The final part of my holiday in Spain
Jun. 2nd, 2010 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyRight, so where was I? Saturday night, we'd eaten dinner, and gotten back on the bus to the airport to wait overnight for our flight. In some ways it was nice, because we got to see Barcelona at night, with the fountains and buildings lit up and things. We got the bus back to Terminal 1, went down to left luggage and got all our cases out. My dad suggested we check their flights board just to make sure we weren't supposed to be flying from that terminal, so we did, and our flight wasn't there. We got the transfer bus back to Terminal 2, and dad sat outside and had a cigarette while mum and me went in to check the flights board. Ours wasn't on there. We were a bit confused, we had been told when we got the flight to Spain that we'd be flying out from Terminal 2C, but someone else had said only Easyjet flights flew from Terminal 2C, and that we'd be definitely flying from 2B. There were flights listed for Terminals 2B and 2C on the board though. We went back outside and told dad, then decided to have a walk down and check Terminal 2A, but Terminal 2A was pretty clearly completely closed. Dad finished his cigarette, we went inside and checked the board again, but it wasn't there. There were no flights between 12:00pm and 8-something am though, so we thought maybe it just hadn't been put on yet.
We decided to walk down the airport and look for an information desk, just to check. Most of the desks were closed, we saw one information desk that we were pretty sure was just about services and access for disabled people, and then we finally found the information desk. We went up, explained about how we'd missed our flight that morning, but there was another flight at 8am we were getting, but that it wasn't on the board. The man asked if we were booked onto the flight, and we said yes, and then he looked on the computer, said something about "20 something", we asked him to repeat, and he said the flight was tomorrow at 8 pm, not 8 am.
Shock was not really the word. Dread was something a bit closer to it. Dad was pretty mad. We said thank you though, and went to sit down and try to decide what to do. The thing was we were flying back to Manchester airport, after which dad had to drive us back to Yorkshire. Doing that after a not very good night of sleep in the airport, in the morning, was one thing. Doing it after a not very good night of sleep and a day in the airport, at about 10 o'clock at night, but 11-ish according to the time we'd been used to for a week, was another. I think I said something about us really needing a bed, and dad said we could just put the luggage in left luggage again, and we went up to the information desk again to ask about hotels near the airport, but the guy said the only thing nearby was the business centre in the airport, which was 5 stars and very expensive, and everything else was in the city. The thing is it was coming up to 11pm by then. But there didn't seem to be much choice, and the longer we took deciding the later it got, so we decided to just leave our luggage at the airport again and go into the city to try to find a hotel again. We went back to Terminal 1, back down to left luggage, paid for a locker again (although you pay for one for 24 hours, so we'd have had to pay again even if we'd known about the flight, I think), and went out to get the bus into the city. We couldn't get returns this time, I think, since we'd be coming back the next day, but we had transport at least.
On the way down my dad was sat with some I think German tourists who'd just got off the plane to come for a holiday, and I decided to look in the guide book for some places to stay. It had a list, but not really one done by area, but it seemed to be saying that there were some places in the Eixample, near the Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila and things, that some of the places on the Ramblas were a bit seedy, but some of the places in the Barri Gottic just next to the Ramblas were quite nice. The tourists apparently told my dad there were some nice places to stay near the cathedral/the Sagrada Familia, and the bus dropped us off at the Placa de Catalunya, at the top of the Ramblas. We decided to walk up to the Sagrada Familia, see if we could see anything along the way, and see what hotels we could find there, since the ones on the Ramblas or in town might be a bit full.
So we walked up the Sagrada Familia. Which is not a short walk. It's not as far as the walk to the Park Guell from the Placa de Catalunya, but it's not short, especially not at 11:30 at night. Thankfully, I'd decided to wear my flip-flops instead of my Skechers trainers 'just to the airport', but we'd had to dig our overnight things out of our suitcases before we put them in left luggage, and I was carrying mine around in a plastic shopping bag, my mum in her big Radley's handbag. And I was wearing jeans with my flip-flops, which turned out to not be a great idea, because they got under my heels and rubbed, and I was in a bit of a self-destructive mood I think because I didn't stop to turn the bottom of my jeans up, and basically I got blisters which are still sticking out of the side of my feet now. But we walked, we walked up to the Casa Mila, passing a few hotels along the way, one of which was a 'Hostal' at the top of a building of what seemed to be offices, and we basically buzzed, got automatically let in through the door, and had to take an old-fashioned looking lift which it said was only to be used for the fourth floor, up the inside of a courtyard type place up to the fourth floor, where we met a middle-aged woman coming out to talk to us, who didn't seem to speak any English. I had to use my some Spanish to say we needed rooms for three people for the night, and she said she only had a room for one person, so we thanked her and left again. The other hotels were 5 stars, I think, and my dad was prepared to pay for a hotel for the night, but not that much, so we went past them.
We walked up to the Casa Mila, then turned off to walk down to the Sagrada Familia, which is basically a straight road, but for about six blocks, and it seemed to be a mostly residential areas. Most of the buildings appeared to be either apartment blocks or businesses closed down for the night, and occasionally, a few restaurants and bars. We didn't see many hotels, maybe a few hostals that were closed for the night. Along the way I wondered if we might have got off track a bit, like we did when we walked from the Sagrada Familia to the Casa Mila that Monday, and my dad took that as a suggestion not to wait for me to check the map, but to get to the end of the block, cross the road, and then start walking off up a different street, before waiting for me and mum to catch up and ask me if I knew where we were yet. No, I didn't. I checked the map though - I hadn't really wanted to do it wandering the streets of a city in the middle of the night, just to confirm we were in fact lost holidaymakers - and figured out we had been on course, and which way to go to get to the Sagrada Familia (only a block from where we should have been), and we kept walking. We didn't see any hotels, really. We got to the Sagrada Familia, and still didn't see any hotels. We decided to walk around the streets for a little bit, in case the hotels were to the side of the Sagrada Familia, or maybe behind it, but we still couldn't find any.
My feet were hurting quite a lot by then, even with the flip-flops, and whether it was from too much walking or from trying not to walk my my hurting feet, I was starting to get a thing where the tendons in my ankle started to hurt, then my calf muscles, and then my shins. And in some ways it was a bit like hell, that is how my mum described it the next day, because there were clearly no hotels, and I think it was about 1am by that time, and I properly couldn't face walking back to the Placa de Catalunya. And we had to keep walking in case we found a hotel, but we couldn't find any, and when we asked someone on the street he could only think of one, maybe, which I think was closed when we found it. But basically, we realised there weren't many hotels near the Sagrada Familia, and we'd seen loads on the Ramblas, and it was also close to the metro station in case we needed to go back to the airport, so we decided to get a taxi back there and start looking there.
The taxi driver said when my dad asked him that the hotels near the Sagrada Familia (which we couldn't find) were very expensive, I think, but that there were lots near the Ramblas, which were cheaper, I think. We got out there and, at least, saw a bunch of hotels. We went in one. It was fully booked, sorry. My dad asked if there was anywhere else they could suggest and the guy said there were three or four down the street from them. We went down the street into the next one. Fully booked, sorry. Then to the next one. Fully booked, sorry. We'd walked away from the Ramblas a little bit, so crossed the street and started walking back, and tried a hotel on that side. It was fully booked. We got back to the Ramblas, and started walking down one side of the street trying hotels there. They were fully booked, sorry. The next one was fully booked, sorry. The one after that was fully booked, sorry. My dad asked occasionally for what other hotels there were nearby, and they told him some, but when we tried them, no, no rooms. I said that the guide book had said the closer you got to the port on the Ramblas, the seedier the hotels got. So we turned off a little way down, and my dad walked off down a side street and we ended up in the Barri Gottic looking for rooms.
We saw a lot less hotels there, but the ones we tried were all fully booked, sorry. My legs were doing that hurting in the tendons, muscle and shins thing again, I think I had proper muscle fatigue, and I felt like I might be going to cry. My mum had grabbed my arm at one point, and we were walking together. It was about 2am, I think, and we were all tired, and I was thinking it was pretty clear we were going to have to go back to the airport and just have to spend the night there, slightly more exhausted than before. My dad though just kept trying hotels, then coming out and walking off down other streets, looking for more. I resorted to sighing loudly, either just because I was tired or to let my dad know I was tired and wanted to stop looking please and just go back to the airport. Either way my dad heard it and turned around shouting that he didn't know what to do, he was running out of ideas okay. But eventually we all ended up together again, and said it was looking a bit pointless, and my dad said he thought a bunch of these hotels probably had policies of not letting anyone in after 1am or some time in the morning or something anyway, so we said the best thing would just be to go back to the Placa de Catalunya and try to get back to the airport. The last airport bus had gone at 12:30am, but we figured we should be able to get a train. We didn't just turn around and go straight back to the Ramblas though, my dad sort of walked on and went round the corner. We followed him and I noticed we were walking past the Cathedral again, and then we saw a hotel on the corner which was lit up, and open.
We went over to it, and it was 4 stars, but my dad went in as a sort of last ditch attempt. My mum said we'd stand outside, unless I wanted to go in and sit on the steps, and I said that I didn't think it would be worth the effort of walking over and sitting down on them, only to have to get straight back up again. My dad didn't even go all the way into the hotel lobby - he went up some of the entryway stairs, and then leaned over the banister to ask at the desk if they had any rooms. And kept talking to them. And then walked over. Mum and me were like 'what?'. We waited and he didn't come back down, but we didn't want to ruin anything by going up or standing at the desk with him, so we went in and stayed at the bottom of the entryway stairs, and listened. We ended up giggling sort of madly, but trying to be quiet so they wouldn't throw us out. Eventually my dad came back and looked around the stairway wall at us, and said they had some rooms.
We went up and sat on the chairs in the reception, and giggled again, and my mum got us two sweets from the bowl on the reception desk, and she pointed out that she'd overheard that it was going to cost £154. But we got to sit down, and there were rooms, and we were going to have somewhere to sleep that night, even though it seemed sort of unreal. But it was real, and we had a single and a double room, and my dad brought over the keys, and we went up. My parents came down to my room first, and it was nice, a bit chintzy, but it had a bed, which was a good thing. It turned out it had cost £154 for my room, and £110 for my parents room, but dad thought we might be able to get it back on the holiday insurance because of the accident. And it was quarter to three in the morning, but we had somewhere to sleep, and we didn't check out till 12 the next day, which meant I could set my alarm for 11 o'clock. I had to wash my feet before getting into the bed, because it turns out walking barefoot in an airport through some kind of sauce on the floor and then walking round quite a lot of streets of a city in your flip-flops at night makes your feet quite dirty, and I had to figure out the electronic shutters on the window because they were partly open, but then I got to go to bed and get some sleep.
I slept pretty well - I'd remembered to put the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on my door so the maids didn't come in, and I think I woke up early when I heard people leaving their rooms outside, and then when mum called at 10 o'clock to say she and dad had decided to get up and have baths, and they wanted to give me the opportunity to do the same if I wanted. I said I didn't, I wanted to go back to sleep, so I did. And then mum called at 11 o'clock, when my alarm was going off, to make sure I was getting up, and to say that she and dad were all dressed and ready, so I had to get up so we could go. I agreed and put the phone down, and laid there for a minute, and realised I could hear singing, because we really were just at the back of the Cathedral, and it was Sunday morning, and they must have been singing the service or something, it sounded like mass singing. And it was really lovely. I laid for a few minutes listening to it, then got up, and wondered if I could see the Cathedral from my bedroom window, so I opened the curtains, then pressed the button to open the wooden shutters, and realised no, I could only see the back of the hotel. I could see other room windows though, and wondered if anyone could see into my room, and I looked and saw a man in a window just across from mine, and then realised it was my dad. I knocked and he saw me, and called mum over and we waved to each other. Their room was pretty far from mine down the corridor and sort of round a bend, but as it turned out our windows were just across from each other. All in all, considering what a situation we had been in the night before, it was a pretty nice place to have ended up in.
Anyway, I got ready, and oh, another thing. My phone's battery had died the night before we were meant to be coming back, and I thought there was no point charging it up again just to come home with, especially since I'd have to turn it off on the plane. And my mum had only had a bit of battery left, which we'd had to use calling the car rental place and the airline and, accidentally, the Spanish emergency services. So we hadn't been able to call my sister or anyone really to say we'd be delayed coming home and to sort out getting the cat and dog looked after for another two days. Mum had had to text my sister and hoped it got through. But we managed to charge up our phones again overnight in the hotel, so we had them too then. And we got ready and got our things and left again, and were right in Barcelona again for another few hours until we got our flight. But yes. Anyway, the hotel was the Hotel Colon (I know), and my friends I tell you, IF YOU GO TO BARCELONA, GIVE THEM YOUR CUSTOM. THEY ARE FOUR STARS AND A BIT EXPENSIVE, BUT THEY ARE GOOD, FINE PEOPLE, MY FRIENDS. GOOD FINE PEOPLE.
Anyway, so then we just hung out in Barcelona for a bit. My dad bought me a new bag so I wouldn't have to carry my overnight things around in a plastic bag, and it was a lovely bag I'd had my eye on before in the week, so that was nice. We saw some people dancing the Sardana, which is the Catalan folk dance and which we'd heard a lot about, in the square outside the hotel, which was lovely, and we went and had some breakfast, and then went down to the Park de la Cuitadella, which I'd wanted to go to earlier in the week but not had a chance to. My dad had said his feet were hurting and he was happy to walk to places, but wanted to do it slowly, which was nice for me, but he certainly seemed to want to do plenty of walking when I wanted to do some sitting down. But anyway, it was nice, and there was some sort of festival on in the Park, which was nice to look at. We walked down to the zoo, and then up through the trees, to where the big fountain in the Park de la Cuitadella is, which was pretty beautiful. I felt a bit overcome with the heat, as it turns out walking around in jeans and big t-shirts in the middle of the day in Spain is not a great idea either, and had to sit down and turn up my jeans and pull up my t-shirt a little bit. But I felt better pretty soon, and it was nice, and by that point it was about 3 o'clock I think, so we left and walked back to the Ramblas, and walked up it to the restaurant we'd eaten at the night before, had some dinner, and then went and caught the bus back to the airport.
We got our luggage, went round to Terminal 2B, and happily our flight was now on the flights board. We went down to the check-in desk, waited in the queue, checked in, went outside while my dad had a cigarette, then went back in. The queues for security were massive, and we were worried it would hold us up for a bit, but it moved along pretty quickly, and we got through it with 10 or 15 minutes to spare before our boarding opened. We had a look in the duty free, I went to the bathroom, and then we realised our flight was boarding and they hadn't announced it, and it was a bit of a walk to our gate, and we REALLY DID NOT WANT TO MISS THE FLIGHT, so there was a bit of running, but we got there with about 15 minutes to spare, and got on, and took off, and flew home, and landed about 2 and a half hours later. Then we only had to do the baggage reclaim, get the bus to the airport car park where we were parked, sort out the parking, and drive for about an hour and a half, and, finally, on Sunday night, we were home. Hurray.
That was exhausting. And long. But that was the end of my holiday in Spain. I really did like Barcelona - there was the sea at one end, and then you could catch a metro to the other end and go up a mountain, and there were brilliant things in the middle, and I loved it. But the end bit was properly quite exhausting, though interesting too, honestly.
We decided to walk down the airport and look for an information desk, just to check. Most of the desks were closed, we saw one information desk that we were pretty sure was just about services and access for disabled people, and then we finally found the information desk. We went up, explained about how we'd missed our flight that morning, but there was another flight at 8am we were getting, but that it wasn't on the board. The man asked if we were booked onto the flight, and we said yes, and then he looked on the computer, said something about "20 something", we asked him to repeat, and he said the flight was tomorrow at 8 pm, not 8 am.
Shock was not really the word. Dread was something a bit closer to it. Dad was pretty mad. We said thank you though, and went to sit down and try to decide what to do. The thing was we were flying back to Manchester airport, after which dad had to drive us back to Yorkshire. Doing that after a not very good night of sleep in the airport, in the morning, was one thing. Doing it after a not very good night of sleep and a day in the airport, at about 10 o'clock at night, but 11-ish according to the time we'd been used to for a week, was another. I think I said something about us really needing a bed, and dad said we could just put the luggage in left luggage again, and we went up to the information desk again to ask about hotels near the airport, but the guy said the only thing nearby was the business centre in the airport, which was 5 stars and very expensive, and everything else was in the city. The thing is it was coming up to 11pm by then. But there didn't seem to be much choice, and the longer we took deciding the later it got, so we decided to just leave our luggage at the airport again and go into the city to try to find a hotel again. We went back to Terminal 1, back down to left luggage, paid for a locker again (although you pay for one for 24 hours, so we'd have had to pay again even if we'd known about the flight, I think), and went out to get the bus into the city. We couldn't get returns this time, I think, since we'd be coming back the next day, but we had transport at least.
On the way down my dad was sat with some I think German tourists who'd just got off the plane to come for a holiday, and I decided to look in the guide book for some places to stay. It had a list, but not really one done by area, but it seemed to be saying that there were some places in the Eixample, near the Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila and things, that some of the places on the Ramblas were a bit seedy, but some of the places in the Barri Gottic just next to the Ramblas were quite nice. The tourists apparently told my dad there were some nice places to stay near the cathedral/the Sagrada Familia, and the bus dropped us off at the Placa de Catalunya, at the top of the Ramblas. We decided to walk up to the Sagrada Familia, see if we could see anything along the way, and see what hotels we could find there, since the ones on the Ramblas or in town might be a bit full.
So we walked up the Sagrada Familia. Which is not a short walk. It's not as far as the walk to the Park Guell from the Placa de Catalunya, but it's not short, especially not at 11:30 at night. Thankfully, I'd decided to wear my flip-flops instead of my Skechers trainers 'just to the airport', but we'd had to dig our overnight things out of our suitcases before we put them in left luggage, and I was carrying mine around in a plastic shopping bag, my mum in her big Radley's handbag. And I was wearing jeans with my flip-flops, which turned out to not be a great idea, because they got under my heels and rubbed, and I was in a bit of a self-destructive mood I think because I didn't stop to turn the bottom of my jeans up, and basically I got blisters which are still sticking out of the side of my feet now. But we walked, we walked up to the Casa Mila, passing a few hotels along the way, one of which was a 'Hostal' at the top of a building of what seemed to be offices, and we basically buzzed, got automatically let in through the door, and had to take an old-fashioned looking lift which it said was only to be used for the fourth floor, up the inside of a courtyard type place up to the fourth floor, where we met a middle-aged woman coming out to talk to us, who didn't seem to speak any English. I had to use my some Spanish to say we needed rooms for three people for the night, and she said she only had a room for one person, so we thanked her and left again. The other hotels were 5 stars, I think, and my dad was prepared to pay for a hotel for the night, but not that much, so we went past them.
We walked up to the Casa Mila, then turned off to walk down to the Sagrada Familia, which is basically a straight road, but for about six blocks, and it seemed to be a mostly residential areas. Most of the buildings appeared to be either apartment blocks or businesses closed down for the night, and occasionally, a few restaurants and bars. We didn't see many hotels, maybe a few hostals that were closed for the night. Along the way I wondered if we might have got off track a bit, like we did when we walked from the Sagrada Familia to the Casa Mila that Monday, and my dad took that as a suggestion not to wait for me to check the map, but to get to the end of the block, cross the road, and then start walking off up a different street, before waiting for me and mum to catch up and ask me if I knew where we were yet. No, I didn't. I checked the map though - I hadn't really wanted to do it wandering the streets of a city in the middle of the night, just to confirm we were in fact lost holidaymakers - and figured out we had been on course, and which way to go to get to the Sagrada Familia (only a block from where we should have been), and we kept walking. We didn't see any hotels, really. We got to the Sagrada Familia, and still didn't see any hotels. We decided to walk around the streets for a little bit, in case the hotels were to the side of the Sagrada Familia, or maybe behind it, but we still couldn't find any.
My feet were hurting quite a lot by then, even with the flip-flops, and whether it was from too much walking or from trying not to walk my my hurting feet, I was starting to get a thing where the tendons in my ankle started to hurt, then my calf muscles, and then my shins. And in some ways it was a bit like hell, that is how my mum described it the next day, because there were clearly no hotels, and I think it was about 1am by that time, and I properly couldn't face walking back to the Placa de Catalunya. And we had to keep walking in case we found a hotel, but we couldn't find any, and when we asked someone on the street he could only think of one, maybe, which I think was closed when we found it. But basically, we realised there weren't many hotels near the Sagrada Familia, and we'd seen loads on the Ramblas, and it was also close to the metro station in case we needed to go back to the airport, so we decided to get a taxi back there and start looking there.
The taxi driver said when my dad asked him that the hotels near the Sagrada Familia (which we couldn't find) were very expensive, I think, but that there were lots near the Ramblas, which were cheaper, I think. We got out there and, at least, saw a bunch of hotels. We went in one. It was fully booked, sorry. My dad asked if there was anywhere else they could suggest and the guy said there were three or four down the street from them. We went down the street into the next one. Fully booked, sorry. Then to the next one. Fully booked, sorry. We'd walked away from the Ramblas a little bit, so crossed the street and started walking back, and tried a hotel on that side. It was fully booked. We got back to the Ramblas, and started walking down one side of the street trying hotels there. They were fully booked, sorry. The next one was fully booked, sorry. The one after that was fully booked, sorry. My dad asked occasionally for what other hotels there were nearby, and they told him some, but when we tried them, no, no rooms. I said that the guide book had said the closer you got to the port on the Ramblas, the seedier the hotels got. So we turned off a little way down, and my dad walked off down a side street and we ended up in the Barri Gottic looking for rooms.
We saw a lot less hotels there, but the ones we tried were all fully booked, sorry. My legs were doing that hurting in the tendons, muscle and shins thing again, I think I had proper muscle fatigue, and I felt like I might be going to cry. My mum had grabbed my arm at one point, and we were walking together. It was about 2am, I think, and we were all tired, and I was thinking it was pretty clear we were going to have to go back to the airport and just have to spend the night there, slightly more exhausted than before. My dad though just kept trying hotels, then coming out and walking off down other streets, looking for more. I resorted to sighing loudly, either just because I was tired or to let my dad know I was tired and wanted to stop looking please and just go back to the airport. Either way my dad heard it and turned around shouting that he didn't know what to do, he was running out of ideas okay. But eventually we all ended up together again, and said it was looking a bit pointless, and my dad said he thought a bunch of these hotels probably had policies of not letting anyone in after 1am or some time in the morning or something anyway, so we said the best thing would just be to go back to the Placa de Catalunya and try to get back to the airport. The last airport bus had gone at 12:30am, but we figured we should be able to get a train. We didn't just turn around and go straight back to the Ramblas though, my dad sort of walked on and went round the corner. We followed him and I noticed we were walking past the Cathedral again, and then we saw a hotel on the corner which was lit up, and open.
We went over to it, and it was 4 stars, but my dad went in as a sort of last ditch attempt. My mum said we'd stand outside, unless I wanted to go in and sit on the steps, and I said that I didn't think it would be worth the effort of walking over and sitting down on them, only to have to get straight back up again. My dad didn't even go all the way into the hotel lobby - he went up some of the entryway stairs, and then leaned over the banister to ask at the desk if they had any rooms. And kept talking to them. And then walked over. Mum and me were like 'what?'. We waited and he didn't come back down, but we didn't want to ruin anything by going up or standing at the desk with him, so we went in and stayed at the bottom of the entryway stairs, and listened. We ended up giggling sort of madly, but trying to be quiet so they wouldn't throw us out. Eventually my dad came back and looked around the stairway wall at us, and said they had some rooms.
We went up and sat on the chairs in the reception, and giggled again, and my mum got us two sweets from the bowl on the reception desk, and she pointed out that she'd overheard that it was going to cost £154. But we got to sit down, and there were rooms, and we were going to have somewhere to sleep that night, even though it seemed sort of unreal. But it was real, and we had a single and a double room, and my dad brought over the keys, and we went up. My parents came down to my room first, and it was nice, a bit chintzy, but it had a bed, which was a good thing. It turned out it had cost £154 for my room, and £110 for my parents room, but dad thought we might be able to get it back on the holiday insurance because of the accident. And it was quarter to three in the morning, but we had somewhere to sleep, and we didn't check out till 12 the next day, which meant I could set my alarm for 11 o'clock. I had to wash my feet before getting into the bed, because it turns out walking barefoot in an airport through some kind of sauce on the floor and then walking round quite a lot of streets of a city in your flip-flops at night makes your feet quite dirty, and I had to figure out the electronic shutters on the window because they were partly open, but then I got to go to bed and get some sleep.
I slept pretty well - I'd remembered to put the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on my door so the maids didn't come in, and I think I woke up early when I heard people leaving their rooms outside, and then when mum called at 10 o'clock to say she and dad had decided to get up and have baths, and they wanted to give me the opportunity to do the same if I wanted. I said I didn't, I wanted to go back to sleep, so I did. And then mum called at 11 o'clock, when my alarm was going off, to make sure I was getting up, and to say that she and dad were all dressed and ready, so I had to get up so we could go. I agreed and put the phone down, and laid there for a minute, and realised I could hear singing, because we really were just at the back of the Cathedral, and it was Sunday morning, and they must have been singing the service or something, it sounded like mass singing. And it was really lovely. I laid for a few minutes listening to it, then got up, and wondered if I could see the Cathedral from my bedroom window, so I opened the curtains, then pressed the button to open the wooden shutters, and realised no, I could only see the back of the hotel. I could see other room windows though, and wondered if anyone could see into my room, and I looked and saw a man in a window just across from mine, and then realised it was my dad. I knocked and he saw me, and called mum over and we waved to each other. Their room was pretty far from mine down the corridor and sort of round a bend, but as it turned out our windows were just across from each other. All in all, considering what a situation we had been in the night before, it was a pretty nice place to have ended up in.
Anyway, I got ready, and oh, another thing. My phone's battery had died the night before we were meant to be coming back, and I thought there was no point charging it up again just to come home with, especially since I'd have to turn it off on the plane. And my mum had only had a bit of battery left, which we'd had to use calling the car rental place and the airline and, accidentally, the Spanish emergency services. So we hadn't been able to call my sister or anyone really to say we'd be delayed coming home and to sort out getting the cat and dog looked after for another two days. Mum had had to text my sister and hoped it got through. But we managed to charge up our phones again overnight in the hotel, so we had them too then. And we got ready and got our things and left again, and were right in Barcelona again for another few hours until we got our flight. But yes. Anyway, the hotel was the Hotel Colon (I know), and my friends I tell you, IF YOU GO TO BARCELONA, GIVE THEM YOUR CUSTOM. THEY ARE FOUR STARS AND A BIT EXPENSIVE, BUT THEY ARE GOOD, FINE PEOPLE, MY FRIENDS. GOOD FINE PEOPLE.
Anyway, so then we just hung out in Barcelona for a bit. My dad bought me a new bag so I wouldn't have to carry my overnight things around in a plastic bag, and it was a lovely bag I'd had my eye on before in the week, so that was nice. We saw some people dancing the Sardana, which is the Catalan folk dance and which we'd heard a lot about, in the square outside the hotel, which was lovely, and we went and had some breakfast, and then went down to the Park de la Cuitadella, which I'd wanted to go to earlier in the week but not had a chance to. My dad had said his feet were hurting and he was happy to walk to places, but wanted to do it slowly, which was nice for me, but he certainly seemed to want to do plenty of walking when I wanted to do some sitting down. But anyway, it was nice, and there was some sort of festival on in the Park, which was nice to look at. We walked down to the zoo, and then up through the trees, to where the big fountain in the Park de la Cuitadella is, which was pretty beautiful. I felt a bit overcome with the heat, as it turns out walking around in jeans and big t-shirts in the middle of the day in Spain is not a great idea either, and had to sit down and turn up my jeans and pull up my t-shirt a little bit. But I felt better pretty soon, and it was nice, and by that point it was about 3 o'clock I think, so we left and walked back to the Ramblas, and walked up it to the restaurant we'd eaten at the night before, had some dinner, and then went and caught the bus back to the airport.
We got our luggage, went round to Terminal 2B, and happily our flight was now on the flights board. We went down to the check-in desk, waited in the queue, checked in, went outside while my dad had a cigarette, then went back in. The queues for security were massive, and we were worried it would hold us up for a bit, but it moved along pretty quickly, and we got through it with 10 or 15 minutes to spare before our boarding opened. We had a look in the duty free, I went to the bathroom, and then we realised our flight was boarding and they hadn't announced it, and it was a bit of a walk to our gate, and we REALLY DID NOT WANT TO MISS THE FLIGHT, so there was a bit of running, but we got there with about 15 minutes to spare, and got on, and took off, and flew home, and landed about 2 and a half hours later. Then we only had to do the baggage reclaim, get the bus to the airport car park where we were parked, sort out the parking, and drive for about an hour and a half, and, finally, on Sunday night, we were home. Hurray.
That was exhausting. And long. But that was the end of my holiday in Spain. I really did like Barcelona - there was the sea at one end, and then you could catch a metro to the other end and go up a mountain, and there were brilliant things in the middle, and I loved it. But the end bit was properly quite exhausting, though interesting too, honestly.
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Date: 2010-06-02 10:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-02 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-02 11:39 pm (UTC)