Three more sleeps until my GSPA begins!

Three more sleeps until I leave for my GSPA - Great Spain & Portugal Adventure!

Hair cut:  check
Euros: check
Laundry:  check
Passport: check 
Organized paperwork (airline ticket, GCT documentation, Travel Insurance, photos of passpor/credit cards, list of personal emails, travel journal, etc. etc.): check

Have done the majority of the packing.  Taking my smallest suitcase.  I am doing this so that I can hopefully just 'carry on'.  I am not concerned with the extra $25 charge for checked luggage imposed by all the airlines it seems.  Rather, I just don't want to risk losing my luggage.  This way the luggage stays with me.  Let's hope I will be one of the lucky ones that is allowed to carry it on! 

Weighed it. I had to take out a hoard of stuff.
:(

But got the weight down.   (Who cares if I wear my socks each for two days in a row!)
:) 

Side note:  What weighs me down is my medicine chest to have on hand in case of a wide variety of ailments occurring.  Not sure why I do this.  Presumably you can buy this sort of thing in Spain & Portugal too should the need arise. 
???

Last weekend Antonia Matas Fuentes emailed - he will be our Program Director/Tour guide.

I was impressed that they contact us before it begins.  He had asked that we respond to his email to let him know it was received.  So I did.

I also added I was one of his solo travellers and I "thanked him in advance for all the questions I was going to ask him".

Then, last Sunday he actually phoned me from Spain!  

Yes.  

From Spain!

He wanted to know what he could do to help.  

Of course I was startled and had very little to say on the spur of the moment, so probably made a fool of myself on the phone.  All I could think of was that, given it is December in Spain that perhaps there could be interesting Christmas markets and/or nativity scenes to see.

Now just worried I had sounded anxious on my return email.  I did tell him I wasn't an overly needy sort and that all I needed generally was to be pointed in the right direction.  Hoping he's not viewing my booking with trepidation.

He was kind to say that on this tour there are "lots of single ladies"... so hopefully that means I can make friends and hang out with people during our unscheduled time. 

But re: email & phone call -  as my sister said, "THAT'S customer service!"

Indeed it is.

Looking forward to my next adventure....

... which in only 31 days I believe, will be Spain and Portugal!

Obviously, no pictures to post yet but I am starting - just a wee bit - to get excited.

I am going on my first "Senior's Tour".  It is with a new tour company - Grand Circle Travel, of which I have heard good things.  In fact, a member of the Rick Steves Tour I was on recommended it to me.

Now I loved my RS tour - but this tour is significantly less in price, largely down to the 'free single supplement'... meaning that I can still travel solo without having to incur significant extra cost.  

I think there will be pros and cons to each tour company - and it will be fun to compare.  From what I can gather at the moment, RS excels due to its high quality tours, galleries and museums on its tours - this company I think it's more heavily loaded on the 'city, panoramic tours'.  For instance, we're in Madrid but no included tour of the Prado, one of the world's best art collections... so, I expect this tour to be 'different'... not worse, just 'different'.

In any case, stay tuned in a month or so for some uploaded pictures while I am in Spain and then, as before, stories and pictures of my travels upon my return!

GSPA is how I'm approaching this trip - my Great Spain & Portugal ADVENTURE.  


:)