Spain was pretty tense when I was there. (Year long tour). The cops (La Guardia Civil), carried sub machine guns. For the Spaniards it was guilty until proven innocent. They left us alone though.
Apparently a Spaniard had to have $5 00 USD to be able to leave Spain, so they let us sell USD to the black market.

There were two Spanish banks, that would get American money twice a month to cash our paychecks. Then we would sell it for Spanish money.

/e It wasn't really smart to be walking around with a pocket full of USD anyway. (1978-1979)

/ee Got the biggest lobster tail I ever had, there. 2.2 kilogram.

This post was edited by Ghot on Nov 14 2019 05:33pm

The Mighty Greenback. I was also there pre-euro. You could get stuck with some pretty "fuck you" exchange rates if you were stuck somewhere with only USD. Figuring out when to buy money was always so mystifying, because it was constantly fluctuating relative to all the other currencies in value. There were like 15 currencies in circulation lol.

This post was edited by Skinned on Nov 14 2019 05:34pm

The exchange rate when I was there was awesome, but we would get twice that much... black market. AND it was helping a lot of Spaniards at the same time.

/e To give an ideas of the exchange rate... I bought a POS car for $12 USD. Had to weld a 1/4" steel plate in the front driver side floor (it was rusted completely through), and weld the drivers seat to it...but it ran great. Some kind of tiny FIAT (looked kinda like a mini Cooper). Iirc, $12 USD was = to 852 pesetas (official exchange rate, we could get twice that). (a pesata was a Spanish dollar at the time).

/ee A Spaniard in the Army, for example got .35 pesetas a day, and that's what a pack of Spanish ciggs cost). That was another thing to. We could buy American ciggs on base (red tobacco). The ciggs in Spain were this horrible black tobacco that tasted like tobacco roots or some shyt. So we, could also sell American ciggs for way more than we paid for them.


Estartit, Spain is in the northeast of Spain... on the Spanish Riviera. The town had a population of 500 in the winter (which really didn't exist) and 500K in the summer. It was the poor Europeans Florida. We would get waves of babes on the beaches. Like one week it'd be French, then maybe German, then English etc.

This post was edited by Ghot on Nov 14 2019 05:54pm

you sound just like biden telling his 'corn pop' story.

so let me get that straight, you three were so drunk (in an amphibious car i assume, since mallorca is an island), that you didn't know north from south, and ended up in france (of course no one at the border crossing noticed), where you got so triggered over a t-shirt that you fought 15 french guys in a bar (beating them of course, i bet you alone took out at least a dozen, right?)...

if not for your insane political views, you'd make an adorable mascot for pard. the confused and lonely geezer, who keeps telling obviously made up stories about his life...

Well not that you deserve an explanation, but I've always helped the less fortunate so...

Yes, we knew Majorca was an island we had reservations on a charter. Wasn't a lot of street signs or highway markers at the time, we were 18-19 years old, and yes we messed up.
But being young, we didn't let that bother us. Yes we knew we'd hit France when they asked for passports. At that time all we needed was military ID though.
So we decided to check out the french Riviera. the rest is history.

Goth hate France

you were so drunk that you didn't notice the fucking pyrenees you were driving towards, and only realised when they asked you for your passports in the middle of the mountains?! and from there you made it all the way to the french riviera, which is the east of france's mediterranean coastline and at least a 500km from where you were stationed?! this story is getting more absurd the more 'detail' you add...

Look Gumby, our base was on a 600ft. plateau, we were already in the foothills. In 1978 we called the French coast the Riviera. I was 18-19 genius. It's not like I was a jet setter.
Also got to see Salvador Dali's house, somewhere near Cadaques.

You need to get a clue bro. I mean how the hell would I even know about Estartit Spain. It's like a tiny town.

I guess I could just photograph a copy of my orders to Estartit, Spain, but honestly you ain't worth the time.

so now you're telling me that you couldn't distinguish a singular 600 ft hill on the costa brava from a massive, 10,000 ft mountain range marking the spanish - french border? this is getting wild. you might have been young, and most definitely dumb, but there's only so much that can 'excuse'...

Just noticed. You're posting in the wrong topic. Notice the title. :/


Here ya go, doofus...
We left Estartit (lower right), going pretty much westerly. Hit the highway which looks like it's now called C-31, and somehow ended up traveling north-easterly, and finally arrived at Cadaques...so we decided to check out Salvador Dali's house, which we did, got told had to be in a tour group and thrown out. Took off from there going northerly, up the coast to France.

Funny thing about mouintains...they get smaller on the coastline... duh. Then we followed the coast up into France, and around the Med., a ways.

We were young, pretty well lit by then, so decided, what the hell... keep going. In 1978 a military ID was good for anywhere except bloc countries. We had passports, but not with us, cause they were at the base.
Whether or not you believe this, is not my dept.

We had fun, which was the whole point of the excursion. Btw, Cadaques was a really cool little town. the streets were all mosaic tile, and really skinny.

France was way over priced, at least what we saw of it. After the bar fight we decided to head back south.











Also, found a pic of the base, which doesn't exist as a base anymore, since LORAN C gave over to GPS.











I guess you'll just have to deal with the fact that I've had an interesting life. Next week we'll do Attu, Alaska, the last Aleutian Island where I was before Estartit, Spain.

This post was edited by Ghot on Nov 14 2019 08:51pm