One of the advantages of having our kids going to the British school is that we get to take advantage of the short school breaks that they have through out the year on top of the big ones like Christmas, Easter and summer break. Back in October, I was looking for a place to go during our half-term break in February. I figured everyone would be sick of the cold by then, so I wanted to take us somewhere warm. I stumbled upon cheap tickets to Barcelona with Ryanair and while I was in visiting my cousin in Paris, Robert just bought them. For a little over $100 for a roundtrip ticket to Spain is not bad at all, right?
This was our first experience flying with Ryanair so we were a bit apprehensive. We were warned, and warned again to lower our expectations and simply accept the fact this was a low of the lowest cost airlines in Europe. So we did. We were prepared. And we were pleasantly surprised!
Our flight was leaving at 8:30 am from Stansted, which is the nearest airport to us and the one that Ryanair uses quite a bit. Gone are our Misawa days when we could just ask friends to drop us off at the train station or at the airport without having to leave the car parked while we are gone. Since it takes about an hour to get from our house to the airport, it's simply not very feasible. So we reserved off site parking and hope for the best. This time, it was a bit difficult to find the parking lot (it was a small, private company) in the dark, but we did it. It was freezing cold at 6:30 in the morning, especially considering the fact that we were wearing our lightweight coats--going to Spain after all.
Going through check-in and security was a breeze. As soon as the flight's gate was announced Robert walked super fast (it seemed like miles and miles) to the gate to stand in line. The thing with Ryanair is that you don't get an assigned seat. You do get a reserved seat, but depending on where you are in line is what determines your chance of getting a good seat. On the way there and back, we managed to be maybe thirtieth in line so we had no problem finding seats all together. And yes, our luggage had to be under 10 kg and even smaller than regular carry-on size suitcases that we own to fly on other airlines.
The flight lasted less than two hours on the way there ending with a funny fanfare announcement that Ryanair is #1 airline to be on time out of all European airlines. During the flight, no drinks are offered...well, they are offered but you have to pay for everything--food, drinks, lottery tickets, perfume, smokeless cigarettes. They have to make their money somehow, right?
The kids were wonderful.
And then we arrived. This was our first REAL foreign trip since we moved to England. Going to Ukraine where we have family or to Germany where we have friends, didn't seem that foreign. But this was a real adventure ahead of us.
The first thing we saw at the airport was this...horse.
Welcome to Barcelona!
It took us a little while to find an ATM and get some Euros. Originally, we were going to take the train to our apartment in the city, but then we discovered that although it was a bit more expensive, taking the Aerobus was a better option for us. We were told to get out on the third stop at Universitat and then take the metro to Sagrada Familia station. And that's what we TRIED to do. Somehow, the button that told the driver to stop was not working on the back where Robert was sitting, so we ended up going a stop further to Placa Catalunya. Great...not knowing where we were in relations to our apartment, we tried to find out from our driver how to get back to Universitat. After a few funny exchanges of almost non-existent English, Robert said we either take a bus or go down to the metro. So here we were, in the middle of a Placa, five lost foreigners with luggage, looking obviously like tourists. Whatever happened to our attempts to not draw any unnecessary attention?
After looking at a map we had (another sure way to advertise the fact that we are tourists..well, besides the fact that we are quite light skinned and blue-eyed), we decided to take the metro and get to our final destinations, although now with a line transfer. Little did we know, that we were merely a five minute walk from Universitat metro station, which would give us a direct access to where we needed to go. Why the driver did not explain that to us, no one knows.
Once we got down the stairs to the subway, we had to figure out where to go. I am not kidding you, we had harder time finding out what line to take and all details in Barcelona that first day than we ever did in Tokyo. We couldn't even find a proper map at first-haha. And then, as by magic, out of nowhere appeared a nice helpful man who asked us in pretty good English if we need help figuring out where to go. "Well, yes. How do we get to Sagrada Familia station?". "It's easy", he said,"just follow the yellow brick wall". Kidding. He pointed which way we need to go and even helped us buy tickets and figure out how to do the whole "multi-entry" ticket deal. We thanked him, and he said "Do you have a coin to give me for helping you?" or something like that. At that moment, I was brought back to reality that this is Barcelona. The whole time I was thinking some kind soul just wanted to help us, but it turned out, he was trying to make some money too. Robert gave him a coin (promise, it was not a one cent) since the guy indeed helped us a lot. Yeah...this would never happen in Japan:)
Okay, so we got to our station, walked out of the subway, looked up and this is what we saw.
Whoa!!!
The famous La Sagrada Familia (Church of the Holy Family).
I promise you will see a lot more of this monstrous building. In fact, I think I found fifty or so pictures of this church from our trip. Since our apartment was located only three blocks from La Sagrada Familia, we saw it every day a couple of times plus came here with tours twice. Yes...we took a lot of pictures here.
After finally figuring out where our apartment was, we were again pleasantly surprised. Our building was very clean, right next to the fruit shop and across the street from a supermarket. The owner of the apartment could not be there to meet us in person, but his wife, who spoke no English was. It was fun figuring out the details about how things worked at their place without speaking Spanish. Anyway, the apartment had two double bedrooms and one single bedroom, that was added to the apartment where the terrace is. There was no heater in that room, so Alex volunteered to sleep there, as our most warm-blooded (or is it cold-blooded?) member of the family.
The bathroom was fantastic--we do miss nice updated bathrooms living in our old English house:). Kitchen had everything we needed and more. They even had a laptop for us to use with free internet.
This was the view from our apartment.
"Construction?", you might ask. Well, no. But you'll have to come back and read our other posts to find out more about this whole unfinished business.
More views. It seems that almost all apartments in Barcelona have very nice large balconies to enjoy their nice sunny weather:)
After unloading our luggage, we ran downstairs to the supermaket, picked up some sandwich stuff and freshly bake bread,
bought a ton of huge strawberries,
and apples, and oranges,
and enjoyed a very pleasant late lunch on our balcony. Ah.....that was the most relaxing part of the day.
It was after four in the afternoon, so we did not want to venture out too far from the house--everyone was tired from getting up at five in the morning and travelling. We decided to take a stroll as far as we could manage pass La Sagrada Familia.
Oh yes, more pictures.
This is one of the facades of the church.
Fascinating architectural design, like nothing else I've ever seen.
Across the street, we found a small playground where kids enjoyed playing for about 20 minutes, before we started to freeze. It was funny to see clearly who was a local and who was not. All people who live in Barcelona seemed to be dressed in their warm coats, wearing scarfs and hats. All the tourists were in light clothing since most people realize that 13-15 degrees Celsius is a very mild winter weather.
Anywhere where palm trees grow is where I wouldn't mind spending half of my winter months.
Sagrada Familia, picture #28.
We walked and walked and walked, not really knowing where we'd end up (Alex thought we were headed to a rock concert, I believe).
Finally, we got to the street called Diagonal--a street that literally crosses the city diagonally.
(Oh no, this post is turning out to be one of those "walked and walked and walked" posts...)
Again, we walked, and walked, enjoying the weather and trying to soak in the city's atmosphere.
Everyone was getting tired, so we headed home, stopping by the supermarket and picking up some easy dinners. The kids loved our laid back evening, knowing that they would have to endure soooo much more walking (or biking) the next few days.
Okay, this is the last one, I promise (for today).
Good night for now.
There is more to come, so if you are not yet tired of all this Barcelona talk, come back soon. Robert should be working on our next post (or maybe he is reading Sherlock Holmes stories, not sure), which I suspect will be fun to read, as usual.
No comments:
Post a Comment