Day Seven How to Keep Warm in an Apartment with No Heating

Local flora
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Caught the bus into Andorra again today. We walked as far as Ordino with me feeling like I was breathing underwater the whole way. It was icy cold and I decided to wear my jacket, even then my hands were frozen. I'm sure being ill is making me feel the cold even more than I normally would.

We dropped in at our little corner shop to get something to drink and then I called in at the Farmacia in Ordino and, of course, the girl didn't speak English so with a bit of miming we established the fact that I wanted cold and flu tablets. She said she didn't have tablet form but had some sachets. Flumil 200. Bought those and then crossed to the Tourist Information Centre where the bus was waiting.

The Iron Men sculpture on the Ruta del Ferro
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We went into Andorra to the Internet Cafe and spent an hour there. I caught up with Alex on MSN while drinking my mix of fruit juice and Flumil. It seems to be not much more than flavoured panadol but it must have something in it because it certainly helped the sniffles if not the cough.

We sauntered around Andorra. It was hard work for me because breathing is such a challenge and then we kept going from freezing outside to overheated in shops. As we looked around Pyrenees I thought I was going to pass out. Of course being subject to cigarette smoke constantly didn't help. It seems the only place they don't smoke here is on the bus. They even smoke in the toilets. The ones in Pyrenees were state of the art, designer toilets with smoked glass booths, automatic taps and the place was littered with cigarette butts.

Ruta del Ferro
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We did discover a wonderful supermarket on the upper level of Pyrenees which saved us not only a long trek up the Avenue Meritxell but some money as the prices were cheaper. We bought a few essentials to see us over the next four days, including toilet paper which ran out on Sunday. (We've been using a box of tissues since!) Managed to find a nice vegetable quiche and a mushroom lasagne for our main meals. Bought milk, coffee, tea and I picked up some chocolate for Alex.

We decided not to bother going to La Massana on the way back as there didn't seem to be much going on and the one attraction – the cable car – didn't seem to be operational. So we came home.

It was freezing in the apartment. No heating whatsoever after several days has a cumulative effect. In the end we turned the oven on and left it on just to get a bit of heat going.

Watched some TV which was entertaining as only foreign TV can be – and we struck lucky with a French-dubbed episode of Lost.