Monday, May 14 - I was up at 7:00 or so. Boy was it good to get a full night's sleep. My room faced the empty courtyard so it was real quiet. This hotel had the regular breakfast buffet with tasty coffee con leche brewed with an espresso machine.
After breakfast, I wandered down to the waterfront and killed time until the cathedral opened. I took a picture of two bicycle policewomen which I'm going to send along to BAC Tom who, as a Berkeley policeman, ran the bicycle patrol for awhile. At 10:00, the cathedral opened and I went in along with German, English and Japanese tourists. The cathedral was started in the 11th century and took 300 years to build. It is supposedly the largest cathedral in Europe on the seaside. It is under constant maintenance. Gaudi did some work in it and again you can see his influence. I took lots of pictures.
I checked out of the hotel at 11:00 and took a taxi to the airport. I considered taking the bus, but the stop was too far away for me to tote my luggage. I checked in and ate lunch - a ham sandwich, olive oil chips and bottled water. I almost had to pay for extra weight for my luggage. Because I'm only going as far as Barcelona today, the allowance was 20 kilos. The clerk took pity on me and didn't charge me because my final destination is SFO.
I got here way early for my flight, so I'm taking the opportunity to update my notes.
Now I'm in my hotel in Barcelona. It's in an old building on the third floor. My room is small and clean. It appears to have been refinished recently. The floors have large yellowish-brown tiles and the walls are painted with wide yellow and white vertical stripes. I also have a small balcony with a table, two chairs and several potted plants. The only complaint that I have is that the shower doors are falling off. Oh yeah, and when I came in, the lobby TV outside my door was turned up real loud and the clerk was smoking next to the no-smoking sign.
time - about 5:30 - so I bought a package of very salty peanuts at a small store on my way. There were hundreds of people walking up and down. It was instant recognition from when we were here before. I even found the huge produce market just off of the I showered and made my way to la Rambla with the aid of my GPS. I was very hungry at thispromenade. I got a small glass of berry juice there. Further down la Rambla, I bought a large baked chicken and vegetable sandwich at a shop advertising that it is the best sandwich in town. I should have know better because there was a Subway just down the street. For dessert, I had a couple pastries from Dunkin' Donuts.
On my way back to the hotel, I walked past the square with the two fountains at the top of la Rambla. When I got into the hotel, there was a new non-smoking clerk and the TV was turned off. My attitude is much better. I'll reserve further opinion when I see a taxi at 6:00 tomorrow morning.
I'll be publishing this blog entry when I can. I know that there are internet zones in the Barcelona airport.
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