Book of complaints

Every hotel, cafe and restaurant in Spain and Portugal seems to have one of these - I even had occasion to ask for one today.  My sister has asked for more about the trials of travelling so this is my book of complaints.

1. Paying for water.  At home, a glass of chilled water, possibly with a lemon or cucumber in it is free cos it comes straight from the tap.  Here, it's all from a bottle and costs.  The water from the tap is yucky do you also have to buy water for drinking any time.

2.  BYO toilet paper.  Sure, there are occasions at home when you're high and umm not dry without a square to spare, but they are few and far between.  Many cafes and public toilets here have no paper, and often no hand towels.  While we're on toilets, there's also the turn the lights on dance as they're on a timer and if you're not gone in 60 seconds, you've got to wave your hands in the air like you just don't care.

3.  I miss Michael.  He makes my coffee every morning at work - a large trim flat white.  The coffee here is quite good, but a 'large' is about two thimbles full of milk with a shot of coffee so it's quite strong and I have to add sugar.

4. All of the hotels have been pretty great, except for our place in the Algarve.  The room safe wouldn't open with my code and they wouldn't open it until I paid a rental fee of 2.50 a day.  At this point, I asked for the book of complaints and suddenly they opened it free of charge.