Day 26 – to Barcelona
Jun 22 – going 249km/h
- We went to breakfast later, the chaos was a lot less. It was not decent, but no one elbowed me.
- We had a late checkout, so we hung out in our room and took our time packing between image edits, writing, and organizing video files. I won’t need wifi to build a video, so I’ll do that work on the train if we have tables. Our train types have all been different, so we don’t know what to expect.
- Uber driver arrived near, but not at our hotel. At the bottom of some stairs. On a dead end. He didn’t understand his backup camera, so he took a 32-point turn to get out.
- During the drive, we heard some fireworks. As we pulled up, they were much louder and more frequent. When we got out of the car, they were deafening. He loved it; I hated it and stopped to find my noise-cancelling earbuds. Apparently, it was the 2pm celebration of something about Corpus Christi (eventhough that holiday was a few days ago when we were in Madrid.)
- Despite massive construction (of course), we managed to find seats in the station. That’s when I realized that somewhere at the aquarium, the mall, or along the way, I lost my fan. Of course, I didn’t go look for one. And then as we lined up for the train, I saw them for sale in one of the little shops.
- As we all settled in for the train ride, two older women found their seats in front of ours. He helped them stow their bags, so one of the ladies offered us some marzipan candies. They were very cute. Later, as we all got closer to our destination, one of them touched up her makeup. We made eye contact through her mirror so I smiled and asked, “por su novio?” She just laughed and motioned to her friend and said it was her novio. I just said “ooh la la!” in a tone that implied a threesome, and we all had a laugh. He helped them by getting their luggage down from the rack for deboarding. It was a super-sweet moment.
- Our train was nice, but teased us with wifi. At the station, there was none. On the platform, we used our ticket numbers to log in. We were so happy. And then the train pulled away and that was the end of that. Luckily, I prepared for this and brought something I could do without wifi! It’s way too hot to knit or crochet (and I don’t really have the spare room for that), but I really miss having a travel project like I used to.
- Our train was out of València in no time. We rode through some very cute places. These weren’t rural towns; they were more like rural cities complete with multi-storey housing and companies. A couple even had a castle up on the small mountain. The areas seem to support agriculture mostly olives and grapes) and ceramics (mostly tile). Among them were some modern ruins, too. One town, Castellón de la Plana, is quite a bit bigger; it has a Nissan dealership and maybe even a Burger King. And at the next town, we could see the Mediterranean, a couple of sailboats, a sailboat marina, a water park, and a small amusement park
- Our train got up to 249km/h! (We got a pic at 247km/h.)
- At check-in, we learned that our hotel had lost power earlier in the day. They were happy to show us to our room and get the AC going while they waited for the reservations system to reboot/whatever.
- Our dinner at Jamon Y Vino tapas was lovely. We didn’t pick it for their great reviews on Trip Advisor (we saw those after) but we understand why they have such a good rating.
- We then took a walk around the Sagrada Familia, a “minor” basilica. The guy who designed it died in 1926 when it was only 1/4 of the way done. It still has two years to go.
- Aside: Spain doesn’t have many bars. The place you get coffee in the morning is the same place you get beer or wine in the afternoon or evening. Most of them close by 11pm. It’s different.
- And then, right after I typed that, he found us an Irish Pub (again! LOL!) open until 2am. We watched some of the FIFA Real Madrid beating Pechuga CDMX. It was 2-0 when we left to go back to the hotel. RM won 3-1.
- Aside again: Spain (in general) has a massive gnat problem. They are everywhere.
- We bought wine at 10:05pm (Shhhh) don’t tell the Spanish Po Po! Muchas Gracias to the store owner who said it was okay.
Day 27 – Barcelona
Jun 23 – Sant Joan eve with small fireworks
- We opted to have breakfast at our hotel. It was a good spread, but kinda pricey since we had to buy our cokes separately (coffee was included).
- We then walked in a circle to a monument in the middle of an intersection with a very cool building, a big/pretty church (Parròquia de Sant Francesc de Sales), two fancy interior car wash places with odd names, and more cool buildings. We even spotted a couple of close-by restaurants we will probably like. We also admired the number of mini-mercados by us for grabbing a quick drink or snack; here, they aren’t all total junk food.
- Our room was library themed. So instead of a desk, there was a giant leather reading chair and a wooden “Hollywood” spot-light looking lamp. It’s too big for the space and too deep to be comfortable for sitting. I swear I’m going to start designing hotel rooms. It was terrible for getting any work done.
- I popped down to the lobby. I saw them cleaning the whole dining area. They were thorough about all surfaces. The bartender even sought me out to let him know if I needed anything. (And remember, they don’t work for tips, so he’s just being good at his job.) Soon he and his Rog Ally gaming system joined me for the seating and for some people watching during check in.
- And then all hell broke loose. A woman was freaking TF out: screaming running outside and back in, pounding on the door when it didn’t open quickly enough. Apparently, she thought her purse was stolen….to the point staff were calling the police and asking her to describe the man she saw. She could only describe the purse, not the man she claimed to have seen. A very smart front desk attendant had her retrace steps with him. They found it in the luggage hold; it had simply fallen off her spinner, it seemed. Why-oh-why would you give your purse to the staff to hold?? Of course it’s some cute fashionable thing with tiny handles that is completely unsuited for safe travel. She eventually calmed down; her friend (sister?) seemed frustrated–as if maybe she’s a regular drama queen–but tried to soothe her anyway.
- As soon as they left, a whole litter of kids came in with their parents, so the chaos just shifted. We crossed our fingers that they weren’t staying near us.
- Next up was a probably-retired couple who had traveled in on bicycles. They were buff/cut, crazy sweaty, and had panniers for luggage. They left their panniers with the front desk, hopped back on their bikes and were off again, but without their helmets. When they returned, it seems they had been to a supermercado. You have to really love biking to do it in this heat.
- Three kids beside us played on their LOUD phones for about 3 hours without any parental supervision at all. The mom came back with shopping bags. The. Parents. Left. Them. At. The. Hotel!
- Since I’m designing all future hotel rooms, I’ll throw phones in there, too. Let’s design them all without speakers! Ear buds or headphones only! As a species, humans have proven that we can not be trusted with speakers. I deployed high-frequency sounds, but it didn’t make the kids leave. At least I had my 10:05 wine and a lemon Fanta to make Tinto de Verano. I love that I can just drink where I want. In most (all?) of the US, this would be illegal since the hotel bar sells beer/wine/liquor.
- For dinner, we found La Taqueria. The mini-street tacos were very good and the hot sauce was on point. He says their pirate tacos are the best, but I also really liked the shrimp ones. We liked them so much that we ordered three plates.
- On either side of the basilica, there are parks, so we found a bench to watch the fireworks and fun (and sometimes funny) people.
- When he was little, they did some “dumb” things with fireworks. When I was little, I was not allowed near them. So, we both watched in some horror when a kid in stroller was handed a sparkler by the mom.
- We also saw a dad hand his kid a lit cigarette to use as a punk.
Day 28 – Barcelona
Jun 24 – Sant Joan
- We found a lovely brunch at a little cafe near our hotel, Bristol, grabbed cokes from an off-book/cash-only mini mercado, and returned to our hotel for some good old fashioned air conditioning. It feel silly to spend so much time in a hotel, but the heat just zaps all our energy. Per usual, he napped and I edited/blogged. I will say it’s very nice to have the time to stay caught up. It’s not like we aren’t having adventures.
- Papanato time! I had bacon cheese fries and an empañada. He had burger with patatas.
- I’d been missing my fan since losing it. I had looked at a couple of stores, but they were either too tiny to be useful or too big to fit in my purse, which is how I lost the last one. Today, we found Goldilocks. She’s orange, painted with pretty flowers, and makes that repeated snapping sound when she unfurls…not unlike the rolling of an rr in some Spanish words.
- And then, right after that, he found the ever elusive Dr Pepper at one of the mini mercados!
- We also picked up wine for the evening and planned our Sant Joan night to the park on the other side of the basilica. The beach parties sounded fun, but a) sand, and b) there are warnings that it’s very hard to get a taxi/Uber back out. We just didn’t feel like risking it.
- While there were only a few fireworks (that we could hear, none we could see) watching the “posers” at the basilica was fun. You could totally tell who is into the whole InstaGram thing.
- When we got back, showers and a little bit of laundry were a must.
- For laundry on the last trip, we were using a sink until we picked up a really thick plastic shopping bag somewhere. Once I started using that, it got a lot easier. So for this trip, we bought a Scrubba bag. We load the clothes/water/detergent, swish it about, let it soak for a while, and drain it. If the water looks too bad, we do that again. Then we do it again with clean water to rinse. I also brought a chamois, so to help with drying, we roll clothes up in the chamois and either wring it or stand on the roll to get as much water out as possible. Since it’s a chamois, we can then wring the water out of it before doing the next garment. Things get quite clean and dry almost completely overnight. Spain has a bunch of tiny stand-alone laundromats, so if we get tired of doing it ourselves, we can just go there. But this worked for Australia and works even better with the Scrubba for Europe. It’s totally worth not lugging a bag that has to be checked.
Day 29 – Barcelona
Jun 25 – the Nightmare
- For brunch at Pepeta by Casa Lolea, we had really good tapas of roast beef, portobello mushroom with shrimp, and smoked/breaded/fried aubergine.
- We also went to a local grocery store for some breakfast and snack items for our early morning the next day. We found a local produce market for bananas, a yellow plum, an avocado, and Cokes. The coldest ones we have found were there!
- Back at the hotel, we confirmed a future stay.
- We were in France in 2004, but we only saw Paris and Versailles. Contrary to what we were told would be the case, we had a lovely experience, even as Americans who don’t speak French. We did read some Rick Steves’ stuff before going, so we knew to greet employees with a “bonjour” upon entering. We knew “merci” and “au revoir” and “bon soir”. We had no problems being American because we were nice and followed all the social norms we knew. I’m sure it also helped that we were in a large city where nearly everyone also speaks English.
- This was different. The concierge we were supposed to confirm with only wanted to speak French. He literally hung up on us without even so much as an “au revoir”. This is 100% on them. They are the ones with a “call the concierge” policy instead of text. They could also write out the instructions they need to give us and send that with the other collateral. We are happy to translate and answer back in French; we just can’t do that verbally while on the phone. Plus, then it’s in writing, which is better for everyone. He did text us, “please send me a message” and we sent one in both English and French stating our expected arrival time. So, fingers crossed we have a place to stay in the South of France and will be able to find the concierge and get in.
- We also started to pack up a few things we were done with. I’m sad to be leaving Barcelona for a lot of reasons, but it’s a big city. We will just have to come back.
- After our siesta, we went to a “museum district” (there were 7 within a couple of blocks…and some galleries, too) to go to Museu Moco Barcelona. It’s modern stuff. They have both Keith Herring and Banksy. There was also a very cool lights/mirrors exhibit that he called “inside brain.”
- We grabbed very good pizza slices, pasta, a dessert, and Cokes at La Pizza del Born.
- Next up was NIGHTMARE Horror Museum Barcelona! While we waited for our turn, a mom and her tween kid waited for her older teen to finish it. He was hamming it up for their benefit by screaming his head off, so we teased that the staff would have to add a +2 to the “chicken” count since they got scared without even going in. While you are in it, if you ever scream NIGHTMARE, they end the scaring and escort you out the “chicken” door…and then add you to their body count to shame you. Before it starts, you are led into a dark pre-chamber to be given the instructions. The whole thing is pitch black. You have to hang on to one another so you don’t get separated. You are to follow any red dot you can see (there is only ever one), but then stand still if you can not see one. There were texture changes in the floor. And the space shape shifts during the experience. There were the usual jump scenes, grabs, sparks, chainsaw, etc.. It was very cool. The actors did a great job!
- We found another Irish bar. LOL! We had some water and a drink at Dunne’s and then hailed a cab to get back to our hotel. We had a few little things to do before our early morning train to France.
