It all begins with the, apparently secularly known, ordeal of my passport being late. For the entirety of my life, I have been chastised for my illegible chicken-scratch/handwriting. After 19+ years of completely ignoring these exasperated pleas for improvement, I finally came to my first hurdle as a result of it. Because the 'passport people' could not read my handwriting, my passport was sent to the wrong address... apparently, upon receiving the passport of an unknown male of hispanic ethnicity, sporting long hair and a beard, they decided to return the passport back to the 'passport people'. The 'passport people' apparently decided that it would be a good idea to just hold on to the passport and and wait to see who claimed it (I really don't know how these things work.) Well, after 9 hours at the federal building in downtown LA, a phone call to a congressman, several phone calls to the 'passport people', many calls to Fed-Ex, a trip to San Diego, and days of constant concern, I finally got the passport that would allow me to be here on the Mediterranean.
Well, since we were leaving for Barcelona on the 24th at 3:00am, we naturally began our packing process at around 7:00 pm on the 23rd. There aren't too many highlights to this part of the pre-trip, but I will mention that mixing 3 peoples belongings throughout a multitude of suitcases must only be appreciated if a bag goes missing, otherwise it just seems a pain in the... well, we got to the airport around 3:30am only to find out that the place doesn't really open until 4:45 am. Up until this point in time, I had no idea that LAX ever closed! I mean, it's LAX, right? Anyways, the flights were nice enough (I slept a good portion, while my mother and sister slept pretty much 90% of the flight), we did get a 3 hour delay in Philadelphia, but it was alright.
When we finally arrived in Barcelona, we picked up our luggage, got a taxi, and took temporary residence up at this charming hostel. The taxi driver was a nice guy who helped us with our bags and bid us farewell with warnings of pickpockets and Gypsies. We then had the pleasure of carrying our bags to the 2nd floor (b/c that's the bottom floor for the elevators, of course) and then visiting our quaint little room. The cons of the room were only that it was a bit cramped (a suitcase couldn't fit between the beds, that's how close they were), there was a hole in the roof above the shower that would leak cold water every time the air conditioner kicked in, and there was the occasional power-outage. The pros were that there were beds, air conditioning, and free breakfasts. That evening, we visited a nice restaurant on Las Ramblas (a popular street), where we had a nice Spanish dinner and gourmet water (I say this because 3 small bottles of water was about $10, therefore it must have been exported from the north pole or something.)
Day 2 consisted of waking up, having a pleasant breakfast, and setting off for Mont Serrat (an old monastery up in the mountains.) We took the subway all the way to the base of the mountains, where we then took something resembling the old baskets at Disneyland (that were carried on a wire and went through the Matterhorn) to the top of the mountain (about 900,000,000 feet up, or so it seemed from the tiny basket that was being thrashed by the wind). We then visited the Basilica (breathtaking) and the museum (very interesting) where I got to see some paintings by my favorite painter (Salvador Dali.) After lunch, we decided that we were very sleepy and that it was time to head back to the hostel. After another exciting trip down in the baskets (this time it felt like the winds were playing a game called 'tip the basket'), and two more subway rides, we finally arrived back at the hostel, where I finished the 7th Harry Potter book (which I had started reading at some point on the plane, and thoroughly enjoyed.) My mother and I then decided to take a walk down Las Ramblas (Kelly was asleep.) We bought gellatos and went beyond the street and crossed a bridge that took us to a pretty big mall. We found an internet cafe and decided to log on for half an hour (which did me no good as the mouse seemed possessed, occasionally deciding to go down when my hand went up and left when my hand went down.) On our walk back to the hostel we passed a band of gypsies who were selling name brand purses and sunglasses at remarkably low prices (hot prices let's just say, hm.) My mother was pretty interested in buying a spanish fan, when all of a sudden, everyone picked up their goods and started running, yelling "¡Policia!" I found this to be very solid proof that my assumptions were accurate; however, my mother decided to chase down the 'fan lady' and purchase a very nice-looking fan for a mere $5. On the way back she bought me a crepe (which is awesome if you've never had) and we proceeded back to our hostel.
On Day 3 we woke up, had breakfast, and walked over to a square to meet our Segway tour leader. The segway tour was very fun (the highlight of the Barcelona portion of our trip) and we learned a lot about the city, got to see a lot of beautiful sights, and laughed a lot. The only real incident of the tour was my mothers crash. To fully understand this incident, you must understand that a) segways are 99% crashproof and b) my mother is one of those 'finds a way' people (ie, she found a way to crash the uncrash-able segway.) Besides a couple of bruises and a sprained knee, she seemed to be okay. After the tour, we took the subway to another square that included the Barcelona Hard Rock Cafe and El Courte Ingles. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe (that was delicious, and I love the atmosphere of those places), and then proceeded to buy some things at El Courte Ingles (which is a store that pretty much sells everything... and is 5-6 stories high.) It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the hostel, and we took some long healthy naps. My sister and I awoke around 2 and watched some anime from my external hard drive on her laptop until we got tired and went back to sleep around 4:30 in the am. I wasn't too tired so I just listened to 'the Who' for a couple hours.
Day 4 (yesterday) had us waking up around 6:30 and getting ready for the cruise. After repacking a bit and straightening up the little place, my mother and I went looking for an ATM. I tell this story because it may help some people understand my mother (and then maybe they can explain her to me =) ) We arrived at the first ATM, which my mother simple looked at from across the street and stated that it just didn't seem like the right one. And so we continued to the next ATM on the street, which featured neither English nor Spanish, but rather some regional language that was barely like either of them. Instead of going back to the ATM that 'didn't feel just right', we just kept walking until we found the next ATM that took my mother about 5 tries to get right (even though it was in English.) We then walked back to the hostel and met my sister downstairs for breakfast. Afterwards we carried the luggage downstairs, got a taxi, and drove to the port. Here we boarded the cruise easily enough and sat down to relax until our rooms were ready for us. We hung out in the room and acclimatised for awhile until it was time for the life-preserver drill (enthralling I must say.) We then had dinner and met our waiters (who both seem pretty cool), but did not get to meet the other people who will be joining us at our table, possibly, in the future. After dinner we went to a show (Let the Magic Begin or something like that) which was mildly entertaining. There was a little girl on my right who was having such a good time that I was finding myself enjoying the show (I guess it's contagious lol.) Afterwards, we hung out in our room, watched movies, and watched the ship disembark out into the sea.
This morning I found myself to be the only person in my family awake, and so I decided to take a walk around the ship to check it out. I got some coffee and spent a little over an hour just walking around and enjoying the atmosphere of early morning on the Mediterranean. It was around 6:00 and nobody was really awake so it was a very nonchalant and unobstructed walk. Everybody seems so pleasant on the ship, I'm sure it's the luxury cruise/vacation environment that puts everybody into good spirits. After visiting my family back in the room I decided to come down to this quiet internet cafe and start my blog. I'm sorry that my diatribe is so long, but I tried to do these past 4 days justice. I hope that the following days on the cruise are just as good as, if not even better, than the trip has been so far. =)
~Nick
