Note: I’ve updated as didn’t finish this properly.
Last day = travel day 🥱 = potentially a boring / short blog
Check out is 11am. We would have been on time but the tiny lift went past us full, 4 goddam times. One of those times a nice English lady said “sorry!” with a smile.
The plan is breakfast then gift shop. Sorry if you’re not included on the gift list, it’s mostly for the girls.
Breakfast was just around the corner from hotel.
We don’t do much else today than just mooch around shops, so it’s pretty dull in terms of content. I’ve asked the guys for their 10 best pictures from the holiday so will post those soon. Here’s some pics from today:
I’ll also publish some pics from the others. See you soon.
Edit: Didn’t finish this right due to a bit of faffing at airport. Let’s go back to there point where we finished mooching and were heading back to hotel.
Els needed a piss so we dart into KFC. I hang around suspiciously so pretend to order for a bit. They have a lot of veggie and crazy shizz here
After that I loiter on stairwell and a guy asks me something/comments. Says something about “little girl”. My instant thought is that Els has an issue (stairs are below in basement). I think he was actually talking in Spanish, all I can mutter is a knee-jerk “Lo Siento” and he goes away.
We get our cases and head to station. Problems with ticket barrier for Els ensues, a Spanish lady helped by holding a gate open. Then it’s stairs up, stairs down, along a platform, stairs up, stairs down. In hindsight we came in wrong entrance. Take train on L1 line back to Torrassa, we huddle around central pole which is our safe space. A girl rocks up with a boom box and a good voice tbh belts out a Pink song. We give coinage. Change at Torrassa which is confusing, another Spanish lady tries to assist in the situation; I think she thought we needed a lift, but it was two signs for the same place showing different directions which was messing us up. We wait for a lift. Lift is full as fuck. So we go escalators which was the first instinct. Train to airport is fine.
Security is fine. Just before scanners a girl jumps out of line to dump liquid. Shit, I realise I have water bottles in bag and jump out of line and dump liquid. Lisa has mild panic about deodorant tin. We opt to keep it. No frisking or micro-touchery today, all sail through.
Dinner in Giraffe, our server is a nice guy. Also served by his assistant robot too which is a nice treat.
I look up the gate, it says gate E78 which is not on any of my nerds maps. I ask AI and it says it might not exist. With about 20mins to boarding we think what the hell and head up to E Gates. Passport control first. I enter the ribbon maze and end up taking a wrong turn which the fam find hilarious as I’m stood in a cul-de-sac of no-entry terminals. How the shit did that happen? Gate E78 is indeed a real gate and we sit for a while. No tactical advantage today. Lines form, we’re Group 2 so head over. I leave rucksack on seat – really having an off day today… Els grabs it for me. Then Liz says why are we in queue for Gate E80. WTF is going on here. Nice Brit lady in front says it is the right queue because she saw Vueling lady put these out at same time. The queue to out left is group 1 and there are loads of the fuckers. Looks like we will be some of the last on the plane, goddamn it.
Eventually we get to board. A guy is having a right paddy just as we hand over passports, and is rightfully given an earful by gate lady. Didn’t catch the argument but he’s been disrespectful to her so guy needs to check himself. What a prick.
We are same seats, row 5. No space for cases, so we have to dump cases way down the plane. I head up the supply line and the others do well to pass me cases in spaces in Rows 18, 21, 22. Stewardess is apologetic, says lots of people have paid for some privilege or whatever, which is why there were so many Group 1 assholes I guess. It’s a shit system. We fight our way back to row 5. I am left with an empty seat next to me once more, waiting for that last-minute-jerkoff to swoop in and start an elbow war. Oh god – what if it’s narky man? Miraculously, no one sits there so life is good. We just have the mission to get cases at the end but we have decided we’ll wait until last; let the impatient privileged people do what they do best and fuck off quickly.
In summary, Barcelona was nice but had made me rethink doing a city break in a hot country – it made it hard work at times. Also, I felt the city did not have enough to offer in terms of things to do. Budapest and Prague had so much more. Maybe it was inadequate planning, maybe just too much focus on this Gaudi guy, or maybe a bit of both. But we had fun as a family, despite the aching feet. And we did not eat one McDonald’s or get a single taxi. We ate at least one local dish. I call that a victory.
Fin
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