The Bloggening

Okay, we're finally settled enough to start blogging! Yay! We're working on uploading all our photos and video from the first 8 days of our trip which included our Italian cruise, so that stuff will come later. We figure we really should start writing now, though, before it gets away from us, so we'll cover our Barcelona experiences and update with the Italy stuff as it's ready. Let's go!

Back on Dry Land
We disembarked the Voyager of the Seas early Friday morning and headed with my family over to the Barcelona airport Renaissance Hotel. We stayed (went swimming and slept/recovered, not much else as the hotel was oddly located in an industrial park on the outskirts of town) until Saturday when my family left and Bradley and I headed into the city to begin our whirlwind 17 day Spanish honeymoon (Hawaii was a warm-up!). After what we both felt was waaaay too slow of a cab ride, we finally arrived in the Port Olimpic section of town and were greeted by our lovely host, Juliette. As she'd already rented our room to some other visitors, she's been kind enough to set us up in her bedroom for the first two nights until they leave on Tuesday. We can't wait 'til they're gone so we can unpack our stuff and really settle in.

BARCELONA - DAY 1
We were finally able to get back online to check email after refusing to pay the internet connection rates on the cruise ship. It's nice to disconnect for a week, but we both were starting to get a little twitchy, y'know? Upon checking messages, we found one from some Barcalonin friends we'd made when we were all stuck at JFK on our way to Europe. In their email, they mentioned that they live in a town about an hour and a half north of the city where, on our first night in town, there was the culmination of a week-long festival and fireworks competition. I freaked out when I read that as I am a total fireworks freak. As we're on a mission lately to be more spontaneous, we checked the Metro schedule online and decided to go for it.

2 hours later we were on our way to Blanes for the last day of Festa Major. The ride took us past more beaches than we could count, and our excitement rose as we neared our destination. Upon arrival, I asked the ticket agent how to get to the city center for the fireworks. "Fire? You want to see the fire, you will not see it. Fire at 10:00, last train back to Barcelona at 9:00." Um, what? I was praying that I'd simply misunderstood him, but another attendant confirmed it and our spirits sank. Had I misread the Metro schedule? It appeared so. We decided to at least jump on the bus and head to the festival to check it out as we had come too far to simply turn around and go home.

We headed to the beach and commenced to kicking ourselves when we found ourselves walking right past the launch point - a big-ass rock jutting out into the sea from the beach. Looked like it was gonna be a doozy, too. After inquiring about a room at a few hotels and hostels only to be quoted a jacked up festival rate or told that there was no room at the inn, we stewed a little bit more in the hot sun before tucking our tails between our legs and boarding the train back to Barcelona. That ride was nowhere near the sunsoaked lovey-dovey sightseeing tour that the trip in was - no loaf of fresh bread and salami between kisses drenched with fireworks anticipation. This was more like ...hell. But at least we got to sit down. And thank God, because the melee that ensued on the waaay overpacked train would've been the end of my claustrophobic ass - we would've had to walk home. Battling Spanish women (how I wish we understood what they were saying) and screaming (and I do mean SCREAMING) babies ...oh, see for yourself:



When we finally got home nearly 2 hours later, we decided to just settle in with our first meal in town. On the heels of a day spent being disappointed in the hot sun, we did what any other weary travelers in Spain would do...



Sigh. At least it was bueno!