Oh where to begin? Spain Days 0-1

Before I begin I should give a shout out to my new niece (no name yet..hurry up already!). You can see cute pics of her at the Maxfield Family link to the right.

So our trip started out with a panic. I'll admit Danny and I were not the most prepared people for this trip (lessoned learned believe me!). We didn't start booking hotels or looking up train schedules until a week before. We didn't finish until...well we didn't finish. The night before our departure we were up until all hours of the night trying to reserve all sorts of stuff and pack. We made about 4 trips to Walmart within 2 hours trying to get everything we needed. Finally I just went to bed.

In the morning it was a mad rush to get everything done. In the process I discovered my credit card Danny had been using to book everything with was missing. Major problem. We searched high and low, under every doll and stuff animal and to no avail could find the card. Finally 30 mins before our plane was to depart we left for the airport (good thing its only a 10 min drive away). With no card in hand, I was frantically calling the credit card company who offered very little help. I of course was so panicked about everything that the minute we got through security I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Danny was waiting outside with 7up in hand. We walked on the plane hoping for the best.

We made it to Salt Lake and to Atlanta, where we had a 12 minute lay over to change planes and of course we had to take a bus to a different terminal (what airline does that to someone??), and finally to Barcelona. Once we got our packs we tried to find the metro station which was not as obvious as we thought it was going to be. We opened up Rick Steves to read the directions and there it was...the credit card! Thank goodness!! However, Rick Steves still didn't help us find the metro (ahem...better description please Rick Steves!). Danny's big moment came to ask the native information desk lady for directions and he spoke English to her! I couldn't believe it. I was in for an adventure.

Finally we found the metro station. We bought our T-10 sharable ticket and got on the train feeling quite good about ourselves. (Picture below).

While riding the metro I was trying to compare our google map of the hotel and the map of the metro to see what stop we should take. I finally figure that we need to change lines to the purple and get off at the University stop. I was telling Danny the instructions when a nice lady next to him asked if we needed help. He showed her the map of where our hotel was and she told us just to get off at the last stop and it would be a short walk. So I figured I wasn't reading the map right and she would know more so we followed her directions. Below are the pictures from our hours of wandering the streets trying to find our hotel because the lady was wrong (and I was right).

What we later discovered is the Block of Discord


Ramblas
(not my favorite...lots of pick pockets and street performers trying to scare tourists)

Finally after my wonderful deduction that "well our hotel is off the ramblas which is towards the harbour. And since I can't see any moutains or ocean I'm going to guess that we should walk downhill because wouldn't the land slop down towards the ocean?" We found the ramblas and I proved to be the superior navigator. A half hour later I was lying on the street cursing and admitting defeat to the city planners after having walked for a total of 2 hours with my pack in 100 degrees and been pooped on by a bird. Danny provided emotional support and got me off the sidewalk and encouraged me to look upon the map once more. We made it to the hotel, Pension Miami, dripping in sweat. For some reason after leaving our packs at the hotel we decided we would try to walk to the Picasso Museum which ended up being rather far (Danny was trying to make up for the 18 hours we spent sitting on the plane and not walking). I was really excited for the museum because I know a fair bit about Picasso and because the museum is housed in a couple of old palaces. It was alright. I still maintain the exhibit I saw 10 years ago at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in SF was better. That night we ate at Pan and Co. which was a bit of a disappointment but much welcomed normal food. I passed out at 6:30 pm.