Day 11 - Mediterranean Cruise - Barcelona & home

Day 11 - Mediterranean Cruise - Barcelona & home

The ship docked in Barcelona super early on that Sunday morning!
 

A little more light out before we could actually disembark.  We could see where the airport was by following all the planes coming in for a landing. Yeah, I'm not walking to the airport!

We carried our luggage off so we could get off the ship quicker.  We found a taxi right away because our flight was early in the day.  I want to say around 11?

Last chance to see the Columbus statue as we drove around the round about.

The charge for the trip from ship to airport was a flat rate of 45 euro.  Only a couple miles, but totally worth it! AND the driver was nice!

Last glance of our ship! sigh.

Whoops!  No it's not!  That's the Balearia ferry! Darn, I missed the last pic of the ship!

Oh well.  We had been impressed by the ferry during this trip too.  We didn't RIDE on it, but admired and googled it from afar, not knowing what it was at first.

After waiting at the airport and getting a few snacks and some food for the flight, we waited on the tarmac for 30 minutes standing in the crowded bus while the bus driver flirted with the flight attendants. :\

Not sure what they were waiting for but we wanted ON!

Finally got on and into my lunch! mmmm

We were all pretty tired and it took a bit longer for us to actually take off.

We explored the screen info in front of us.  Yep - that's where we are!  Let's get going!

And THIS is where I lost all confidence in the air temp and altitude of the plane based on the flight info screen.  Not only was it NOT 104 degrees outside right then, we were NOT 18 feet underground.

The destination and arrival times looked ok though even though the estimated time of arrival kept changing.

And finally we were OFF!

Last chance to see Spain!

Mountains in France.

About this time I had gotten into the movie about the first episode of Saturday Night Live and was completely enthralled.  Wow did it bring back some good memories!

Because of the movie, I totally missed looking for Ireland this time! Oh well.

And then we landed in Iceland.

Since the flight out of Barcelona was delayed, we didn't have much time to race through the Iceland airport, grab another bite to eat and a fridge magnet to prove I was there.  These things are important!

We got on the next flight JUST in time!

And off we went!

I don't remember what I watched but I think the SNL movie made me nostalgic for the 70s and 80s, so I think it was an oldie.  I wish I could remember!

And then we were landed in Chicago!!

So Sunday night, Ruth Ann got on her bus home and I stayed over at Teresa and Ken's house again.

I spent Monday morning, checking over work adventures that I'd missed out on and then on repacking my suitcase and carry on for the Amtrak ride home.  I had left about 10-20 pounds of clothing at Teresa's from before the cruise so I had to work that in.

Thankfully Amtrak doesn't care ALL that much about weight as long as you make it look effortless!

sigh.  I'll try.

On the trip, Ruth Ann had shared a big bag of sugar free Werthers but it came with a stern warning. 

Don't eat more than five in a single day.

and don't feed them to me after midnight.

Teresa and I enjoyed lunch out and afterwards stopped for treats for the ride home.

I bought some sugar free Werthers.

I lost track of how many I'd eaten and paid for it a second time later. :\

On the way home, I noticed that my suitcase was clunk clunking a lot more than it did at the beginning of the trip.  I'm guessing it got tossed a little too much somewhere along the line and the wheel coverings are toast.  It still rolls but reluctantly.  This is the last trip for this suitcase.

Teresa took me to the train station and THERE is my train coming up the track behind me!

My seat on the Amtrak had been taken by some slumbering Amish people but when I showed them my ticket, they moved to their own seats.  I spent a lot of the trip attempting to translate that book I'd bought in Rome, gave up after a bit and got to writing up my memories of this trip before I forgot anything.  I only got about half way through the trip and by this time, almost 2 months later now, I know I've forgotten a lot of the funny and memorable things that happened.  

The pictures help jog some of the memories.

Kudos to Teresa and Ken for planning and implementing this grand adventure!

And Kudos to Ruth Ann for putting up with me!

And Kudos to my boss and co-workers for trying hard not to bother me on the trip.

AND Kudos to my family for taking on my responsibilities so great while I was gone.

Meri and Josh picked me up at the train station and I talked their ears off the whole way home.

As I walked in the door at the house, Leon walked past and said, "Oh, you were gone?!" LOL

The next morning, I was in the kitchen and I heard Aggie come up into the living room to play.  I started walking in and stopped.  She had heard my voice and started walking from the living room and stopped.

We stared at each other and walked slowly towards each other and I held out my arms. She let me pick her up and she snuggled her little face right into my neck hugging me, not saying a word.

Oh my goodness, it was like a slow motion scene from a movie! SO SWEET!

I found out from Maddy later that while I was gone, Aggie had been asking people "Where's Grandma?" and they all showed her on the Live360 app or the globe.  But when Maddy and Matthew came for lunch, she climbed up on Maddy's lap and whispered, "Where did Grandma go?!" Like everyone was lying to her but Maddy would tell her the truth!  :) What a sweetheart!  I'm so glad she missed me!

I gave the kids a full presentation of ALL my pictures, videos and stories a week or so later and made a video with only half the pictures.  You can watch it HERE.

or here.

Oh, you know how they would say "get your land legs"?  For about a week, every time, I went to bed and closed my eyes, it felt like the bed was either rocking back and forth or spinning.  I couldn't tell if I was sick or just missing the ship.  Teresa called it Dock Rock.  Ruth Ann suffered from it too for a while. UGG.  I missed the ship!

I had so much fun and am looking forward to a similar trip in about a year and half.

Teresa is already planning it! :)

Day 4 Mediterranean Cruise - Still Barcelona & then the Ship

 Day 4 Mediterranean Cruise - Still in Barcelona

Ruth Ann and I are early risers, so around 5, we saw the party stragglers walking home. And then saw some people heading off for work.  That was Sunday morning.  We weren't meeting up with Teresa and Ken until 9ish, so we walked down La Ramblas looking for a coffee.  The lady at the hotel desk mentioned a place but we couldn't find anything local open, however we DID find a McDonalds!  It had an elevator to get to it but we used the stairs down.  The coffee was good and we shared the BEST croissant!  It was super flakey and we made a mess.

We walked back and met up with the others.  We checked out and walked down the alleyways to the seashore.  

Me, thinking I was on a sidewalk, blocked policemen on motorbikes and since my hearing isn't the best, blocked them for a good awkward minute...

I rolled my suitcase along and through what I thought was rainwater and wondered where it fell from as there wasn't a gutter there.  Um no.  

Ken informed me that most likely some party-iers had peed on the wall of the building in an alley.  ew.  You had to be careful.

We found a staircase going down on the sidewalk and Ruth Ann and I ran down it to see the subway system that had made our room rumble in the night several times. We slept through most of them.

Oh, it's just a subway station. hm.

I took a pic of a sign adverting renting a bike would make you faster than a zombie and only  afterwards noticed a homeless person sleeping in a bag on the opposite side of the alley. Whoops!  Excuse me! Yes, I told him that.  Ruth Ann has been picking on me about that ever since.

All the buildings were so close in the alleys with fantastic construction cropping up out of nowhere, that it all looked like a scene straight out of a James Bond movie. 

 A lot of mosaic stuff in shop windows!

We got to the ocean and it was beautiful!  Palm trees everywhere. 

 Our cruise ship was about 5 miles down the coast 

so we found a large enough taxi at the Columbus statue roundabout.  

Below is NOT our taxi.  We each had a suitcase and carry on AND 4 people.  

So even though the taxis are in the order of being hired out, the ones in the cars were gracious enough to let us take the minivan a few cars back.

Teresa pointed out the hill behind where the Olympic village is and was, when the Olympics were there last.  It wasn't far away but we didn't have time to explore it.

The minivan taxi got us quickly to the MSC Orchestra ship. We went through security to get onboard and the walkie talkies that I'd brought got confiscated. Yes, two run-ins with police/security in the same day!  I got them back the next day after they researched them to make sure these kind were allowed.  Apparently certain types are not.  But for your info, the ones you can buy at Walmart are A-OK! 

They didn't work so great anyway so if you were on the opposite end of the ship you couldn't understand the other person at all and there are only so many times, I'll say WHAT?! really loudly.  Oh well.  They got left in my bag for the rest of the trip. If you need any walkie talkies, I've got 'em!

We got onboard the ship and since we weren't able to go to our rooms immediately, we enjoyed some complimentary mimosas 

and then explored the ship where we got some food up in the buffet.  mmm..   Lots of varieties at the buffet.  Always pizza, burgers and fries for lunches and dinner with loads of other alternatives for meats, prepared a million different ways and in different nationalities.

Around 2:30ish, we were finally able to get unpacked in our cabins and then off to explore some more.  We found the ultimate spot to see the ship head out of the port at the back end of deck 7 in the Shaker Lounge.  We went there a lot over the course of the next week.  The girls and myself got into the MSC app and got set up to message each other.

In our exploration, we found the Shanghai restaurant that had a lot of dishes that reminded me of a game we play with Maddy and Matthew.  It includes Sashimi, Nigiri and Maki to name a few.  We got to sample their sushi later that week.

And then the ship set sail. 

Here was a our view. Perfect!

 I think I was only on the outside deck a few times and got pics of Barcelona from the sea. 

Beautiful!

The sea through our cabin's window was fascinating and a bit mesmerizing to watch. 

 After supper in the L'Ibiscus dining room, we found an ABBA tribute party going on so the girls and I hung around and sang along dancing from a balcony up above. He and Teresa got their picture professionally taken later by a the photographer who was always trying to pull us into photos after a 7 mile hike in Italy...  NOT looking my best right now Thanks!

We enjoyed a show in the Covent Theater on deck 6.  

It was a tribute to 80s and 90s music.  So fun!  

One young woman sang Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" in Italian for the first verse and then in English. 

It was beautiful!

End of day 4!