We had a couple of chores to run in the morning. So we set off to the post office about 10 am to send a postcard back to the US. We got to what I believed to be the door of the post office to find it locked with a note on it. The way I interpreted the notice was that the post office was only open from 1 to 3 pm today and tomorrow. If I was not illiterate I would have known that this service door was closed but that the rest of the post office was open. But based on my illiterate reading of the sign we wandered off trying to find something to do for 2 hours until 1 pm while muttering about Spanish productivity.
Our other chore was to try to find a step stool to help boost us up into François. Near the post office was a large Chinese Store. In Spain most towns have Chinese Stores that sell everything under the sun. And as the name implies they are usually run by Chinese families. The one here was quite large and stuffed to the gills with everything you could want from kitchen gadgets to clothes. Unfortunately their assortment of stools were all a little too tall for our needs so we failed there.
We still had 90 minutes until we believed the post office would open so we decided to head towards the bull ring in town to check it out. When we arrived it was also closed. So far our morning had not been very productive.
While our day had not been productive it had involved quite a few steps and a fair bit of climbing. We still had an hour to kill so Ton suggested a bar she had noticed across from the post office. As we arrived at the bar I noticed someone entering the post office from another door so we headed over there and entered into a very open and active post office. So I had egg on my face but we did get our postcard mailed.
Now that we had accomplished our chores we could move on to the fun part of the day which was wine tasting. Our first stop was a big high end winery. We enjoyed the wine but felt a little neglected by the staff so after completing our tasting we decided to move to smaller winery.
Tihom winery is a smaller winery than our first stop, but it had excellent reviews. As soon as we arrived we liked the vibe there. As we were settling we noticed the couple at the next table had gone through most of their wines. I asked them which they liked the best and I ordered a bottle for Ton and me to split. We struck up a conversation with them and they were a Brazilian-American couple from Mission Viejo California. We hit it off and a chance meeting turned into a full afternoon of conversation about traveling, driving a RV in Europe and how best to manage retirement.
After we finished our bottle at the winery they joined us in going back to François to try one of our Belgian beers. By this time we were all a little hungry so we decided to head into town for a late lunch. What we didn’t know was Tuesday was the day all the bars in Haro shut early. There was only one bar left open and it was shutting down. They were nice enough to let us pick a couple of Tapas, and offered a plate of tomatoes and cheese soaked in olive oil that was delicious. We continued our conversation with our new friends until nearly 6 pm when they had to work on getting a taxi back to a hotel in a village about 5 kilometers from Haro. So our frustrating day turned into a wonderful afternoon with two new friends.