Hi From Barcelona:
Have you missed us? I guess we’ve been too busy doing nothing to report on our happenings. We are in Barcelona on Trip #3 of our four trips that coincide with two-week school vacations. This trip was planned around going to a FC Barcelona football game, which is this coming Sunday at 9:00 pm --- that is the correct time, 9:00 pm.
Our last trip travel log was organized by days. It worked so well, we’re taking a different approach this time. Since we’re spending 7-days in Barcelona, 3-days in San Sebastian and 2-days in Toulouse, let’s just organize things by location.
Wow! We spent all of yesterday (Tuesday, Feb. 25) getting a broad look at part of Barcelona, and all we can say is wow. We’ve always heard what a great and beautiful place Barcelona is. Well, Barcelona is an absolutely beautiful city. Vibrant, great mix of old and new. Words can’t describe it. We’re looking forward to our days ahead.
Backing up, we left Aix-en Provence Monday morning (Feb 24) for a 4 hour 50 minute drive. It’s all big-time freeway, so it should be easy. However, we ran into a pair of large traffic accidents and on each occasion spent 90-minutes crawling along the highway. So, what we figured to be a 6-1/2 journey with stops, became an 8-hour trip.
That was preceded by discovering 48-hours prior to departure that we did not have a place to stay in Barcelona. Back in January we rented a very nice apartment from a woman through Vacation Rental By Owner (VRBO). We communicated by e-mail for a few days, then we confirmed, I got the wire transfer information, wired her approximately $2,500 and continued to communicate via the same e-mail address in her name. Within one week of departure, the communication became one-sided. I went to VRBO security, they called the woman (I did not have her phone number) and we had a three-way conversation. We all discovered her e-mail had been hacked and after the first couple of e-mails I was communicating with a criminal. So, we did not have the apartment, someone has our $2,500 and the woman is a victim of identity theft. I now have a stack of paperwork to initiate, with the best hope being I can receive a $1,000 refund from VRBO’s insurance.
This created a very hectic situation for 48-hours preceding our departure. I hurriedly tried to find a place to stay, only to discover from each and every rental agent that Barcelona was hosting the World Congress this week and there was nothing to rent and the hotels were full. After plenty of scrambling, I was able to rent an apartment in a perfect location. The apartment is disappointing (our standards and experiences are too high), but it’s working. Barcelona is such a big place, that getting to a reasonable understanding of the various areas and where to rent while sitting in France is a tall order. After one day of getting around Barcelona, I could much better find a rental unit. But, you can’t have experience until you have the experience (is that as simple and reasonable as it sounds?).
Anyway, I’m setting you up to tell you that in completing the final organizing to leave on Monday morning (which included dropping off the dog at a remote location, finding a game store for Keaka to purchase something he shouldn’t have waited to last the minute to purchase, etc.) I forgot the football tickets. I had ordered on-line, printed the tickets last October 5th, and stupidly kept them in a safe position on my desk, but did not make the transition to the brief case during the hectic last 48 hours. How about that for excuses for doing something dumb? Anyway, much time was spent yesterday and this morning (Wednesday) working to figure out how to print the tickets again. There is no way to reprint the tickets. Minutes ago I was finally able to complete reasonable communication with FC Barcelona (the football/soccer team) to come up with a way to go to their office this Sunday prior to the match with the purchasing credit card, my passport and possibly my right arm as barter, and be able to get a set of tickets. I’m now an expert on how the security works when purchasing tickets on line and then screwing up a simple process.
So, we’re in the apartment in Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter—the old medieval town) and beginning to roll a bit. Yesterday, between trying to get the tv in the apartment to work (that still hasn’t happened) and trying to figure how to handle the ticket situation, we got on one of those double-decker buses and toured a good portion of the city. That’s not our style, but it worked out really, really well, getting an overview of things. And, we were awestruck by the beauty, the excitement, and the cleanliness of the city. We’ve thought France to be on the dirty side, and that was really enforced by how extremely clean and organized Barcelona is. We’re so use to folks parking their cars over curbs, on sidewalks and anywhere they want to, the organization of how people live here was stark.
Going to the photos, our apartment is around the corner from the road that Sophia is standing on in one photo. From there Sophia took a series of photos from the top deck, front row of the tour bus. The bank building is typical of how clean the buildings are, with very, very few in disrepair. In France (including Paris and Marseille) it’s easy to see many dirty buildings and structures with long overlooked shutters, etc. The tour took us to Sagrada Familia (a couple of photos), a cathedral still being built. It was designed by Anton Gaudi, who seemingly designed every unusual structure in Barcelona. Having failed to take History of Art at Michigan, I had not heard of the famous Mr. Gaudi until yesterday. So, you and I can look him up. Modernism seemed to be the working word yesterday, which probably calls for another “look it up” to really grasp what we’re talking about. And, Marlene and I went to the best hamburger restaurant in Barcelona last night and saw the beautiful fountain that you see in the photo. By the way, experienced as we are, we ordered one hamburger. For us, it was not good, but we managed to eat it. We can’t believe the great reviews, plus a strong personal review. It’s the beef and U.S. beef just has a completely different texture and taste than European beef. I thought it better than France, but I don’t need anymore European beef. I believe I’ve said that before. The hamburger experience meant meandering around the old town towards home, which included a stop at a tapas restaurant. We delved into sangria, which made me realize I had not had sangria for forty years, almost to the day. I remember the experience because I ended up walking (weaving) down the middle of St. Charles street in downtown Baltimore somewhere around 2 am. Anyway, I should have been drinking sangria all along – pretty good. The tough part of the stop at the tapas restaurant was realizing I had experienced the night of sangria in Baltimore 40 – that is 40 – years ago. How could I have been old enough to drink sangria? That all leads to more story, which comes later.
The Wilsons
