If this is Friday it must be Avila

We took the train from Leon to Avila this morning and logged in to our hotel- the Palacio Valderrabanos Gran Hotel, a 13th century archbishop's palace adjacent to the first century cathedral inside a walled city on the Castillian plains. Our hotel has outrageously expensive internet access though, so no need to go to the internet cafe. Finally we can catch up on our travels.

We spent the past three days in Leon, a wonderful city with a mix of old and new. It sits on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, so there is an influx of pilgrims making the trek to Santiago de Compostela and tourists. Nevertheless, it is a bigger city than Santiago with more residents and fewer tourists, or so it seems. Our hotel in Leon, La Posada Regia was highly recommended in our guidebook, saying "you want find many places better than this anywhere in northern Spain". For 96 Euro per night, more than most of our nights, we slept in a 14th century building that was beautifully restored with exposed brick, wooden beams and antique furniture. Our room, on the top floor had tiny windows up in the gables of the sloped ceiling. By peaking into rooms being cleaned (only 7 rooms per floor for each of the three floors) I could see that each room was painted differently and furnished with a different set of antiques. The room was not air conditioned, but fortunately the night was cool and the open ceiling window combined with a fan kept us cool enough.

In Leon our room was along the main street transitioning from new town and the bus and train station into the old town. This pedestrian street provided us with great places to people watch right outside our door. We ate several meals at the sidewalk cafes along the "avenue". We had our morning and afternoon cafe solo, or espressos, and sometimes we would stop for a Coke light and agua con gas. Several times we had the Spanish salad Caitie raved about, the Ensalada Mixta, which is an iceberg lettuce, tomato, tuna and olive salad served with olive oil and wine vinegar for self service dressing. One night we ate in our hotel restaurant which the guidebook calls a local haunt for good meals. We were not the first ones in the place when we showed up for our reservation at 9:10, but we were second. Our meal lasted until 10:30 and we were still watching people arrive. We both had the waiter's recommendation of solomillo, or steak, which like everywhere else we have tried beef here, was lightly cooked on the outside and purple raw on the inside. When we waved the waiter over to get it cooked a little longer, it came back sliced down the center so that it was two thin steaks, each cooked lightly on the outside and purple raw in the center. We ate it, as watching it cut into four quarter inch steaks did not make any sense at all. Each outside of the steak had been salted, so the more times in was sliced into a new surface area, the more salt we acquired. Prior to the steaks, we had ordered two dishes in the menu column marked, "Ensaladas". We ordered one that was mixed vegetables and one that was artichokes and ham. To say they were horrible would be a disservice to the word. They were worse than horrible. Starved for vegetables we ate two plates of overcooked, mushy vegetables that were incredibly salty. We got laughing about how long they had been sitting in the slow cooker and it was hard to stop. Even after that expensive and not exactly wonderful dinner we were adventurous in trying some non-ham and cheese meals while out. For lunch one day we shared a salad then ordered a Spanish omelet (tortilla). I had eaten scrambled eggs with prawns and asparagus for lunch the day before and thought this would be similar, so I was surprised to find out it is a slice of a potato fritatta served at room temperature rather than a freshly cooked egg dish. On our last night in Leon as we were sitting having drinks on the avenue the waitress brought us a small sampler of appetizers- three of four of which were another version of ham and cheese on bread. The fourth was Spanish omelet on bread.

As in the other Spanish towns and cities we have visited, the streets of Leon were spotless and we frequently saw street cleaners, both mechanical and manual as we walked around the city. Significant restoration projects were going on at the famous cathedral and convent, so both bore signs of construction and scaffolding, but we were able to tour the sights. The cathedral in Leon is amazing, majestic and stunning with beautiful stained glass windows. We enjoyed walking around the old town, along the river and through the shopping streets of the new town. We even restocked at the book store!

If you asked what we loved most about Leon, though, it would be sitting or strolling down the avenue watching all of the people. Every fifty feet or so there was a mime, and over three days we saw the same mimes doing the same things for hours a day. There was a princess who curtsied then blew kisses or kissed your hand when you dropped money in her box. A clown that honked his red nose and bowed and a not-very successful wanta-be princess that seemed ill suited to the job and merely moved her hands a bit when you dropped the coins in her box. We saw her cuff some pre-teen in the face after he tugged on her hand a few times while she was standing there without moving. Apparently mimes don't do as well with poking and prodding as palace guards. We listened to street musicians, and given that we went to bed before the action was nearly over, we even heard them down on the street after we were in bed.

One of the strangest things we saw while out walking around was some sort of competition in the square to hold a flag draped pole (maybe 40 feet tall) upright for a period of time. This team sport involved contestants in teams of matching shirts wearing thick leather belts like the ones deep sea fisherman wear to hold the poles when reeling in the "big one". The team members would take turns holding the pole, while the team members would hold ropes draped from the top of the pole to help steady the pole upright. Each team seemed to make it ten or fifteen minutes before the next team took over with a different pole and flag. There was clapping and running around but we never figured out the point of the game, nor do we think there is a winner. This contest drew a huge crowd, though, people standing all around the plaza in danger of being beaned with the pole. We left never knowing the point of the contest.

Our train ride from Leon to Avila was simple, either because the trains in Spain are SO much better than Portugal (true) or we are much more experienced about how to do this type travel (also true). I have found a website with the Spanish train schedules that is easier to use than the Eurrail site so we can now walk right into the station and make our seat reservations with the train information in our hand. It is simpler than trying to stumble our way through the request process, but even that is getting better. We can order coffee and drinks really well, food sort of well, and we are decent enough at asking about the location of bathrooms. We are terrible at making small talk with tax drivers, so most of our cab rides from train stations to hotels and back again are spent in silence. We can feign understanding with strangers, but after awhile of our fumbling to answer most of them give up trying to talk to us. Case in point, the old lady in front of us in the ticket line at the train station this morning. She was wrestling with her suitcase and assorted plastic bags and Mike reached out to give her a hand. After helping her attach a small suitcase to her larger suitcase without any speaking to each other she started to make conversation with us. We nodded and agreed, but it was apparent to her that we were not getting any of what she was telling us. Nevertheless, she appreciated Mike's chivalry and went to the efforts of miming her frustration with the length of time we had to wait in line by rolling her eyes and doing the universal, "blah, blah, blah" that we are all acquainted with to indicated the staff that was working at the universal bureaucratic speed. For whatever reason, the three windows of the train station ticket office were marked (in Spanish), 1. Information, 2. Immediate Tickets, 3) Future Tickets. There was absolutely no one in the information line and the grizzly, smoker faced man working the window looked bored as he sat there resting his head on his hand, while the other two windows had long lines manned by hard(er) working women.

We have learned to bring picnic fare onto the train proportionate to the time spent traveling. Like the locals, we spread out our food and eat and drink our own victuals. We shared a train sandwich on one trip and although it compared favorably to airplane food, it is nice to be able to sit in your seat and eat food of your own choosing that doesn't have any ham or cheese in it.

I will write later to share our observations of Avila.

Jeff and Hank- our thoughts are with you. Congratulations.

Deanne