The Weird Drop Box

We reached Segovia later than we expected and it was already dinner time. After carrying our luggages to our hotel and finaly meeting our two friends who were missing in action for the first few days of this trip, we decided to split up: some of us to go for dinner, while some others (me included) to return the rental car.

Having no GPS and no map, we asked the hotel reception for the directions to the AVIS rental car. The good news was we found the place. The bad news was it was not the correct AVIS rental car. Apparently, there was another one.

So we stopped at a few petrol stations asking for directions and it was funny to see my friend was talking with these helpful people at the petrol stations using a little body language and a little understanding of Spanish. They mentioned something about an Arch that we need to pass by before we can find the rental car.

After struggling a bit we found the Arch and finally the rental car. We parked the car and because the rental car office was already closed, we then looked for a drop box to drop the car key. But we couldn't find it.

The rental car was at a train station. We then asked someone who was working at the station about it. He thought we wanted to rent a car but after a few body language he finally understood that we were looking for a drop box. And he pointed us to the window of the rental car office which has a small square hole where we can drop the key. We didn't expect that at all. We were looking for a postbox or something like that but not a glass window with a square hole. It was so hilarious. So we dropped the key and we heard the key fell onto the floor and then we laughed. 

We went back to Segovia's old quarter and joined our friends who were having dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. It was already pass midnight. We were so exhausted that after dinner, we went to sleep immediately. And that's that.

Here's the small square hole as the drop box for the car key

Avila City Wall

On the way to Segovia, we detoured to Avila to visit the city medieval wall, which is amazingly still in one piece and surrounding the old town. This is another Spanish city that was declared a UNESCO Heritage Site.

The old town was quiet as we were there at siesta time. We were very hungry and went to a cafe recommended by the Lonely Planet. We were so happy to find this cafe was still open at siesta. We ordered simple bocadillos (Spanish bread rolls) with jamon serrano filling but the bocadillos were too hard to bite (they're not the kind that were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, they were simply very hard all over) and the jamon was far too raw and none of us could eat them. And a waitress working there was giving us a very unhappy look at the unfinished food. It was a terrible lunch. We left the cafe still with empty stomach.

Soon after, we paid a small fee to walk on the Avila wall and because of time constraint, we only managed to walk on one side of it. Some parts of it were under constructions but generally the wall was still in a very good condition. It was a hot afternoon. The sun was shining upon us and we were half baked up on the wall. But it was well compensated by the astonishing view of and from the wall.

On leaving Avila, we stopped by at Los Cuatro Postes, which is only 1 mile outside the city. This is the best spot to view the wall encircling the city. It was just absolutely indescribable!

Despite our very brief visit, we really had a good time in Avila (luckily the unpleasant lunch didn't spoil our experience there). As I say it often and almost on every ending of my blog for this Spain trip, it's too bad we didn't stay long enough to fully appreciate of what this medieval city has to offer.

The view from the top of the wall

As you can see, the wall is very much still in good condition

Los Cuatro Postes and the Avila city wall in the background - I love this photo

Posing at Los Cuatro Postes

The magnificent city wall, which is still intact and surrounding the city

Funny Thing about the GPS

On our last day of driving (from Toledo to Segovia), my GPS suddenly decided to stop working. It just died completely without any warning! Having owned this little thing for almost two years, I know that this could happen anytime and therefore I always have a safety pin attached to the GPS cover all the time so we can use it to poke the reset button hole in case it stops working.

The problem was I didn't know where the reset button was. I always thought the hole on the face of the GPS was the reset button. I was absolutely wrong! I poked and poked and poked, and nothing happened. All my friends were helping me poked it too. And still, nothing happened. Then all of us took turn to look for other possible reset button around the GPS and we couldn't find it. The only possible reset button was the one that we had been poking all along (or so we thought).

You see, even though I partly own this thing, my husband is the one who's using it. And I totally forgot about asking him where the reset button was or maybe I thought I knew where it was. So I tried contacting him but to no avail. He was on business trip in Denver at the time with a totally different timezone and therefore, I couldn't reach him.

In the end, we gave up on poking it and with no map, we had no choice but to just follow the road sign. Having had to look at the road sign, we noticed that Spain has a lot of weird spots to put them up. Sometimes they were right before the turning, sometimes they were in the middle of the roundabout, and sometimes they were too small for us to notice. But other times they were normally placed at the spots where you expect to find them. So you would really have to be looking around in case you miss them. And that was what we did and amazingly, we got to Segovia without any problem.

When I was back to London I searched the net on my GPS reset button and when I found it, I was laughing my head off. Apparently, there is another button hole. It was somewhere hidden at the back of the GPS. Who would have ever thought? That poor thing had been poked at the wrong spot over and over.

So what's the moral of the story? Talking about my ignorance to this thing, is ignorance bliss? In this case, maybe not. It would have been better if I knew about it. We would have reached Segovia on time with no drama whatsoever. However, to my defence, it didn't turn out so badly. I mean, OK, we were late but everything was under control. And my ignorance was the cause of this memorable event to happen - something to laugh about when we talk about this trip ;-P. But still, my advice is: in case of emergency, remember to always bring (or at least read at home) the manual of your electronic devices everytime you travel. You might need it :-).

This was where we poked it over and over - the poor thing.

And this is where we supposed to poke it.