Barcelona and Transatlantic Cruise 2008 – Day 3 – Barcelona
November 29, 2008
Day two of our 2008 family vacation finds us still in Barcelona. After a forced long day and lots of walking yesterday, we found ourselves in excellent condition today feeling no jet lag effects.
I awoke about 8:30 and went on a little walk to see if I could find a local store open to get some olive oil or butter. The night before, we had bought some eggs, potatoes, veggies and ham/bacon and I planned to cook a nice breakfast. However, I didn’t want everything to stick to the pans. There was only a few bakeries open despite the late morning for us Americans. In fact, the streets were pretty much deserted save for a few parents starting their kids towards school. It’s definitely a different culture.
Failing to find a place to get butter or oil, I went back and cooked the breakfast anyways. It came out very good and just added to the fun we are having here. After breakfast we all took turns and showered prepping for another fun filled day.
We decided to spend the morning relaxing around the apartment until after lunch. Savannah and Suzanne also decided to do a bit of girl shopping. Savannah bought a pair of genuine Spanish walking boots. Meanwhile, Sean and I relaxed in the apartment and enjoyed a movie. We all grabbed lunch at a local eatery about 2:00 pm. We ate at a local restaurant enjoying one of the Menu del Dia. Basically, it’s a fixed price menu with several choices of starters and main courses, plus a glass of wine. The meal was enjoyable but not quite as good as the very memorable dinner last night.
After lunch we headed out for another days walking and touristy things. First stop was the Sagrada Familia. It’s a huge church in Barcelona that is still under construction. It’s been under construction since the late 1800’s and has another 50 – 100 years planned in its construction. The church is/was the brainstorm of Antonio Gaudi. Despite the construction, the completed parts of the church were pretty amazing.
After walking around the ground floor, we took an elevator up about 20+ stories to areas where you could look out over the town or down into the inside of the church. You were also able to look at various parts of the exterior of the giant church.
Upon finishing our tour up on top, we took the stairs down. That was something I hadn’t experienced before and may have a hard time explaining. The stairwell down was a very narrow, tight circular stairwell. However, the handrail of the stairwell was on the outside on the wall. There was no handrail, wall or anything on the inside. Parts of the stairwell were also fairly dark and hard to see the steps. It all made for a strange descent – not one were you were necessarily afraid, but just a hard to explain feeling as you looked downward in the center of the stairwell.
Afterwards, we head downtown again and walked along the Passeig de Gracia, kind of the Rodeo Drive of Barcelona. The shops were pretty amazing and there were many other very odd architectural designs of Gaudi – one resembling a dragon slain with a sword. It was around 7:00 pm and the streets were bustling as if it was lunch time in a big city in the US.
As we turned for home, we stopped and enjoyed dinner in a nice pizzeria. Again, we had a wonderful dinner and great company with the employees of the restaurant. Along the way home, we stopped at a local bakery and grabbed some breakfast rolls and cakes for the morning.
We returned to the apartment about 9:00 pm, opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed another movie as we plotted our plans for the next day Friday, our last full day in Barcelona before boarding the Celebrity Summit on Saturday.
Barcelona and Transatlantic Cruise 2008 – Day 1 – Air Time
November 29, 2008
Today, our family vacation of 2008 began. This year, we are taking a Transatlantic Cruise from Barcelona, Spain to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Prior to the cruise, we would be spending almost 4 days in Barcelona. But first, we had to get from Tucson to Barcelona.
It’s kind of sad, but our airfare, from Tucson to Barcelona, and then from San Juan back to Tucson cost almost as much as the cruise itself. I much prefer flying American Airlines more than any other airline, but for this itinerary the tickets would have been almost twice as much as on Continental Airlines whom we ended up getting our tickets with.
Continental also had an extra route than if we had gotten tickets with American. Our first leg was from Tucson to Houston. The plane left on time and arrived on time which is good. The plane was one of the little regional jets so not the most spacious, but I will take uneventful over spacious any time.
The second leg, from Houston to Newark also left on time and was uneventful. The equipment was a 757-200 which is not my favorite equipment as it exemplifies the cattle car concept packing in the coach fares in to the back in a 3×3 arrangement. And it’s where I miss American as they have significantly better leg room than any other airline that I have flown on.
The one nice feature is the in-seat entertainment center on each seat back so we were able to kill the time of the 3 hour flight watching movies and playing games. Kudos to Continental for making that system free of charge to passengers. The service was friendly at best. I don’t think I have seen a cart move that fast down an aisle as they gave folks their snack lunch and beverages. It was very production line. Again, uneventful flight so we arrived in Newark happy.
Our final leg to Barcelona was about a 7 and half hours. The equipment was once again a 757-200 and it was my first overseas flight in coach in something like 12 years. I travel occasionally overseas on business but I am lucky enough that my company pays for business class travel overseas. I really missed it on this flight.
The seats were much less comfortable and a glass of wine with dinner cost money. And speaking of dinner, the fast, efficient production line carts were at it again. Dinner choices were chicken or beef, no more details. I really missed the nice meals of business class – yes, spoiled.
Savannah did a good job of sleeping getting maybe 5 hours. She was the only one who really slept. The rest of us got maybe a couple of hours. The seats were again very compact and this was probably the bumpiest flight I have been on. We were constantly moving around in the turbulence. Many times and for extended durations, it was quite excessive. Still, it was nice to arrive on schedule in Barcelona about 9 am despite leaving Newark almost 45 minutes late.
Our vacation is underway…
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