This one time, I went to Europe! (Now you're screwed!) Let the slide show begin.
I wrote the beginning of this post just before I went to bed last night and then shut the computer down. I honestly believed that when I woke up this morning, I'd have a better topic to present you with this morning or I would at least have made a decision about how to present this one. I'm still fairly clueless at this point. The one thing you had to know even before you finished reading that last sentence from last night was that I wouldn't just put a slide show on my blog with no explanations or witty and clever little comments concerning the photos. I'm not wired that way. (And yes, to answer your question, I DO believe that I am sometimes witty and clever - deal with it.)
So, I think I have decided to break the Europe trip into several sections. I'll see if I can get all the way through the entire trip before flitting off on another topic. The issue I am faced with is that we were gone for nearly two weeks and it involved a cruise along with several days of land based vacation. So, there is just a lot to cover and I won't let anybody look at my pictures without either listening to me drone on about the subject or at least putting forth some copy for you to presumably read as you scroll through them. So this time, really, here it goes...
The trip to Europe began with a flight to Barcelona via Amsterdam. I've mentioned before that this trip was the first one in which my travel buddy Jenny and I traveled together. What happened was, I found this Mediterranean cruise on line and wanted to go but knew it was too big to do alone. So, I started looking around for someone to go with me. Jenny took the bait and the rest is history. This trip took place in November of 2008 so as you go through the photos, if you notice anything that looks or seems out of place, it could be that things have changed since the photos were taken. If you notice any indiscrepancies in my copy, it could be that I am getting old and they always say that the memory is the first thing to go.
So, the flight and hotel in Barcelona had been booked through Hotels.com and between the time we booked and when we were supposed to leave, our flight got changed adding one more day to our trip. So we ended up leaving Dallas on Monday, arriving in Barcelona on Tuesday after spending several hours in the airport in Amsterdam. The cruise was scheduled to begin on Saturday. In case you were wondering, this is what Jenny and I looked like four and a half years ago. These pictures were taken at DFW before numerous hours
We boarded our KLM flight and were pleasantly
surprised to find out that there were very few people heading to Amsterdam that afternoon. Once the flight was in the air, everybody was able to get up and move to individual rows so that you could lift the armrests and lay across your own row of seats to sleep during the flight. Even with that, I didn't get much sleep. But it was still really nice to be able to lay down and relax. We had dinner and breakfast during that flight and bright and early Tuesday morning we landed in Amsterdam. After going through customs we made our way to our next gate and sat for a few hours listening to a recording of a woman's voice with a British accent warning people on the moving sidewalk to "Mind Your Step" as they exited the moving sidewalk which ended at our location. The photo above was our view through the window as we waited for our flight. Basically, as far as I know based on my own experience, Amsterdam is nothing more than a modern looking airport with a recording of a British woman's voice coming through speakers. Although, I have heard that there is much more to it than that.Our next flight which took us from Amsterdam to Barcelona had no empty seats. So, naturally this was when exhaustion finally caught up with me and I was able to go to sleep. It worked out well. I got a little power nap before arriving in Barcelona and discovering that my luggage hadn't. We immediately filed a claim and then took a cab from the airport to our hotel which was located in the heart of Barcelona in the Gothic Quarter. At the airport I began to worry about our hotel when I told the gentleman in lost baggage where we were staying and he didn't seem to recognize the name of the hotel. Apparently, he just didn't understand my Texas twang when I said Hotel Regencia Colon. (I thought I said it very well with quite the Spanish flair.) Arriving at the hotel we met Victor at the front desk who will always hold a place in our hearts. He immediately got on the phone and started making phone calls to see if he could find anything out about the lost luggage. Later in the evening one piece of lost luggage had been delivered to the hotel. The other missing piece was delivered to my home several weeks after my return minus everything of value that had been packed in it.
The hotel was located just behind a larger sister hotel which apparently was more famous and had a higher price tag to go with the fame. But our hotel was perfect for us. The room key was a big metal key, which is something you don't see much anymore and when you left the hotel, you left your key at the front desk, usually with Victor who handed it back to you when you returned. After unpacking the luggage that had managed to make the trip with us, we headed out to explore some of the city. The Gothic Cathedral or Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia was directly across from our hotel, but we didn't go in to see it for several days. We had Hop On Hop Off Bus tickets for Wednesday and Thursday so we decided to hold off on the things right around the hotel until after that.
The picture to the right is the view from our hotel room window. If you could see around the corner of the building on the right, you would be able to see the Gothic Cathedral. This picture was taken on Wednesday morning. But I just wanted you to see what it looked like in the daylight. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening after unpacking we left the hotel and walked all around the area just to get our bearings and to see if we could find a good place to eat. We couldn't decide on a place to eat so we wound up just going into a restaurant kind of close to our hotel that had a fixed price menu posted out front. For 15 euros each, we got an appetizer, entre, dessert and a bottle of wine to share. The food was outstanding and the waiter was great. Beyond that we walked down Las Ramblas and around Cathedral Square.
The photo above was taken outside of the Gothic Cathedral as we walked around on the first evening. Tomorrow, I will cover the first full day in Barcelona. I promise that tomorrow's photo to word ratio will be much more heavily weighted to photos. In the meantime, have a good Wednesday. Don't forget that Survivor starts up tonight!!!!! Talk about your tropical islands....
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