Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Monday + {Day Fourteen: Barcelona}


Our taxi didn’t show up again, but this time, it was not because it was a no-show, but because it was lost. Luckily, they called us (Shannon’s phone works over here) and we connected almost immediately. The taxi took us to a shuttle pick-up site, where we caught a shuttle to the airport to catch our flight.

After our last fiasco with Ryanair, we made sure we were at the airport as early as possible, which was good, because we were originally in the wrong terminal. But, as the correct one was just next door, we scurried over.

This time we got a stamp on our passports and checked our bags (not sure what happened re: our last Ryanair trip, but I think we were confused about whether the bag we paid for was our carry-on or our checked ones). Our flight was great—I slept through the whole thing—and when we touched down at Barcelona, faced with the prospect of figuring out how to get to our apparently really confusingly located place) we decided to just pool in for a taxi.

The taxi dropped us off and we texted our host that we had arrived. Only for him to text us back when he arrived at the apartment to tell us that he didn’t see us.

Apparently the taxi had dropped us off on the wrong side of the city. As it turned out, the driver hadn’t even read the street name right. We had to stop by a little bar/restaurant and ask for their help. They were very kind and helped us find a taxi. This time the taxi driver used GPS, thank god, and we were dropped off at the right place. As with the last place, this place is also an entire rented flat, as opposed to rooms in a flat or a house. After our host gave us our keys, he left.

Our first order of business was finding lunch, since we hadn’t eaten since four in the morning. Luckily there is a delicious tapas place across the street from us. We ordered a picture of sangria and about seven plates. The food was unbelievably good. We are definitely planning on going back at least once more.



Then we filed back across the street and up the narrow staircase to our apartment, where we immediately crashed on our beds, eagerly embracing the concept of siesta. Two hours later, we were up again, and ready for the beach!



We walked there, stopping to buy a coke and a pastry. The beach here is perfect. It is sandy and huge and there was plenty of space to plop down and soak up the sun. I brought along the Michael Chabon book I've been toting everywhere. My next packet is due in a couple of days. Either today or tomorrow I am going to work on getting all my files collected.

Since we got such a late start at the beach we only stayed for maybe an hour or so until the sun went down beneath the buildings and the wind plus the shade was a little too chilly. Then we headed back home to shower.

As we quickly found out, the shower doesn’t really work that well. The shower head holder is broken, so Shannon tried to shower by holding it, but the way the bathroom is set up, and because the shower head itself is also broken, water spewed everywhere.

Our host sent someone to bring us rags to mop it up, and tomorrow someone is supposed to come by to fix the shower head so it doesn’t leak everywhere. But until then we're going to covered in sand and filth. Just kidding. We're relatively clean. It'd just be nice to shower after a day of traveling/hanging out at the beach.

Since we were getting pretty hungry by now, we headed out to find some food. We ended up at this decent restaurant, where three of the four of us got burgers. I don't know about anyone else, but with all the walking and stair-climbing and standing we've been doing, I really crave meat and we rarely order anything with too much meat in it because it's usually pretty expensive.

After dinner, we headed home. Walking through the streets of Barcelona at night is so nice. The weather is t-shirt perfect, even at ten. It's hard to shake the mental attitude that I need to bring a coat "just in case." But since everything is within walking distance, even if we need to run home to grab something, it's not a big deal.

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