From The Spanish Traveler Presents: Ixtapa-Ziahuatanejo:

By now it's dinner time, and we do need to change some money into pesos. The young lady at the front desk changed enough for two nights rent, but we need more than just the few pesos change she'd given Dick. She gave us directions to a "casa de cambio", and off we go across "THE BRIDGE FROM HELL." It scares me to death! We (rather I) make it over to the other side. I will say that when Dick says how frightened I was, he did come and help me. He's a saint -- at least until he starts teasing me about how I looked walking the bridge. During the two weeks we spend in Ziahuatanejo I do get over my uneasiness....

From The Spanish Traveler: Travels in Mexico:

By dinner time, the bedraggled foursome sit down at a famous local restaurant, Los Almendros. Diane insists on ordering for everyone in her fractured Spanish. A baffled waiter, believing that Diane must be speaking an ancient Yucatecan dialect, and not wishing to offend, rushes our order to the kitchen. We sit quietly at table side. A man with a mustache and a white cap (who we believe to be the chef) occasionally opens the door to the kitchen a crack and glares out at Diane. An eternity later, a group of waiters arrives carrying what looks like a freshly roasted goat or some other four-legged creature. The scent of garlic, cloves and tequila is overwhelming. All four legs are still attached, and one appears to be moving... Dick leaps on the table top and quickly explains that Diane is not really traveling with us, but just sharing our table.

"And I think she wanted that 'to go'," he shouts.

From The Spanish Traveler: Spain on a Ridiculously Low Budget

Traffic in Madrid is always bumper to bumper and three to four lanes wide each way! There is some sort of protest going on across the street from our hotel; lots of police, "Black Marias", the works! By the time we check in and look out our window it is all over, no cops, no protesters, nothing!

Carlo Rameriz, the night manager, greets us at the front desk as if we were old friends and welcomes us to Madrid. We clean up a little and go out for a walk to Puerto del Sol. We pass the large department store, El Corte Ingles, which isn't one store but four stores on four corners -- each specializes in different merchandise! Clothing in one, books in another, etc. As we get to the corner, a fire truck comes roaring up what we thought was a pedestrian walk-way, one man is almost run over, his friend pulls him out of the way, the firemen are all grinning from ear to ear as if it is a big joke! It's nice out tonight, 59 degrees.

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