I spent an hour on the phone last night with an operator at Swisscom, trying to sort out my internet problems. Finally she admitted that the culprit was not my computer, so she said she would refund me everything I had bought from them.
This was not the only unpleasantness I had at this particular hotel, the name of which is Relais de Margeaux. The staff seemed extremely moody, I was told some of the chamber maids actually made a face when they couldn’t clean the rooms early in the morning, and the reception was often extremely unhelpful. Worst of all was the lady in charge of the hotel brasserie, she had a markedly arrogant manner that bordered on being rude. Unlike Swisscom, none of them ever apologized.
The Relais de Margeaux is situated about two kilometers from the village, which is not much, but it seemed very isolated nonetheless. I can well imagine it being the perfect setting for the sequel of Shining, if they ever decide to make one.
We left the Relais this morning and drove to Bilbao in Spain. As soon as I had checked in the hotel, I went straight to the railway station to buy a ticket to the place in Spain where my daughter is flying after a few days, so I can pick her up. I was getting quite worried, I had been trying to buy the ticket on the internet, but had no luck. Renfe’s website is not the most user friendly one in the world, and even when you ask for the the English version of it, you keep getting pop-up windows in Spanish. Finally, when I had figured out how to get to the place where you actually buy the ticket and not just book it, my credit card didn’t get through, even though I have no problem with it and have used it countless times when puchasing various things on the web. My hat goes off to anyone who manages to buy a ticket on Renfe’s website.
Tonight I went with a few of my mates to have a paella. One of them, the eminent voice teacher Ron Anderson, told me that by coincidence it was the same place he had gone with the Red Hot Chillipeppers last year, when he was touring with them.
The meal was magnificent. A paella is among my favorite dishes and this one was amazing. I ate so much that I half-regretted not having an ostrich feather in my room.
After the meal we walked past a huge sculpture of a dog which is decorated with countless flowers of different colors. I didn’t have my camera with me so I can’t post a picture of it right now, but I will later. The dog reminded me of the dog my family had years back when my sister put nail varnish on his claws and dressed him up in doll clothes. Fortunately she did that very seldom!
I see they are already building the stage for the concert at the Guggenheim museum. It sure looks good!
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