Saturday, July 4, 2009

Cartaya an Seville - Thursday and Friday

Thursday was uneventful with time on the beach and at the pool. A
walk at dusk on the beach was especially nice.
I have noticed I am almost the only person on the beach to wear a
shirt. I am still not ready to unleash upon the European public my
hairy German body, complemented by a large American belly. This
should be a safe place because here the ability/desire to wear a
speedo or small bikini is not correlated to age, size, or body type.

The small room air conditioner
in the living room became very useful during the hot afternoons. In
the evenings, it was still cool enough to eat on the balcony. Also, I
found the secret northwest passage, actually at the northeast corner
of town that shaves a few minutes. My quest for efficiency spurred me
to find the route the cabby took, which was wasn't on maps or GPS. The
route has helped some and gotten me lost at other times.

On Friday, L and I headed into Seville to pick up Dana. We found her
without incident and headed home in the 100° heat. Freeways in this
region occasionally stop, become city streets, and then become
freeways again. There was a lot of stop and go traffic. The engine
started revving to 5,000 RPM without speeding the car up in any gear.
And there was a nasty smell. We exited to a gas station, and The
engine itself was not registering a high temperature, but something
under the hood was very hot. I checked all the fluids and everything
checked out with no leaking. So I guessed that lots of air
conditioning at low speeds (not enough air to cool the A/C), and high
temperatures must have be too much for the car. So we started with no
A/C, which was miserable. Dana melted a frozen water bottle on
herself trying to cool down. We gradually reintroduced A/C at higher
speeds, and everything worked okay.
In our last adventure, our tire had been deflated. While at the gas
station, I inflated the tire, and I eventually saw the one inch slit
where the air was coming back out . Our tire deflator was actually a
tire slasher. I'm not normally an angry or violent person. However, to
paraphrase a popular yet often perverse movie, if I could catch the
guy who did it would have been worth it for him to have done it. I
think the tire can be patched.But who can patch the grudge in my soul?
(Queue tears and a Whitney Houston song).We are consulting our house
swapper for advice on patching the tire. I am trying beach time and
good company for patching me.

1 comment:

  1. Dustin had a similar "tire" experience when in Atlanta. These thugs followed him for a long time wanting to offer him "protection" walking down the streets at night for a small fee. Extortionist!

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