September 8, 2000
The ship didn't arrive in Barcelona until noon so we had the
morning free. We got up at 7:15 and had our last breakfast in the
main dining room which was the anticipated (and worth it) huevos
rancheros. We went back to the cabin and worked on packing (we
expanded a lot with our shopping). Jill took off at 10:45 for bingo
and cleaned up our pictures in the photo gallery. Bingo was an
interesting ordeal with cut throat old ladies (jackpot was $2500) who
didn't appreciate the newcomers for the jackpot round. The cruise
director was a most annoying number caller (flirty Gertie is in cabin
"30").. I hadn't realized that bingo was such a gambling game. I had
assumed it was for fun but it's not. The church ladies really get
mean over bingo. I didn't win anything with the one round of cards
that I bought for $10. It was a good thing too. The people playing
with 6+ cards would've lynched me winning with 1.
After docking we went ashore and easily found a taxi. Since it was
12:15 we headed straight for lunch. The taxi dropped us off at the
start of Las Ramblas. We walked up the street and easily found Los
Caracoles (a great place from our last trip to Spain 1 year ago) and
Art Escudellers (hand painted ceramics and other art from Spain). The
restaurant didn't open until 1 so we went and bought a couple of
Talivera sangria pitchers before lunch.
Center of Gothic Quarter
At Los Caracoles we had salad, sangria, chiffarones (baby fried
squid) and awesome seafood paella. After lunch (slightly buzzed) we
contemplated just going back to the ship for a nap but after we
didn't find an available taxi we wandered around the Gothic Quarter
and enjoyed being back in Barcelona. We bought a leather briefcase
for Jill and come Cuban cigars for Frank. We ended up at Bar Del Pi
where we sat outside under an umbrella and drank 2 pitchers of
sangria (small but strong) and watched people walking by.
Sangrias at Bar Del Pi
It was about time to meet Carrie and Scott so we walked back
toward the cathedral. Jill fell asleep on the cathedral steps
(leaning back, knees up) while Keith walked around. When we finally
decided they were a no show we headed to Bar Irati (our favorite
tapas place) and snacked on their outstanding tapas (see picture) and
had a couple of beers before heading back to the ship for the last
dinner.
Just about falling over
Steps of the Cathedral
Our favorite Tapas bar
The Tapas!!
Our last nights dinner was Alaskan King Crab legs that were
already split down the side for easy access. We ate our dinner then
asked for more. Our table ended up eating three whole extra plates of
crab legs. We thought we could eat them all night! They were
excellent like the lobster.
We met Scott and Carrie for a final hot tub dip then went to bed
for our 4 hours of sleep since we had to be on a shuttle bus at 6am
(for a 9:45 flight). We exchanged e-mail addresses and vowed to visit
Scott and Carrie in Tucson, Az.
GOING HOMEÉ
The disembarking was horrible. We had left our suitcases outside
our door at midnight the previous night meaning we had to keep out
our shower gear and change of cloths for the morning. When we got off
the ship we had to claim our luggage in the terminal. It would have
been much easier just to bring our luggage down ourselves, although
we are in the minority for that. Once we found our luggage we had to
stuff our bathroom stuff in our suitcase and the cloths from the
prior night. The porters were all busy with nervous older people so
we just hauled our own luggage to the bus. We were bus no. 1 but the
bus was full of people from buses 1-6 who couldn't understand the
complex single digit numbering system (that's sarcasm).
The trip to the airport was short and we luckily got our luggage
off the bus quickly and were one of the first couples to get checked
in. Now it's 6:45am and we have three hours to wait in the Barcelona
airport. We are tired and hungry and people are smoking everywhere. A
true life saver was the Pan and Co (fast food sandwich shop, Spanish
style) where we had french baguettes stuffed with meat/cheese. The
lomo con queso (thinly sliced pork loin with cheese) really hit the
spot. The flight to JFK was long and boring but uneventful. We
arrived at JFK around noon on Saturday but had an agonizing 5 hour
layover waiting for our next flight. To our horror there are no
direct flights from JFK to Houston (only Newark) so we had to fly to
Dallas, wait another 1 _ hours for our flight to Houston. We arrived
about 11:30pm. It was a good thing the travel agency had sent a town
car for us. I don't believe either of us could have driven home. We
couldn't keep our eyes open. We got home and petted the dogs, took
hot showers, and slept for what was left of the night, happy to
finally be home. |
