. We ended up buying a bunch of fish from here and cooking it for dinner...
After lunch we decided to roll the dice and head to O Grove despite Chris' "grumpy meter" starting to climb into dangerous territory (to be fair it was pretty high the entire trip, so we were sort of used to it at this point).
So we climbed into the cars and headed through touristy "beach town" after touristy "beach town" until we made it to a long stretch of road that was unencumbered by the blocks of apartment buildings and resort looking things that look like they cater to overweight Englishmen that come there with only one goal: turning bright red and then heading home.
Past this sprawl was an honestly adorable old looking town that happened to be on the beach. Yes, it was filled with touristy everything, but somehow maintained it's charm.
Unfortunately we got there just as the fish market was closing, which is too bad as it looked HUGE and awesome, but we decided to go explore the town while Chris decided to stay and watch the fishing boats come in.
Sadly, I was running out of batteries for my camera at this point so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked to have taken as the light was just perfect and the beach towny-ness was nothing else if not picture worthy, but here are the few shots I did get.
On the way home we discovered another trip-saving invention, the Highway we had been looking for! It turns out for a few measly Euros you can avoid the small, traffic-filled, winding roads altogether and go straight home in less than half the time! What's even better is there are two lanes for traffic, so people could just pass Chris in his car than took 2 miles to reach 100kph (long story short, their car SUCKED)! Turns out we were driving through the heart of wine country as well and had a lovely scenic drive home, followed by a lovely dinner of grilled sardines and calamari (Liz and the kids had bread and cheese, I know... I know...).
I took a picture with my phone (remember I was out of batteries for my camera) and it's not that great, but here it is anyways:
And with that we had another lovely day in Spain with a bright outlook for the following day as tomorrow we'd travel up the road a way to Santiago de Compostela, the town that I was looking forward to the most in Galicia.
And, unlike my writing consistency, it didn't disappoint!
I promise to not have it be another month before I post again!
Love you guys, and sorry again!
Kisses,
n*
