We made it in to Barcelona this morning at about 10 a.m. Spanish time, our flight was about 40 min. late. Unforunately, we didn’t get much sleep on the plane last night and though it was the middle of the night Austin time it was morning time when we arrived. We took the Metro to our hotel’s closest stop (this was easy, peasy – I feel like a metro expert!) but then walked aimlessly for at least 30 minutes, hauling all of our luggage on cobblestone streets.
The first native person to try to communicate with us asked us where our umbrella was in Catillion – it took her several hand gestures to finally get it across to us. This says so much about how everyone has been so far: super friendly, helpful, hospitable – kinda like us Texans used to be, you know?
Tons of people offered help but it was finally the balding, pudgy 50ish ambulance driver sitting in his truck casually smoking a cigarette that looked on a map for our hotels exact street number and pointed out the fact that we had twice walked in the right direction…only half a block not far enough!
When we got here, finally, the front desk guy was nice and spoke good English (though my Spanish has improved ten fold in as many hours and I am once again conversing in actual sentenances – yea me!) Our room is tiny but clean and held an unexpected delight – a bidee! We have yet to figure it out and even took some video of it in case our friends back home didn’t believe us.
We spent the afternoon wandering the nearby streets, having tapas on an outside patio and getting our first glance at the majestic and awe inspiring Sagrada Familia. The lines, or as the Europeans say “queues,” were quite long and so C suggested we get up early and be the first there tomorrow to see the inside and we think you can even go all the way up!
After a visit to the Starbucks by the Sagrada Familia in a failed attempt to trick our internal clocks we headed back to the hotel for much needed nap time for Mr C and picture upload for me. Now we’re off to explore the night life, the dinner offerings and whatever else we may happen upon!
Will post more soon – miss and love you all MUCHOS!
