The Log Dog Blog

Monday, April 2, 2018

Spring Break 2018: Day 9

Our last day in Barcelona mostly involved sleeping in, then wandering around and eating, which was a pretty great way to finish up our trip! All told, we walked almost 60 miles over the course of the trip!

We spent some time at the beach, and there is just something about sitting at a beach, staring off toward the vast blue horizon that makes me think very reflectively, and I was really overcome with emotion about how much I love Barcelona. In fact, the one and only souvenir I brought back - yes, we only bought one thing over the course of the entire trip! - was the Barcelona version of the "You Are Here" mugs from Starbucks. We've really tried to not bring a bunch of knickknacks home each time we travel, and we did not buy anything until our very last day. We do collect these mugs from the places we visit, but in our desire to pare down the clutter, we have slowed on our purchasing of these mugs because we do visit a lot of places and if we bought every available mug from every place we visited, they would quickly over take our entire kitchen! However, I ended up loving Barcelona so much that I decided to get the mug!

We took a cab to the airport around 4:00 pm, and without providing boring details, we had a couple of weird exchanges in terms of the security procedures with two different people - at the check-in counter and at the gate. Both times, we were asked a variety of bizarre questions (example - asking me to describe my job, then not understanding what a teacher was) and the language barrier did not help matters. So strange compared all other previous experiences! The flight ended up leaving more than an hour late, so we didn't get to Newark until 11:00 pm, and after waiting for our luggage and catching the shuttle to the long-term parking, we weren't on the road until about 12:30 am. It would have taken much longer if not for Global Entry! C kindly drove home so I could sleep in the car because I had to work today. We had two very happy dogs when we got home a little after 4:00 am! As always, a million thank yous to my mom for taking care of of Maddy & Ginny for us!

Since I started this series of posts with a selfie at the airport, I thought I would end the series in the same way - here we are waiting in Barcelona to board the plane for our flight home!

I can't wait for our next adventure!

Read about the other days of our trip:

Spring Break 2018: Day 1

Spring Break 2018: Day 2

Spring Break 2018: Day 3

Spring Break 2018: Day 4

Spring Break 2018: Day 5

Spring Break 2018: Day 6

Spring Break 2018: Day 7

Spring Break 2018: Day 8

Happy Tails to you!

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Spring Break 2018: Day 8

Today was quite the adventure! If you know us, you're well aware of our desire to see as much of the world as possible. And you're also familiar with our willingness to take crazy driving trips! We checked both of those boxes today because we drove to Andorra to add another country to our list of places we've visited!

We were up early to catch the metro to the main train station because the car rental place was just across the street. Before picking up the car, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the train station because we knew we had a few hours of driving ahead of us.

Let me say this about the rental car experience: what a delight! Nothing like the rigmarole you have to go through in America. It took about five minutes. That's it! I've complained on several occasions in other posts about how ridiculous and antiquated renting a car is - particularly in Orlando, where we have had 40+ car rental experiences over the years, with most of them being unnecessarily complicated. Is it because of the fear of lawsuits in America? The worry that exists because is it easy for people to sue one another? I don't know, but what a breath of fresh air this was! The rental cars were parked under the hospital next door, and we found our assigned car, hopped in, and were on the road in less than five minutes. No joke! Why can't the car rental companies at the Orlando airport operate with such efficiency?!?

Please keep in mind that almost all of the photos in this next set of pictures were taken from a moving car, typically traveling between 80 and 110 km per hour (the last three were taken at a rest stop). As such, they are not as clear as I would like them to be, but they certainly capture the grandeur of the scenery! What a spectacular drive! In all, it was about 300 km! We planned on eating lunch in Andorra, but once we crossed the border (no customs or passport control!), the traffic was insane and it was a madhouse. I don't know if that was due to it being a Saturday or Easter weekend or what, but we decided to not be a part of it! We drove in to the country for a short distance, looked around, and then headed back to Barcelona. Not the most exciting of visits, but the drive was wonderful! And I didn't get a photo, but at one point it was snowing! Just little flakes in the air, but I was still excited!

It turned out to be the least amount of time we've ever rented a car - less than six hours! We returned the car (another quick and easy experience!) and had to go back to the train station to catch the metro. Before heading down to the track, we stopped at the restrooms. As you can see, you had to pay to use them (while this is not an entirely uncommon practice in Europe, it is the first time we've encountered it on this trip), using an automated system and turnstile. Then inside every stall was the photo below! Definitely the strangest bathroom experience of this trip!

We took the metro back across the city and grabbed some lunch that came with an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea. Just lovely!

In case you couldn't tell from my hair in this photo,
it was a VERY windy day!

Given our early start, we went back to our room to rest for a while and also enjoy the amazing view we had for one more night! It's going to be difficult to return to reality after this!

Following a quick nap, we went for a walk and stopped for ice cream, catching some of the sunset before heading back up to our room to watch it from our window, where it was not as chilly and blustery as outdoors!

Finally, we ended our night at a nearby brewery called BlackLab. We figured with a name like that, it was worth a try because we can pretty much get on board with anything relating to dogs! It was fantastic! Not only was the beer so good, but we ordered fries as a snack, and as the picture shows, these were no ordinary fries! Delicious!