Last night we packed our bags,
mostly with dirty clothing and attended the ritual final dinner. We said our good-byes, exchanged email
addresses and tipped our waiters and cabin attendant. As “un-Connie and John” as the cruise has been, we settled
into a comfortable routine for fourteen days.
The ship docked in Barcelona before
breakfast this morning and we soon disembarked for the final time. Our passports are stamped and we have
permission to stay in the EU for 90 days, something we will have to deal with
soon.
Not having hotel reservations or
even a clue where to stay can be an issue. Especially on a weekend with a football game – Barcelona
will be in the Champions’ League finals, the Super Bowl of soccer – and an
upcoming Formula One race. The cab
driver didn’t speak English and when I asked him for a cheap but nice hotel he
just laughed. He dropped us on La
Ramblas, a beautiful area with a good selection of hotels, most of which are
“muy caro,” very expensive. We
eventually found a ** hotel and negotiated a rate of 70 euros a night for a
week. We have to get used to
paying more in Europe than we are accustomed to. But it has free WIFI and is convenient to a much-needed
laundromat.
The internet on the ship cost
$.88/minute and was notoriously slow, so we have been out of touch since
leaving Houston. Maybe we should
have stayed out of touch. The #&%@ing buyers backed out of
the deal to buy our house at the last moment. Making things worse, we had arranged for termination
of our insurance and utilities and the lawn needs mowing. We spent our first evening in Spain
furiously sending emails followed by a pretty restless night. We were afraid something like this
might happen and we feel so helpless.
Even Fred, our realtor, (and he is earning every nickel of his
commission on this deal) told us he was uncomfortable with the couple and their
realtor. Not only don’t we have a
buyer but we lost four weeks of prime selling time and the #&%@ers skated
away scott free.
