I’m so sorry I didn’t post yesterday. It was a long one!
The flight from Newark to Barcelona was uneventful. Right as I was getting ready to board the plane, they paged me to come to the desk. I’m thinking “oh crap, what now???“
Ended up being the Manager of the United Club wanted to make sure all of my needs were met and once again apologize for Thursday. I assured him that I REALLY enjoyed the club and appreciated their efforts. Still think they should have upgraded me...anyway....
Watched the entire second season of “Big Little Lies” and didn’t sleep one minute on the plane. Everyone around me was sound asleep. Why can’t I ever sleep on a plane???
Landed in Barcelona shortly before 9:00 and made my way through immigration and then baggage claim. It took almost an hour to get my bags (go figure) but I quickly found my ride and off to the hotel I headed!!!
When I arrived at the hotel and explained I was already checked in and just needed a key to the room, the bellboy, Jose, exclaimed “YOU PATSY DAUGHTER!!!” He then ran off to find my mom (she was having her morning coffee in the hotel bar). And finally, we were reunited and it felt soooooo good!!!!
After dropping my bags in the room we were OFF! We headed just a few blocks from the hotel to pick up the “Hop on Hop off” (HoHo) bus. Sangrada Familia or bust!!! Our ticket time was for 9:45 AM, so I wasn’t sure if they’d let us in...
Thankfully, the tour Gods are SO much nicer than the travel Gods! They didn’t blink an eye and before we knew it, we were inside the cathedral with 4.7 million of our closest friends.
Seriously, as my sweet mamma would say, it was asshole to elbow inside the church!
The church is unlike any I’ve ever seen in Europe. It’s down right spectacular!
We braved the crowds as long as we could stand it and headed back to the HoHo bus. That would be the last time we would “Hop off”, instead electing to just enjoy the remainder of the route.
1.5 hours later, we were back where we started and headed straight to the hotel. We weren’t even hungry, and if I didn’t get a nap I was convinced I would die!
I slept like the dead for 2 hours and then we cleaned up and headed to the hotel bar for a pre-dinner drink. Super cute bar with super great prices.
We’d been hearing for weeks about the political demonstrations, some violent, that had been occurring in Barcelona. For a moment, I really thought that our planned dinner with others from our cruise was not going to happen. When I asked at the front desk if this was a political demonstration the woman said “Yes, for Bolivia.”
There you have it...
We finished our cocktails (met two others in the bar from our ship) and headed out for the 5 minute walk to the restaurant. There we approximately 30 of us who met for dinner. We had an awesome time. Cruisers are such GREAT people! We enjoyed excellent food and wine and even better company!
We stopped on our way back to the hotel for a couple of bottles of wine to take with us on the ship. I took a nice, long, relaxing bath in the jacuzzi tub before finally calling it a night. Had I written anything last night, it wouldn’t have made any sense!
I was up by 7:15 this morning feeling fresh and EXCITED!!! After all, it’s CRUISE DAY!!!!
More to come later...thanks for coming along!
