March 16, 2022
Arrival
Just so no one will be checking the news for hijackings, diversions or disasters I thought we should announce that we have arrived safely; but don’t be looking for much news beyond that because I’m still brain-fogged from the flight.
So the short story: the flight went well, possibly as well as any flight to Europe we’ve taken, other from that short single hop from Newark to Amsterdam last summer. The ten hour hop from Vancouver to Munich was better than expected, and if we didn’t feel exactly refreshed when we landed in Munich we were at least functional. There was a scare when we looked up above the kiosk at our departure gate in Munich though and Rachael saw her name up in lights, with instruction for her to report in. A stern-faced agent inspected her passport, her vaccine certificate and her QR code for admission to Spain before briefly checking for the same from me. He then declared us free for passage, without explanation for why she had been singled out. We had gone through the same interrogation an hour earlier when we cleared customs, so perhaps something went awry or was misreported then.
The short two hour flight to Barcelona looked to be a different matter though when we boarded the plane and were deafened by the wailing of a young boy, his poor father walking him up and down the isle trying to comfort him without success. This continued for probably fifteen minutes, with his mother and two flight attendants all trying to soothe him. Nothing worked. We were resigning ourselves to two straight hours of this, and reminded us of our return from Auckland thirty years ago with a child that wailed for much of the unbearably long 14 hour flight.
Fortunately the child stopped and perhaps fell asleep as soon as the plane departed.
I had a window seat and a view of the snow-covered alps as we flew south from Europe - a view I would have photographed if the windows of the plane weren’t so filthy, as dirty as I’ve ever seen windows on a flight. I should have taken one anyway though, because I think now they must have been browned from the immense Saharan dust storm that is polluting much of Spain and France this week.
There was nothing to our arrival in Barcelona. All our luggage was present, and we had no difficulty in catching a taxi for the drive to our hotel. We were dropped off on the Ramblas, a few hundred yards down a pedestrianized street from our hotel, and were pleased to find that the street surface was smooth enough to easily roll our suitcases.
Even better would have if our taxi driver had pointed us down the correct side street. It would have saved us a few hundred yards and some confusion. Better yet, as the agent at our hotel informed us, would be if we’d been driven right to the door of our hotel if the driver knew what he was doing.
We’re checked into the Catalonia Catedral Hotel by just past six, staring at our immense room and bed for the next three nights and starting to unpack our belongings. There’s no hurry, because neither of us is at all hungry - something Rachael brought up just a half hour earlier in the taxi. Five minutes later though she’s calling into the bathroom at me to hurry up because she’s hungry after all - starving, in fact. Odd how that works sometimes.
We quick-walk to a tapas restaurant about ten minutes away, enjoying the familiar pedestrianized ambiance of a European city again and the warm evening breeze. We arrive to find a short line waiting at the door and a 20 minute wait. A somewhat irrational discussion ensues in which we debate whether to line up ourselves, or take an outside table, or find a different bar. In the meantime six other people arrive and line up in front of us, and a twenty minute wait turns to thirty; so the decision is made and we head down the street, quickly finding a less popular but still acceptable spot and stemming a food crisis in the bud before it becomes full grown.
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2 years ago
That’s it. More news than I thought I could stay awake for, frankly. See you tomorrow.
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2 years ago
Those poor parents on that flight from Munich. Glad the little one calmed down!
2 years ago