Barcelona Spain Day 8 and Coming Home day 9 & 10

After we got off the boat we headed down town in Barcelona.  We checked our bags in the hotel and then headed off for some sight seeing.  On the taxi drive to our hotel I saw this beautiful castle like building upon the hill. So of course we had to find it.  For this adventure alone we had to take the train,  a cable car and then the funicular (hill side cable car). 

 Finally we reached our destination to.......yes yes, another Catholic Church.  The church was beautiful and situated upon the hill with fantastic views and an amusement park.  What a great idea!  It would be like combining stake lagoon day with stake temple day. 

 

We got a little hungry and we decided we couldn't wait until we went back into the city.  We went to the only restaurant available which served sandwiches, hot dogs and hamburgers.  Not exactly what you would want to eat while being in another country but hey, we were hungry. Unfortunately for us, it was not a pleasant experience.  The food was supposedly edible, but we pretty much found ourselves as hungry as we were before we sat down to eat. 

Doug was not very impressed with his ham and cheese sandwich

We couldn't decide what actually was in these little fried pieces but it was simply gross.

I had a hamburger which kind of tasted like a tofu like burger, it was at least a little more edible than Doug's.  

Once we got back down town we went out to eat at a place called Amaya. We had paella which was a dish with seafood and rice.  We spent the rest of the day down town in Barcelona walking around the buildings, shops and everyday living.  We really enjoyed just being apart of the city.  Douglas was a little sad that his Spanish was not as helpful as he thought.  The people here spoke mostly a dialect of Spanish called Catalan.  Doug had more luck talking to the people in Italy than in Spain- very strange.  Anyway we stayed at this contemporary hotel which included beautiful brickwork called a bed. 

Our flight home was like a scene from the Keystone Kops!  It all started Monday morning trying to find the train to the airport.  All the metro maps showed signs for the "Renfe," the train to the airport.  All the metro stops showed the same sign.  Unfortunately, once we descended, luggage and all, into the abyss of the metro, no sign of an airport train existed.  We even tried following a Spaniard, but he was just as lost as we were.

So a cab ride and $50 later, we arrived 2 hours early for our SpanAir flight to Frankfurt, Germany, scheduled to leave at 10:45 am.  The line for SpanAir sped along at the speed of sound.  When it was our turn, we were told, "Oh no, you must go to Lufthansa to check in."  Grrr!  So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally at about 10:20, a Lufthansa rep came looking for Frankfurt passengers.  We got all checked in and left Barcelona about 2 hours late.

Of course, then, we missed our connection to Chicago, so we went to the American Airlines desk (which was 2 little kiosks next to Iran Air, kind of funny!).  The lady nicely said, "great, we'll rebook you on the same flight tomorrow."  So instead, we went back to Lufthansa and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally a supervisor helped us out and got us rebooked to Chicago, then LAX, overnight and home to Salt Lake the next morning.  Sounded great!  Except we left Frankfurt 1 and 30 minutes late.

Now let me take a minute to discuss the silver lining of all of this.  Out of character, Douglas demanded (ok, gently requested) an upgrade for the flight to Chicago.  We flew business class for the 9 hour flight.  Heavenly!  We ate 3 meals including halibut and smoked trout.  We each watched 3 movies from the automatic reclining seats.  Finally we slept in the seats that folded out completely flat.  To think, for only $7000 we could have flown the whole way like that.

So we get to Chicago, minus one bag of shoes, 90 minutes late.  Of course, we missed our United flight to Los Angeles.  The nice lady at United offered us the 5 pm flight to Salt Lake the following day.  So back to Lufthansa we go.  Luckily we got the last 2 seats on the 7:30 am direct flight to Salt Lake.

So we headed to the Hilton, compliments of Lufthansa.  We took our dinner voucher to the lobby restaurant to have a nice dinner.  We were just about to sit down when we were informed that the kitchen had had a fire and was closed.  We were able to have dinner, in another restaurant, luckily.

So we made it home, sans one bag of shoes, at about 10 am, Tuesday morning.  We got our little Maya and all her new clothes from Grandma Donna and started up life again.  One last thing.  Wednesday, at about 2 AM, our home  phone rings.  It's an airline representative with our bag of shoes IN OUR DRIVEWAY, AT 2 AM!  I mean I appreciate the effort, but come on.  I wasn't planning to walk anywhere at that moment.  He made some joke about having a bag of "lost soles" which was probably funny when the sun is up, but not at 2 am.