Lugo

I have to slip an extra post in here due to the travel time change. Because we traveled forward in time, the first day seemed like one long day but really, it switched to morning on our flight over seas. Confused? Yeah, so were we.

When we made it to the Santiago airport, we had to catch a bus to Lugo (where our first hotel was). This began our first travel debacle adventure, GETTING OFF THE BUS AT THE WRONG STOP. Which left us nowhere near our hotel and the only map we had was a google map of the hotel. We were lost.

L O S T. Honore (my sister) tried asking for directions a few times in her (very good) Spanish but up so far north they speak a Galician dialect and she wasn't understanding it. Plus, we found out later that we were a ways from our hotel. A ways through a maze of twisty turny streets. Finally after walking and walking I realized that my mom, in her infinite wisdom, got an iphone - just for this trip! So I turned it on, input the hotel address, had the GPS thingy on the phone locate us and we followed the little walking path it laid out for us. I tell you, I am becoming a technology lover more every day. The fact that the little thing could locate exactly where we were in a small town in Northern Spain and lead us to our hotel was just priceless.

That night, we went to the town square inside the old Roman walls for dinner. The tapas place we ended up at didn't have menus but the waitress was willing to work with us and we ended up having a pretty nice dinner. They have a tray on the bar of simple tapas (cherry tomatoes and goat cheese, bread and ham, cheese) that you just take - or the waitress brings it to your table and you take what you want. Everything has a toothpick in it so at the end, you pay by how many toothpicks you have on your plate.  We ended up eating bread, iberian ham, tomatoes, and some delicious fried shrimp. After dinner we walked along the tops of the Roman walls and then headed for bed. Tomorrow we start hiking!