Espana

Madrid

After leaving Morocco, my mom, cousin and I headed to Spain to meet up with my brother and his girlfriend. Our first stop was Madrid. Once again, I have to give accolades to the husband for his set of travel “rules”. Throughout the past 4-plus months, we have been using the website www.tripadvisor.com to find hotels, guesthouses, etc. For the vast majority of the time we had excellent accommodation, and only on one or two occasions were we less than thrilled. But we managed to avoid major “crapholes” by using this website. My cousin Nicole and I, thanks to Andy’s “rules”, found yet another nice hotel. Room Mate Oscar. Actually, I highly recommend checking out the range of hotels offered by this chain because we found the advertising scheme quite hilarious. Our hotel had a huge banner with the phrase Do you want to sleep with me and had neon lights and club-like music throughout.

We decided to be the ultimate tourists by purchasing tickets for the horribly embarrassing yet sensible Madrid Vision, a big, red, double-decker bus. Just like it promises, it stopped at all of the major tourist sites making navigating the city simple and easy…A bonus when traveling with people who are not great walkers. It also provided a nice overview of the city and allowed us to see parts of the city we might not normally have ventured through. The one problem is that now I have a bunch of pictures with only the tops of buildings, as that was all I could capture with my camera from the top of the bus.

The highlight of site seeing for me was visiting the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, where I became a huge fan of an artist I had previously heard of but otherwise unfamiliar with -- El Greco. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza has a large El Greco collection, and the more of his artwork I saw the more I appreciated the art. I love El Greco. I found a few pictures through Google so that you can get a sense of the artist…if you know me well, perhaps you will be able to see just why I love El Greco.

Aside from the site seeing, we did plenty of eating… We visited the highly recommended Museo de Jamon, which has a long deli and tapas bar downstairs and a no-frills restaurant upstairs.

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Granada

From Madrid, we traveled by bus to Granada where we stayed in another Room Mate (Leo) hotel. I really liked Granada. Of the three cities visited in Spain, I liked Granada the best. Perhaps it was because of the sheer amount of opportunity for shopping, but I would like to think it also had something to do with the vibe and culture of the city, let alone the presence of the Alhambra.

We only had one full day in Granada, so we spent the majority of that day visiting the Alhambra, which was truly amazing to see. The gardens were beautiful and afforded picturesque views of the city below.

Food-wise, my culinary highlights were churros & chocolate, gelato, and seafood soup. I was a pig and actually had gelato twice in one day (oh, the horror).

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Barcelona

I was really looking forward to Barcelona for two reasons: first, the husband has raved about the city for years; second, the five of us were meeting up with yet two more family members (my aunt and uncle).

Barcelona got off to a bad start. My cousin and I thought we had clearly communicated where to meet (Terminal C, since our flight landed after theirs). We were wrong…very, very wrong. We waited at Terminal C with our driver (whom we did manage to find). We decided to split up, with Nik and I driving over to Terminal A with the driver while the rest of the group held down the fort. No such luck. In fact, we were told that their flight had landed at Terminal 1, which had just opened the day before. So we picked up the rest of the group, drove 10 minutes to Terminal 1, and then literally sprinted from the parking area to the terminal (in fashionable gladiator sandals nonetheless, not running shoes). I haven’t run like that in months...many, many, months. We ran through the terminal like chickens with their heads cut off, all to no avail -- still no sight of my aunt and uncle.

You may be wondering why we didn’t just have airport staff make an announcement over the PA system…we tried, but apparently this search option does not exist at the Barcelona airport. We also attempted to contact my dad, whom we thought would be able to tell us if he had heard anything from the missing persons…except that it was about 3am PST and he didn’t hear the phone ring (oops, sorry for those calls!).

Once again, we decided to try another terminal, this time without the driver because he had another appointment to keep (so far, over an hour had passed). We broke out our walkie-talkies (proof that you never know when they will come in handy) and made plans to split up into two search parties with a home base to rendezvous at. Then we got the phone call…the phone call from a sleepy, confused, and bewildered cousin relaying a cryptic phone message from the missing aunt and uncle. Nik and I raced back once again to the now-infamous Terminal 1, where upon we split up and frantically searched the entire terminal. Luckily, this trip paid off and we found the missing persons. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding about meeting us at Terminal C…and apparently this misunderstanding resulted in said missing persons waiting in baggage claim (after customs)…as in the baggage claim area that is inaccessible to anyone who did not actually arrive by plane into Terminal 1. I had briefly thought of this possibility the first time we were searching Terminal 1 and asked my brother if he also thought that it was a possibility – he replied, “No, they wouldn’t do that. That wouldn’t make any sense.” I agreed. I guess we were wrong.

Lessons learned?

1. Have an international-capable phone -- I do, but the missing aunt and uncle do not.
2. Write all travel plans down, and remember to bring that piece of paper.
3. Actually, consider sending a written transcript of the previously agreed upon travel plans so that there is no confusion.
4. Keep a record of important phone numbers –- as in the phone number of the person(s) that is being met up with.
5. Assign an “in case of emergency” contact that will hear the phone ring and devise a plan.
6. Hover near the information desk when "lost".
   
7. Do not sit and wait inside of baggage claim, ever.

The rest of our time in Barcelona was not nearly as eventful as those first few hours of panic. We didn’t have internet access like we thought we would. We ate even more paella and tapas…to the point that most of us were dying to eat anything else, especially me. Seriously, how much tortilla espanol, croquettes, and mussels can one person eat? Once again, we opted for the embarrassing double-decker tourist bus. We visited Mercat de la Boqueria, a fresh food market filled with fruits, vegetables, nuts, and meats (gross). We went museum-hopping and visited the site of the Barcelona Olympics. There was no El Greco, but plenty of Gaudi to see throughout the city. The best was La Sagrada Familia, the city's most famous building and a true work of art -- I can't wait to see it when it is done!

We ran into one last bit of drama while leaving Barcelona, which together with the earlier panic, has left me a little less impressed with Barcelona than I had hoped. Perhaps I will enjoy it much more the next time (where Andy can successfully translate into Spanish for me).

Next stop, Paris -- only one week left (I'm trying not to think too much about that fact) before heading back to the "real world".

kl.