Our Christmas Adventures

Today was the first day of our Christmas adventure, and it started with a long travel day. I probably gave us a little bit too much leeway in getting to the airport, but I’d much rather spend time waiting at the airport than having to rush to get there. With so many legs of the journey just to get to the airport, I wasn't sure how long it would actually take. We ended up catching the 10:00 bus into Cambridge and getting the express train from there to London King's Cross. From there we went over to St. Pancras and caught another train towards Gatwick. From there we took a people-mover to the northern terminal to wait for our flight. All in all, it was fairly efficient and we ended up all checked in and ready to go by 1:30pm.

Luckily, it turns out that Gatwick airport is a pretty cool place to hang out. First: lunch. I’d only had coffee for breakfast so I was more than ready to grab something to eat. We checked out the terminal map and saw the usual airport fare—a deli, an Italian restaurant, and of course McDonald’s. Then we saw something in the corner of the map that caught our attention—Lebanese food! I wasn't even quite sure what Lebanese food entailed. Of course we had to try it!

On the way over we passed a neat tea house with a giant Tea-Rex vouching for the health benefits of tea. The Lebanese restaurant was located in the uppermost corner of the terminal, very easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. But judging by the number of occupied seats, we weren't the only ones who had made the effort. The restaurant was decorated with Lebanese décor like lamps and purses, and even oriental tea pots. I ordered some salmon with hummus and Scott got a lamb tagine. He also got some tea, I suspect mostly for the experience of pouring it from one of the beautiful silver pots.

After lunch we browsed the shops for a while until our gate was announced. When it was announced, we followed the crowd to it and I was excited to see that our plane was painted to look like a giant eagle! I didn't snap my own picture, but I did manage to find a promotional photo from British Airways to give you an idea of how awesome it is!

The boarding process was fairly uneventful except for the two young women who kept insisting that row number eleven should obviously be given priority over everyone else, despite the fact that the boarding crew told them over and over that they were boarding from the back of the plane and they could come up when their row was called. There were a few kerfuffles as the two women repeatedly hopped in front of the line every time a new row was called, only to be sent back by the crew. We were in row 15 so I didn't get to see them when their row was finally called, but I can image that they (and everyone else) was very happy about it. 

The plane was very full and it looked as if most of the people on it had tried to stuff as much as they could into their carry-on to avoid having to check it in. This caused some problems as there wasn't enough room in the overhead bins for everyone’s luggage and many people were forced to have theirs placed in the hold anyways. One young Spanish man, aged about 21 or so, tried to flirt his way into being allowed to keep his cabin luggage. As the stewardess was an English woman about 60 years old and very “down-to-business,” his technique did not work out very well. 

Eventually everyone got settled and we took off, only about 10 minutes later than expected. On the way, we were served (free!) drinks (even including the option of wine or beer), and (free!) sandwiches! Apparently this is standard treatment on British Airways but I was pretty excited about it nonetheless. After a smooth trip, we touched down in Barcelona about 10 minutes earlier than expected. I would probably have been happier about this if my cold hadn't been worsened by the flight and my ears hadn't popped so badly that I could only hear out of my right side and then only just.

Going through immigration in Europe is one of the rare times that I'm glad I don't have a European passport, because there is a separate line for all “other” passports and it tends to be infinitely shorter than the line for Europeans. There were only two people in front of us, so we got through before they even started the luggage belt. By the time we took a bathroom break, our bag was coming off the belt so we grabbed it and headed out towards… well we weren't quite sure yet. I knew the hotel was about 20 minutes away by car but that it would take about an hour by public transportation. I didn't know the cost of either option, so we decided to get some money from an ATM and then investigate further. 

We weren't the only ones with a similar idea, so we ended up waiting about 20 minutes to get to the ATM. We were a little confused about why it was taking so long because there had only been three people in front of us, but when we got up to it ourselves we realized what had been going on. In an attempt to create a “super-advanced, uber-safe” ATM, the creators had installed so many safeguards that it took forever even to get it to accept the card! And it was more than a little unnerving to see a giant camera in our face and watch our own every move on a life-sized video screen right in front of us (next to the two other screens with the instructions for using the ATM). Eventually we did manage to get some euros. I've never felt so accomplished. 

We headed outside, shedding layers as we did even in the dark of the night. We were definitely not in England anymore. The first thing we saw upon stepping outside was the airport bus that ran to the city center. It was cheaper than I thought and it was about to leave, so we hurried over and hopped on. After about a half hour ride, it dropped us off at Plaza España (the photo shows what it looks like at night - I did not take the photo but can't find information about who did). Getting out I accidentally dropped the suitcase on Scott’s (already injured) foot. After some choice words that drew the attention of some of the locals, we hobbled over to the Metro station. 

Then it was on to the challenge of deciding which ticket to buy. We thought about just getting one for the trip to the hotel and figuring out the rest of our weekend later, but saw that there were great savings for buying multiples at once. But you had to know which zones you were going to travel to. Well, no problem—we knew which attractions we were going to see so that should be easy to figure out. Except that among the 5 different maps we managed to find around the station, there were none that listed the zones. In the end, we just got a 4-day pass for all the zones. It may have been more expensive than we needed, but I guess I can rest in the fact that the ticket itself was much prettier than the shorter tickets—excellent for my scrapbook. 

We (and by we, I mean Scott) struggled to get the large suitcase down the stairs and onto the train. We had to make a transfer with—you guessed it—lots of stairs! When we finally got to our destination, there were oddly some stairs going down which led to a long tunnel, at the end of which were stairs going up. And then some more stairs. By the time we had gotten to the top, Scott had sworn off stairs for the rest of the trip. He forgot to swear off cobblestones, though, and got to endure them for the 8 blocks or so to the hotel. At least we got to pass by a pretty color-changing building on the way! Though we only had to go up one floor to get to reception, there was no question that we were taking the elevator.

By this time, my cold and lack of hearing had gotten the better of me, and I just wanted to be done with it all. We were so close—all we had to do was check in. This was made more difficult by the fact that I couldn't hear the desk clerk but I just kept nodding and agreeing. I don’t think I signed up for anything I didn't mean to—guess we’ll find out when I check the credit card bill later! Finally, everything was all set up (I think), and the clerk handed us our keys. All I had to do was sign and we could be off. Except it was right at this time that my body decided it was totally done and it needed to give me a stronger hint. My nose started to bleed and I needed a tissue, NOW. It must have been quite entertaining to see me sign my name while looking straight up at the ceiling, practically throw the paper at the clerk, and make a mad dash off to the restroom still without lowering my head. 

Luckily I made it just in time and managed to stop the bleeding fairly quickly. I emerged from the bathroom to see Scott with an expression of concern and bemuse on his face, patiently guarding our luggage and waiting for me to return with the room keys. Finally—for real this time—we got on the elevator and headed to our room on the 5th floor. We were too tired to go out in search of food so we got a couple of snacks from the vending machine to stave off our appetite until morning, and then promptly fell asleep.