YDYtravelers: We road trip to Spain and it doesn’t go well - or - that time we thought we’d be stuck at a Spanish IKEA forever

The plan for today has been in the works for a few months. Why not take a quick trip over to Spain, what with being close to the border here in Tavira. Our destination was Sevilla (Seville alternately). Mom, George and I headed east, ready for a Spanish adventure while Jen and Eli went snorkeling with sea horses and octopus. Perfect plans for the day indeed. Well...

On our way out the door, mom commented that she forgot her phone and her glasses. We didn’t go back for them because both George and I had our phones, I had a back up charger, and I could read any any menu set in front of her. So onward with our day we went. The drive to Sevilla is lovely, and looks a bit like the southwest U.S. We crossed into Spain full of the promise a new adventure and, of course, went straight to IKEA. That’s what the Spaniards would do, so we followed suit. We promptly parked in the orange section G1. Or was it green G2? More on that later. IKEA is actually a common park-and-ride spot for day trippers to Sevilla, because it’s really hard to drive in or find parking at the town center. We chose Uber to help us the the last leg there.

First order of business was to grab some food. We opted for a burger place, mainly because that’s where tables were available. I had a wheelchair rental for George in case he became tired during our long Spainy day, so he wheeled right up to the table and Mom and I joined him. Food was pretty good. There was one weird thing though. When in Spain, and when wanting a burger done medium, ask for well, well, well done. Mom’s burger came out and she took one bite. It was pretty much raw (tartare style) and when I brought it back to the waiter to get a replacement, he was surprised at our different definitions of a medium cooked burger. Mom’s plate was returned with the same burger, cooked more, and carefully placed back in the bun so that the bite marks on the bun and burger matched up like a little PacMan. Cute.

We planned our visit so that we were near two of the most spectacular buildings in Sevilla, so post-haste we dined and rolled George over to the Royal Alcazar, where we found a long line to get in. I immediately noped. Not a fan of standing for 2 of our 4 hours of Spain time. Normally, we plan ahead for such occasions and buy skip the line prepaid tickets, but in this case, we didn’t know what time we’d be in Sevilla and opted to wing it. Bad plan. So instead of the R.A., as I like to call it, we crossed the street to the spectacular Cathedral Seville. Wow, she was a gem, and despite the initial confusion about how to get in and pay for tickets with a wheelchair, we three were wide-eyed and bushy tailed. Wait... that’s not right. Wide eyes and open hearts? Anyways, you get the idea. The opulence of this church was as opulentic as you can get. Steel bars covered most sections of the cathedral’s alcoves as well as it’s shining (because of the gold covering everything) center. As we left, I was approached buy a woman wanting to give me sprig of rosemary. Immediately I knew was was going to happen, knew I wanted no part of it, and then wound up, somehow, who knows, holding the rosemary in my left had, as the woman red my palms, told me in Spanish about the successful life I was going to lead, blessed me and then, of course, rubbed her fingers together for money. So I gave her a Euro. Not okay from her standpoint. She wanted 5. I said no. Then to my right I see that Mom was caught by another woman, sprig in hand, fortune being told, blessing and payment required. That woman asked me to pay as well. Saying no was not okay at all, but I did it enough times that they finally left us alone, after giving me the Spanish gesture that means I am to be cursed. In retrospect, maybe I should have handed over another Euro or two.

We tried the Royal Alcazar one more time. Mom promised I’d find waiting in the line worth the time. Immediately, George opted out and instead sat on the street corner in the wheelchair, looking like he needed a Euro or two thrown his way. In short order, a woman invited us to pay almost double to join an English speaking tour of the grounds, thus allowing us to skip the line,and we accepted reluctantly. After a series of events including mom handing over her ID to some stranger in the tour in order to prove she qualified for a senior discount, a 20 minute wait for some guy’s wife, and then an Englishman starting to accuse the tour guide of committing fraud, we were actually admitted to the R.A. The problem was, now we were in a tour. I hate tours. Waiting and following and all that are not my jam. So despite our tour guide, named Susan or Suzanna (she didn’t know), proclaiming herself the best tour guide in Sevilla, we decided to ditch them after 15 loooonnnggg minutes. I took on the task of returning the headsets, and when I did, it was very apparent that Susan(na??) was quite offended. I mean, she is the best and we wanted to strike out on our own. So I explained to her that I had left my son in a wheelchair outside and we needed to be speedy since who knows whether he’d be safe out there all on his own. That made pretty much everyone uncomfortable. So we slunk out of there and tried to avoid the entire lot for the rest of our time. The R.A. is an incredibly unique and beautiful place. It’s an old Moorish castle and is adorned with tile work. Ceilings are intricate. And the gardens, oh the gardens, are sprawling and spectacular. I snapped many pictures, enjoying every minute of this wonder, every tiny detail and grand room. Until I didn’t. Mom and I spent maybe 1 1/2 hours in the R.A. and then felt we should probably go find the boy in the wheelchair. So we headed for the exit. Or so we thought. A short time later it became clear that we were lost on the grounds. I get lost all the time. It’s what I do. And mom, well she was just as helpless. A thrum of panic set in when I opened the door a crack to the idea that perhaps we’d be lost in the R.A. forever. Irrational, but that’s how I roll. We finally had the bright idea of using Maps on my phone to find our way out, after maybe 1/2 hour of searching. We had also used Maps on our way to Sevilla, so that, along with all of those pictures, really drained my battery. Georege was found on a street corner, and to my surprise, no one had tossed coins at him. An important gelato stop happened after that, which recharged the humans (but not the phones) so when I went to call our Uber back to IKEA, I pulled out my portable charger - and came to the horrible realization that I brought the wrong cord with me so no phone charging was possible. George, waiting on a street corner for two hours, had also drained his battery. And mom, as you may recall, forgot her phone. This was okay, really, because I had about 23 percent battery left, and if we just used the GPS to get out of Sevilla and then turned it off until we were ready to head back into Tavira (it was a straight highway trip), we’d be fine. Back to IKEA we went.

Our Uber dropped us at the door we left from, so we headed back inside and to the elevator we had used to get from the parking to ground level that morning. Down to floor -1, where the rental was parked in G1. Except it wasn’t. The pillars were orange. That tracked for me. But mom was pretty sure we parked in G2, Problem was that there was no way to get down to G2 without going back to the main level. It was now getting a bit hard to get out of IKEA. But instead of waiting for the small elevator to take us up a floor only to go down two, I folded up the wheelchair and took it on a ride up the escalator. No problem. Of course, the line for the tiny tiny IKEA elevator was long when we re-ascended. And why oh why would an IKEA have such a small elevator?? We sent out a search party for another exit and found one with a moving ramp that took us all the way down to -2. Finally. We headed to G2, green in color, and again found no car. WTF? We all began searching up and down the rows of cars, calling out for our rental. Looking for a rental is not easy. I couldn’t even remember what color it was. So instead we scanned license plates. All cars began to look alike in the parking lot. Sweat beaded my brow. No car at all. Back to -1 we went, this time via a large elevator we’d found on the other end of the parking lot. No car on -1 either. Now, about 1/2 hour has passed and I’m starting to make contingency plans. Was the car stolen? Was it towed? Do we need to Uber to a police station to report the car missing and then to a new rental car place so we could get home? Do we stay in Sevilla for the night? Then George rescued us by thinking through what we saw as we entered the IKEA several hours ago. Yeah, G2 seemed right, but no, G2 wasn’t green. And we did not find the big elevators until after we began the search for the car. So, we found our way back to the exit with the small elevator, and what did we see? An orange G2. There were two G2 parking sections quite far apart from each other. One was orange and the other green. I’d remembered the orange part, but thought it was G1, which tracked because G1 was indeed orange. Mom had G2, but why was it green? Because annoyingly, IKEA uses the letter, number AND color system. Remember them all, my friends, as to not suffer our fate.

We are at the car. All of our obstacles tackled. We’ve beaten the video game called Sevilla, mastered each level. And we get to go home. Except no. the key fob is not opening the car. No buttons work. We double check the license plate. It’s our car. We try every button. Nothing. Then I attempt to find a fold out key hidden in the fob. Nothing. I get the idea to figure out how the get the key out online, but when I search I can find only information on how to change the battery for the fob. My phone battery is at 17 so I didn’t mess around with that anymore and instead went back to IKEA to ask someone for help The security guard was unable to produce an actual key from the fob. Two IKEA employees also fail. The security guard suggests I call the car rental company for instructions. I know about my unfortunate phone battery situation. But I make the call anyway, because surely, if anyone would know how to extract the keys, they would. A woman answers after many rings. She didn’t speak much English and my Portuguese is, well, nonexistent. She asked where I was, thinking a local place in Portugal could perhaps help. I answered, with great pain, SPAIN! That did not go over well, even though I bought the Spain inclusion package. Then I tried to convey the nuanced notion that the battery in the key fob was dead and I needed to get the key out of the key fob. We went around about whether the car battery was dead, the key was lost, and all kinds of other combinations. It wasn’t working and I was now on 3 percent. She suggested that she text me instead. Agreed. While she was working on that, I asked if IKEA sold iPhone cords. Of course they don’t. I think one of the employees was trying to tell me that they sold the wireless chargers, and I was considering it. And then the craziest thing happened. The security guard asked another employee if there was another place to get a charger. Yes! I was told to go to the other end of the IKEA and turn right. So I did, and there, in front of me was a whole mall! It was like a mirage in a desert. How could this mall be attached to the IKEA? It wasn’t at all apparent fron the outside of IKEA that there was anything else but Swedish furniture going on in there. But there was a mall! And the first store I saw sold electronics. My helper at the store spoke no English and I used my high school Spanish, which worked things out. Seeing that shiny cord in my hands (really - it was a shiny gold, like the innards of the cathedral) was one of the most joyous moments I’ve had in a long time. With abandon, I bellowed MUY BUENO! I’m pretty sure that salesman had never had anyone so happy to buy a phone charger.

Back down to poor Mom and George, who had been sitting in the garage for over an hour, I showed off my new cord. We immediately got chargin’ and I said, “Now we can watch all the YouTube videos we want!” It took two. The second one, yes about changing the fob battery, started with removing the key. I paused, tried it, and like a holy grail emerging from, well a plastic receptacle, the key appeared. Back to the car we went. Key goes into the lock. And with a few tries and a lot of torque, it opens. We are going home! It only took 1 1/2 hours, hours I spent wondering if we’d ever be able to leave IKEA. I’m not sure I’ll be able to enter one again for a long time.

During this grand finale of the Sevilla video game, I’d been texting Jen, sparingly, letting her know why we’d be so, so late for dinner. At a very bleak time, with blue and yellow stars forming behind my eyes, I texted the following: “Car rental company no help. Told me to buy an new battery” (which was true. That was the advice. Find and buy a battery for this specific key fob. At IKEA.). As we were leaving the horrible, horrible IKEA parking lot, we received a message from the car rental place and they didn’t seem to happy with me. Language barrier a given, here was their message: “?? We are the suppory from the car rental. If the car works. Than it can be the batery key. Or the key is to of place is the key fallen to the ground for example. As you are not in Portugal to let someone ckek for the key it is a good ideam. Example: a watchmaker can help you in Sevilla.” Two things: I thought maybe the rental place was a bit annoyed with me and was puzzled by that. And, their best plan for us, at 7:30 on Friday evening, at IKEA, in Spain, was to find a watchmaker. I texted back that we figured it out. It was only 20 kilometers out of Sevilla when I discovered that the text I thought I’d sent to Jen had actually been sent to the RENTAL COMPANY. So I guess they didn’t take kindly to my assessment of them being “no help”. Winning, though, we were on our way back to the safe land of Portugal. One last text arrived form the rental place: “Please remember automatic transit to start you need to press the break pedal.” Good to know, and actually known, because we’d already driven, with very poor judgment, to SPAIN.

And to add one last bit of calamity to our night, at the very last turn before parking for the night in Tavira, I turned wrong. Very wrong. The wrong way on a very narrow one way street that curved up hill along the bank of the river. There wasn’t a way out and I hoped that no oncoming traffic would come. But of course it did. So I had to decend the curing hill, in reverse, with parked cars on both sides, in the goddam rental that I hated. Success though. Did it. Parked the car and swore I’d never drive it again. And as I told this story to Jen and Eliza, and as I was peeling a carrot because absurdly, the peeler was left-handed and so am I, and as Jen asked my why I wasn’t happy that there was a left-handed peeler in the house, I said I used right-handed peelers all the time and I’ve learned to just adapt and adjust. ADAPT AND ADJUST! And my encore, my very final video game level, was to peel that carrot aggressively, wildly, with shavings flying in all directions, right down to the nub.