European Cruise: Day 18 long day of travel

We have a little bit of morning in Barcelona, like just enough to sleep in and have some coffee and a pastry while people watching before we head to the airport. We depart just after 1 and land in LAX around 10pm hahaha, and yet we will be traveling for almost 17 hours.

This was the only photo I took hahahaha. At this point I was tired. We ate lunch at the airport then boarded the flight to Amsterdam, it was about 2.5 hours then we hurried through Amsterdam because we had about 1.5 hours to make our connection and had to go through passport control. But we made it. Then started the long 11ish hour flight. I didn’t want to sleep since we would be getting into LA at night and I wanted to be able to get back on normal time. I watched like 5 movies. We landed in Salt Lake City with 1 hour and 5 minutes to deplane, get through customs, get our bags, recheck our bags and get the third person in our party a boarding pass because for some reason we couldn’t print their last boarding pass in Barcelona and go back through security…….we made it by some miracle however Carra’s and I’s bags did not because we got them checked only about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Thankfully we were already staying overnight in LA so we just picked them up the next day.

We got off the plane spent about 40 minutes waiting for our bags then learning that they didn’t make the plane, then we boarded a shuttle to our hotel, got checked in and walked next door to McDonald’s then ate in our room and passed out for about 5 hours. \

We woke up early, got back to the airport, got our bags and got on the plane to finally get home…….are we there yet????

European Cruise: Day 17 Barcelona

Today is our full day in Barcelona and we are going on a tour!

First let’s touch on the Catalonian referendum that was going on. This was Sunday, the day of the vote. We drove by this on the way out of town on the cruise, it was a demonstration. If you haven’t heard of the referendum, Google it. It was very interesting to be here for this……a little nerve wracking as well, we were on high alert the whole time, no way was I going to be caught in the middle of a riot.

We headed out of town about an hour into the mountains to visit a monastery.

It was like a mini little city, there was a hotel and a hostel and a little restaurant

That is the funicular to the top of the mountain.

Inside part of the monastery.

This was supposed to be the most powerful spot, geothermal waters run under it and the original church stood in this spot.

Lots of candles

hiking!

The mist was pretty, it started to burn off as we climbed down.

Back in town, people gathered in a plaza to keep apprised of the situation.

Gelato and a church!

another church!

there is a fair type place near the water, we went and rode the ferris wheel

Bye Barcelona!!!!!

European Cruise: Day 16 Barcelona

Today we disembark the ship! The ship docked at 5am in Barcelona. I slept in until 7:30am. Everyone but me is taking a dis-embarkment so i need to figure out what I want to do. Once we get settled into our apartment its time to start cramming in those sights to see again!

I got off the ship and took the bus from the ship/port to the actual town then started walking around to find where everyone else would get let off their tour.

On the way I happened to find the Starbucks!!! And got my 3rd you are here mug!

Then I stopped and had espresso and a croissant then met up with the others and dropped our bags at our residence then headed back out.

By then it was snack time and I may have gotten an espresso with vanilla gelato in it!!!! It was delicious

Time for sightseeing!

Nice view of the city and ocean beyond

Park Guell

Amazing bakery we stumbled upon.

This empanada was so good and only 1 Euro!

Sagrada de famillia