Barcelona, Sort of

 The next day, we were up and bright and early for our secret food tour in Barcelona. Now, had some issues from the get go. The first one was it said the time of the tour was 30 minutes after the boat docks. Well, the boat docked at 5 am and I was pretty sure that 5:30 wasn’t going to be the start time. This doesn’t, of course, help us know what the start time is and this was another American Airlines excursion so there wasn’t anyone to ask. So, we did what anyone would do which is guess that it was probably 9:30. We picked this because a) usually the boat docks around 7 so it wouldn’t be before then. And b) nothing in Spain opens before 9. So. There you have it.

That said, we walked off the boat at whatever time. Somehow, we seemed unconcerned at this point. We decided to walk out off the pier after consulting a map that estimated the walking time to be about 18 minutes. Well, about an hour later we made it out of the port after having to turn around and backtrack when some kind soul let us know you couldn’t actually get out that way. Cool. We were over 10,000 steps by the time we walked on a sort of pedestrian friendly bridge over the ocean. In the rain. W00t!

Now, we fell into our second problem which was the directions that AA listed for how to find the tour meeting spot. We were fresh off the subpar directions in Mallorca, so we tried to be smart. Again. But still, no google. It’s amazing how helpful looking at actual directions is! Ha!

So, we followed the directions for another hour, which is to say nothing in our directions matched what was on the paper so we just made it up and kept walking. That was pretty great. We saw all kinds of things- beautiful architecture, yachts, the city, people out walking, dogs…and also quite inexplicably, an enormous statue of a prawn. No joke, that weird thing must have been 20 feet in the air. We saw it coming for like…the entire sail across the Atlantic. I kept saying, “What could that possibly be?” At times it looked like the brown Gumby. Other times it looked like a skinny Chewbacca. Imagine my surprise at it being a large shrimp.

Anyway, after clearing that up, we crossed the street and continued to get nowhere, and not even fast. Finally, we decided to hop in a cab. So, we go over to one and I show him our stupid instructions and he says, “no.” This is an unwanted theme in my life really. My inability to have a cab take me places. So, we converse in broken Spanish. Well, I did. His was quite good. He said it was close. I said how close - how much walking time? He said 5 minutes- to the derecho. I slapped him in the arm and gasped, “No!” He said, “yes!” And then I got out of the cab. 

So, we walked about 5 minutes to the derecho (the right) and found ourselves back with the damn Shrimp who was clearly mocking us with his stupid face. Jason sat down to see if there was any free city WiFi…if so, we could use google maps to try to get somewhere. And, viola! We were only a few blocks away, by a sheer miracle. So, we busted a move over to the Placa de Angel, which sounds like a heavenly garden, but was actually a very busy city corner with a subway stop.

Thus began problem 3 which was mostly that we were now in the right spot but we didn’t know if the tour had already left. And there was no way to know. So we did what one does in such a situation. We stood around. We looked this way. Then that way. We discussed this issue which in no way resolved anything. We realized it was now 11:30, which is neither 5:30 nor 9:30. Jason tried to call the number on the ticket. Nothing happened. So, we finally just meandered away in a slightly dejected, slightly confused, sort of way. That lasted about 3 minutes and then we were revived by the thought that we can still eat and drink in Barcelona all day! And maybe get a refund on the busted tour. 

Barcelona is such a fun city! There is all the architecture. The little alleys. The side streets bursting with tiny little cafes, tapas restaurants, bars, shops, hair salons…everything! We just got lost an meandered up and down, around and through. We were starting to get pretty hungry…now up to 20,000 steps. So, my internal compass that has never presented itself before that moment fired up and I said let’s go over here to Las Ramblas, the big main drag through town, and sit and eat and drink and people watch. Then, we’d know how to find the ship again when we were done. 

So, we did! Now, it was slightly drizzling all day and everyone was smoking like a house on fire so we ended up sitting inside a place rather than on the patio outside. We were the only people inside and we could see outside to the dreamy, raining, busy street scenes which looked exactly like every painting of such a thing you’ve ever seen.

We got a tapas platter to share, a great bottle of wine, and he brought us tomato bread and garlic bread. Neither was what we expected. Both were delicious. Our breath on the other hand- not delicious. 

Once done, we started the very long walk back to the boat which was thankfully right where we left it 28,000 steps ago. 

Back on ship, we decided to do dinner in the dining room. We almost always do this. However, part of the crew turned over that day in Barcelona (in addition to 1500 people disembarking). And, let’s say the new crew weren’t quite in sync yet. Dinner is usually a well oiled machine. That night, it took 2 hours. I was about to have to tape my eyeballs open. We were so tired after that, we couldn’t even get a night cap! Well, that’s only sort of true. Ok, that’s not true at all. What is true is that we didn’t hang out in Vines. We just grabbed a bottle from our man James and went to the room. 

We are glad we get 4 days in Barcelona on the way back. There is much to see and explore and we will have a hotel and- maybe- access to google maps then!

Oh- btw- we saw Kelly and Helaine on the street in Barcelona! We weren’t robbed or squirted with mustard or thrown a baby by the damned Chilean pickpockets, but it was comforting to see them on the streets just in case.