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!
