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The Vincci Ciudad de Salamanca is a good looking hotel and our room was excellent. On the downside, they lead us to
believe that the room came with free internet. It did - if you happened to have an ethernet
cable with you. Otherwise tough. The parking was about ten euros extra. Irritating. It is also a long walk through a
rough area into the city. Half an hour unless you are a sprinter. And there is no restaurant despite a huge sign outside
saying "Restaurant". Just snacks at the bar.
We filled up with petrol in this rip off city and drove off vowing never to return. After a few minutes, the fuel gauge still
indicated three quarters full with a range of 300 miles. Cursing, we wondered whether to drive back but decided that there
was no point. And then something amazing happened. Over the next 30 minutes the gauge crept upwards until it read FULL with
a range of 450 miles. Magic petrol.
At last, they are doing something about the damn scooters. Or they claim to be. I write in support and a while later the email
bounces back. Yep. It's amateur hour - they have given the wrong email address. The real email address is news@giblive.gi
This is what I wrote:
Having lived here for some three years I feel that I am well qualified to comment on Gibraltar's faults with the impartiality of an outsider. They are:
1. Incredibly aggressive driving by scooter riders
2. Incredibly noisy scooters which have had the baffles deliberately removed from their silencers in order to make as much noise as possible
3. Smoking in cafes and restaurants
4. The inability of middle aged women to converse without screaming at each other in incredibly harsh voices that would strip paint off walls
5. Incredibly slow, dopey driving by people who should not be in charge of a walking stick, never mind a car
6. "Smoking starers" - men who stand in bars and just stare at every woman within fifty yards while smoking. See the Roxy Cafe by the BHS for a prime example.
7. The extremely irritating tendency for people who advertise events to just assume that everybody knows where the venue is. We don't and we need a proper address
to find it. Saying "The New Sports Hall" or "The Fred Smith Club" or whatever is infuriating when you are a stranger in a country.
If you bring things into Gibraltar, you are supposed to pay tax unless they are going to be taken out again (or something). We
declare our table and the nice man waves us through (on 15th May 2011). In the morning, my girlfriend assembles it. Now we have
somewhere to put our shoes.
In the afternoon we go to see our new yacht in Puerto Banus. She is called
Zurbagan
and is the most beautiful thing in the world. Well, actually, we haven't actually bought it yet. We are waiting for the
price to drop a bit in the Christmas sales from the current 3,800,000 euros.
If you look at the URL you will see it has a reference to "yid". Maybe you have to be Jewish to buy it?
Just down Europa road they have been building a mystery extension. Finally, it is revealed to be a see through lift
shaft. That is a nice lift shaft. I like that lift shaft.
Well, yes. That is sort of stolen from Shrek. Everybody likes cakes.
This is the Queen Victoria parked right in front of the oil tanks (on the left) which are scheduled to explode in twelve days time. But they don't know that yet.
At La Canada we discover that we can buy a big tub of coffee ice cream. So we do. Yum yum.
In the afternoon we wander down to Ocean Village and discover a Classic car show. Many decades ago, a friend of mine, John Monkhouse, offered me his old E-Type convertible for £500 as it was getting a bit out of date. About £75,000, since you ask.
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