April 14 - Barcelona, España

 Here I am in Barcelona on a lovely Monday.  I had good flights from Richmond to Dulles and then onward to Barcelona on United.  I  have a few comments about United and flying to Europe.  The first is that since my travels recently have taken me to Australia/New Zealand and Southeast Asia which involve endless flights, the flight from DC to Barcelona seemed like just a short hop. Literally I was surprised when the announcement was made that we were preparing for landing. As usual I didn't sleep, but I found movies to watch and I read a book. Second, the United Polaris lounge at Dulles is one of the nicer ones I've been in. It's big and in addition to a pretty big buffet they have a sit-down restaurant where I had a really good hamburger with bacon on Sunday.

The flight arrived nearly half an hour early and clearing border control and getting my luggage was a piece of cake.  I arranged for a driver from Blacklane to pick me up and he was waiting. I've used that company in lots of different places and they are always great.  My driver was an interesting character.  He was a 6'6" tall native Ukrainian who came to Spain many years ago to play on a basketball team. He liked it so much he moved here and his kids were born here and are Spanish. He told me his son and daughter are both also very tall. His son plays for a professional team here and his daughetr is a university student. His Ukrainian mother came to live with them when Putin invaded.  Anyway, I enjoyed my conversation with him.

We got to my hotel, the Hotel Arts which is part of the Marriott family, very early and of course my room wasn't ready.  In fact, the hotel is undergoing major renovation and refurbishing so the kind of room I booked (a king size room) wasn't available at all.  No worries though.  Although I had to wait for a few hours, they upgraded me to a huge suite on the 20th floor.  I have a corner room with a living room, a bedroom, and kind of a butler's pantry. I have views of the city and the sea.  It's really overkill.  Since I hadn't slept and I had all my valuables with me until I got into my room, I didn't try to go out.  I've been to Barcelona quite a few times and I don't really think it's a good place to walk around with much money or jewelry with you.  It's probably not the best place for a woman alone to walk around either.  Too bad, because I love La Rambla, the Gothic Quarter and the Boqueria Market here.

Here are a few photos of this enormous room they gave me!

The pantry

Guess who didn't attempt to use this tub.

The big shower on the left and the toilet in the separate room on the right

Anyway, I got into my room and took a nap after getting cleaned up.  Dinner was in a restaurant here in the hotel which serves tapa kinds of foods.  I had a lovely light meal and a nice glass of Spanish wine and now it's time to say nitey-nite.  Tomorrow I'll be picked up around noon for the short ride to the ship. I'm looking forward to getting settled in and unpacking.  I truly hate living out of a suitcase even for a day or two.