Hola de Espana

Greetings from Spain. I just arrived today in beautiful Sant Cugat, Spain. The trip was long and the sleeping in flight was minimal, but I made it. Of course, I was exhausted when I arrived and took an afternoon nap which is why I am wide awake and writing this at 2am.
The hotel is a little less than I expected. I would probably compare it to something a little less than a Motel 6. There is one English channel (CNN) on TV and the people I've run into so far speak little or no English...and since my two years of Spanish education in the Boise Public School system was not as life changing as I might have hoped (I think I pulled straight C's in the class), I've managed some communication with the locals.
My first issues was changing money at the hotel front desk to pay the taxi driver for my ride form the airport (~42 Euro). The front desk lady was a little surprised I wanted to pull some cash using my Amex. I finally got it communicated that using my Amex to get cash is my honest intention and she was able to score me some Euro, but not until she gave me a stern warning that not every hotel would do this. Maybe I'm just spoiled in the my international hotel visits thus far (Tel Aviv, Mexico City, and Vienna), but this is the first time anyone has ever had trouble giving me some local spending cash from my Amex. Sheesh!
My next issue was getting a power adapter. Again, this is something I've always picked up at the hotel with a refundable deposit. The lady at the front desk (not sure if it was the same one or not because I attempted this transaction via phone from my room) could not understand the term "power adapter" and since 11the and 12th grade Spanish didn't teach me that (or maybe I just forgot) and powero adaptero didn't work and she put me on hold, then I was disconnected. I bagged it and found a way to make it work with what I had in my bag.
Third issue is internet connectivity. Kind of a biggie for me so I can check my work email and not get too far behind on stuff. I used the network cable that was in my room, followed the instructions to connect and kept getting 404 on all my attempts to connect to the web. Did some of my own troubleshooting and decided it's not me it's them. I called the support # listed and received a response, "I can only hear my own voice when I speak. Hallo? Goodbye. Click." This happened twice. I gave up and tried an hour later. This time the guy went through all the same stuff I had tried and then referred me to the front desk because the problem was "clearly" an issue with the room and not their internet connection. I didn't buy it.
I ended up checking to see if there is any wi-fi around and picked up a fairly strong signal.. I connected and found that I had to login and pay (all instructions are in Spanish). I managed to kind of fumble my way through it (too bad I couldn't connect to Babelfish!) and then got a part where it wanted a credit card...but no Amex! Aarrgh!
I called the front desk and the guy told me to come get a wireless card. I told him I don't need a wireless card...and he said I did. No, I don't. Yes, you do. I went down and got the wireless card.
Turns out is wasn't a wireless card at all but rather a very nice paper card that I had to pay 12 Euro for. I took it back to my room, tried logging on, came to a part in the login where I could enter a PIN and proceeded to enter the pin number on the card (which was an unually long number for a pin). My pin was rejected about 12 times until I eventually gave up and called the wi-fi support number, chose the option for English and then had some automated reponse tell me something in Spanish before disconnecting me. This happened 3 times mostly because I was trying to figure out what the message was trying to tell me. The fourth time I called I chose the Spanish option, talked to a nice lady who spoke a little English. She helped me learn that I am special. I needed to tear the perforation and open the card to see the correct PIN inside. That fixed it and ouila (or however you say that in Spanish) I am on the www.
So far the most polite person in my hotel experience has been the wi-fi help desk and the room service ordering person. Both of them were great. Everyone else...FAIL.
Today's been so much fun I can't wait until tomorrow.