Road Trip to Barcelona

On Thursday, May 23 Kevin and I flew to Baltimore, Maryland. We left Colorado Springs around 11am and arrived in Baltimore around 8pm. We collected our luggage, picked up our renal car, and arrived at the hotel around 9pm. We were pretty hungry, so we went down to the Yard House in the lobby and ate a crab pretzel and two burgers. We got back to our room around 11pm and fell asleep around midnight.

We woke up around 9am on Friday morning and went to work. It was rainy and cold so we did most of our inspection indoors and were finished by 11am. We arranged for a late check out so we didn’t have to leave the hotel until 2pm. We went back to the Yard House for lunch and accessed the free Wi-Fi and I finally got the blog up-to-date! It was an amazing feeling! We went back up the room around 1pm to shower and pack and then we were off to the airport to fly to Barcelona. This is when our true adventure began! We found out earlier in the day that our flight from Baltimore to Philadelphia was delayed, making our connection almost impossible to catch. After we dropped off our rental car we found out (before arriving at the airport) that our fight had actually been cancelled! At that point the situation was out of our hands and we needed to find out what the airline would provide. When we got to the airport, around 3pm, US Airways informed us that they would pay for a shuttle to DRIVE us to Philadelphia; so we hopped on a Super Shuttle with about 10 other people from our cancelled flight and began the journey to Philadelphia. The drive took us just over 2 hours and we drove through 3 different states in that time frame (Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania). I love driving on the east coast! We arrived at the airport around 5:15pm and our flight to Munich left at 6:30pm (we actually got to the airport earlier than we would have if our initial flight had been on time). 

A Liberty Bell made out of Legos! 

We flew 7.5 hours to Munich and had a 2-hour layover before finishing our journey in Barcelona! We arrived in Barcelona around 1:30pm on Saturday and took the free airport shuttle to our hotel. We went straight up to our room and slept until about 5:30pm. A friend of ours, who also works for Royal Caribbean, was staying at the same hotel and we made plans to meet him in the city at 7pm. We took the free hotel shuttle to Las Ramblas at 6pm and walked up to the Hard Rock Café to meet Matt and his friend Brandon. The four of us proceeded to our favorite Irish Pub for drinks and dinner and then ventured back to the hotel. We took the metro to Plaza Espanya and took a few pictures at the Magic Fountain before hopping on the city bus back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel around 11pm and fell asleep around midnight.

Christopher Columbus showing his FCB pride (the Barcelona soccer team).

Kevin, Matt, and Brandon outside our favorite Irish Pub. It always amuses me to see friends all over the world!

The Magic Fountain

We woke up around 7:30am on Sunday morning and went downstairs for breakfast. We took the free hotel shuttle to Las Ramblas and then took the T3 bus to the cruise port. There were four ships in port and so many people! We got on the ship around 9:30am and worked until about 1:30pm. We ate lunch at the pub and took a taxi back to the hotel. We took a nap until about 8pm and then crocheted a few hats! We got a late-night snack at the hotel bar and then struggled to fall asleep. I fell asleep around 4am and Kevin was awake until almost 6:30am! Needless to say, we slept for the majority of the following day.

The view of Barcelona from the ship. Here you can see the Christopher Columbus statue and the Sagrada Familia in the background. 

I woke up around 2pm on Monday and Kevin woke up around 4:30pm. Because we had already wasted most of the day sleeping, we decided to stay at the hotel and crochet instead of going into the city (it took at least 30 minutes to an hour to get to the main part of the city from the hotel). We ordered room service for dinner and fell asleep around 2am.

Our room service dinner. 

Tuesday, May 28, was our 2^nd anniversary! We woke up around 10am and got to the ship around noon. We ate lunch on the ship and then took a taxi back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel around 3pm and ventured back into the city around 4pm. We took the express bus to Plaza Espanya and then to the metro to Park Guell! Park Guell is a beautiful public park that was designed by Antoni Gaudi and the architecture it just beautiful! A lot of his architecture features tile mosaics and this park certainly does not stray from his norm. We took a few photos and then found a quiet picnic bench to enjoy our bottle of wine and celebrate our anniversary. It was a very casual and relaxing afternoon, but a perfect way to celebrate! We left the park around 7pm and took the metro to Las Ramblas. We did a little shopping and then ate dinner at our favorite Irish Pub, Flaherty’s. We got back to the hotel around 11pm and fell asleep around 1am. It was a great anniversary!

Gaudi's mosaic sign just outside the park.

Beautiful columns underneath the main terrace.

On the main terrace. This incredible mosaic park bench lines the perimeter of the terrace. 

Exquisite stone columns and pathway. 

This is the outside view of the columns under the main terrace. The details in all of the architecture amaze me. You can see the outside of the mosaic bench and some gargoyle heads!

The exterior of the Sagrada Familia from Park Guell. 

A fun tree that we found overlooking the city of Barcelona. 

Some photos of us. There are more photos in the anniversary edition of our trip. 

The largest vending machine I have ever seen!

Our flight home left at 10:45am on Wednesday. We flew from Barcelona to Philadelphia to Chicago to Colorado Springs. It took us an hour and a half to get through customs in Philadelphia. The line was ridiculous! We boarded our flight to Chicago and just before we took off the captain informed us that Chicago had shut down their airspace for a VIP guest. We sat on the runway for an hour before we were cleared for take off. Fortunately, our flight from Chicago to Colorado Springs was also delayed and we arrived home around 11pm.