Sidewalk Surfing and more
Yes, every place is different. It is the differences that make travel fun. But it can also make travel difficult.
Sometimes it is the simple things.
For example, washing machines. The ones they have here are TINY and slow. A number of times I put laundry in them and it took over 3 hours. Downloading the manual for a machine can help, IF you can find one and in English. Even then, they don't always show how long it will take to do the laundry. Some have incredibly complicated controls with mysterious symbols.
Some are combination Washers and Dryers. These can be even more confusing. I put a bunch of things in one, thinking I would get "hanger dry" clothes. I woke up in the middle of the night and found that my clothes smelt like scorched milk, and they were super dry. I had not realized I had the second dial set for a 90 minute drying cycle. So this overrode the hanger dry setting. Nothing like expensive riding gear being turned into mush due to operator error.
Times are another thing. I need parts, supplies and food frequently enough. Many shops open at 10 am. THEN close at noon. Then re-open at 2:00 PM. Plan a stop, oh crap, I am going to get there at 12:15. Either hang around for almost 2 hours, or try the next dealership for parts.
Food is another issue. Most restaurants open no earlier than 6:00 PM. Many places you won't find a restaurant open before 7:00 PM and some have no restaurants open before 8:30 PM !!!!. Getting to a restaurant on my way to an Air BnB is pretty much out of the question. I have to either go back out late, or cook at my BnB. 7:00 is almost past my bedtime, 8:30 definitely is. Most of the places I have been staying at have a kitchen, so that is what I have been doing. For some reason though, they seldom have spatulas. They may have a whole drawer of various cooking tools, but no spatula.
Even when I am staying multiple nights, with it off season, I never know if an area will have open restaurants. October is when many of them go on vacation. OR close up for the season. There is often no way to know if a restaurant will actually open that day or not. Google might say their hours are open at 7 today, but they may not open today, and you won't know this until 7.
Heck, I had a Hotel Reservation at one hotel. I had passed it the day before and thought it was at a perfect location for ending the next day's ride. When I got there it was CLOSED. OK, it was a cold rainy evening, and the town was pretty dead, but to close a hotel when you have a reservation? OK, I would have been the only one there, but still. Fortunately I found a place just down the street that was open, and had a good restaurant. From what I could tell, the hotel had me, two other bikers and one group of two couples. I think this was the only place in town that was open, so it WAS pretty quiet. There were other options, plenty of Air BnB places I could have checked into, but food would have been an issue as there were no open grocery stores, and as far as I could tell this hotel was the only place open to eat in town.
The other problem is stores. Besides the difficult hours, there are not as many as I am used to, and the choices are fewer, both of types of stores and contents. Fortunately Google Maps is pretty good at finding places, but I need to plan ahead. Whether it is food, parts, or gas, planning ahead is a requirement.
Oh Yeah.... Gas. Besides being expensive, I have seen as much as $7.50/gallon, they are also hard to find. Not that gas stations are hard to find, they are everywhere. It is easy to understand why Europeans don't understand our Ironbutt Riders obsession with large fuel tanks. The problem is that most of the fuel stations are not manned. You simply need a credit or ATM card that works. Works is the key word. At many stations none of my credit cards will work because they require a signature if over a certain amount, and you can't get a signature if no people are there to take it. An ATM card can work, but most stations do not take Mastercard, and that is what my main ATM card is. I have another that is Visa, that will sometimes work, but it is never a sure thing. Some stations will take my credit cards without people, I never know. So I try to NEVER let my tank get below half before looking for a station that has a person working. Remember the working hours I mentioned earlier? Well, they are even shorter at gas stations.
Now none of these issues are universal, some areas are more like the US, but you won't know until you get there.
Hey, it wouldn't be much fun if it were easy.
Now, there are also good differences. At least in the areas I have been sticking to, the roads are great. Narrow, curvy with incredible scenery. Lots of small villages, with lots of places to stay. You can throw a dart at the map and stay there for days just seeing historic places, or hiking, or whatever you might want. And motorcycles are special here.
Most roads have 90 KMH speed limits. That's 56 MPH. This includes the narrow, twisty roads, really narrow. I think the thinking here is that it is up to you to decide what speed is safe for you. Personal responsibility, what a concept. Many of the highways have speed limits as high as 130 KPH, so 81 MPH.
When you come up behind someone on a road that is not fully two cars wide, the person will practically drive off the road making room for you to pass. Pretty much everywhere is a passing location. If you think it is safe, you can pass on a blind curve. Not recommended, but remember, personal responsibility. In many higher traffic areas, you get on the center line and just drive, people in both directions will pull over for you to get through. The only problem with this is that with the big metal panniers, my bike is sometimes too wide to get through no matter what people do, and it seems to frustrate them that I don't pass. Still, there is nothing like driving 40 MPH down the center strip with traffic coming at you.
Yesterday I made a mistake of riding along the coast without checking what I was riding into. I ended up in a traffic jam in a tourist town. I followed the other bikes down the sidewalk, just as it should be. Unfortunately, my bike was too wide to get through some of the worst bits, but that was only a minor delay.
I love living in the USA, but I love visiting Europe. You may have noticed that I have not been to a single city. I don't like cities. There are a few cities that have enough things that I want to see that they are worth putting up with city life for a bit, but three days seems to be my absolute maximum. I may stop in London or Paris on my way back to Spain in the spring.
Speaking of which, if you are not on my e-mail list, you missed hearing about my plans. I will be back in the States November 11 for a few weeks. I have some plans for December and January, but am still trying to figure out what to do after that. Worst case? I get on the bike and head to Florida or someplace warm for a bit. I think someplace warm with good SCUBA is more likely, IF I can make a plan and stick to it. Sure, that seems to work for me..... never.
NOW, someone please explain to me why I can get a two way ticket from Madrid to the US for $388, but a one way ticket is $1,600??? And, yes, I got the two way ticket even though I am only going one way.