Tuesday, July 19, 2011

July 17th Ryan Air & Barcelona

Wow what a morning we had.  The sound was off on Roger's I-touch so we didn't hear the alarm, luckily we had made an agreement that one couple would call the other in the morning so Pam knocked on our door at 4:00am and woke us up.  We were picked up downstairs at 4:30 to head to the Ciampino airport. I was very happy that our checked luggage weighed in at the right weight.  I was sad however that I then threw away two pairs of shoes before heading through security because our carry on luggage was supposed to weigh only 10 kilos and the shoes would put it over only to find out later that they didn't weigh our carry-on luggage.
I had asked people we had met at various places and they had told us they weighed everything.  Oh well that just means I get some new shoes when I get home.  The flight was great and the seats were very comfortable, we all agreed that we would not hesitate to fly with them again.  We took a bus from the airport to a stop that was not to far from our hotel which was great because it only cost 10,60 Euros per couple.  We had arrived early, since check in wasn't until 12:00, so we got lunch from a little patissere that we had passed on our way to the apartment.  Since there wasn't any room to eat in their with our luggage we just took it back to the corner by our apartment for the week and ate
 it there.  I decided to just ring the buzzer to see if they had shown up early and luckily they were there because the last guest had just left, so we were able to at least drop off our luggage and Roger and I were able to lose the extra clothes that we had worn to help our luggage make weight.  The walk up to the apartment which is supposed to be on the 4th floor but was more like the 6th floor because you went up two flights of stairs before it counted the 1st floor, was not easy.  The steps were steep and narrow and with the suitcases it made it a hard climb, I think we were all soaked with sweat by the time we reached the apartment.

Well anyways we changed and headed back out so the cleaning lady could finish her job.
We walked around just admiring the architecture of the surrounding buildings.  We came to Cathedral of Barcelona, which was built in the 14th century.  They had the Sardana dance going in front of the church, which was fun to watch.



















Roger and I decided to see how far it would be to walk down to see if we could walk to the port area since the Carnival Magic was in port today.










We saw the Columbus Monument.  This is where we will catch the T3 blue bus to get to the ship on Sunday.










We got a glimpse of the Carnival Magic but we did realize we would not be able to walk all the way to where she was ported.  What was nice though is that while we were walking around there the clouds and wind rolled in a cooled us down, which was a welcome relief.








We walked back to the church plaza where we had left Mike & Pam but they had left.  We had told them that we would come back but if they weren't there we knew they had headed back to the apartment, which they had except they stopped at Starbucks right on the corner by our apartment so they waved us down.






When Pam had finished her coffee we headed up to the apartment.











Roger checked out the wifi.












Mike & Pam checked out the kitchen.













I checked out the view from the balconies.









We started some laundry since we have only been able to wash things in our hotel room sinks for the past 9 days.  While the washer was running (a fast wash takes 90 minutes) we went to find a grocery store only to find it closed since it was Sunday.  Almost all of the stores in Europe are closed on Sunday's so we ended up at Burger King and eating hamburgers.  Roger tried to order french fries but they gave him chicken nuggets instead because they were on special.



Roger took some night photos from the balcony.

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