Finally! We have had a lot of difficulty with the wi-fi network in our apartment and were perplexed by the fact that our computer said the signal strength was excellent but that it had no connectivity. Weird! Jeff just thought about doing a direct connection instead of remote and voila! The fact that it took us over 24 hours to figure this out is a testament to the jet lag we had... which I'm happy to report is not affecting us too badly anymore. I wrote a blog post in a word document last night so I'll cut and paste it here and then write another entry tonight before bed. We had a great day and I look forward to writing about it in a few hours - but for now Jeff and I are competing over internet time before dinner! :)
It is 2:44 am in Barcelona (6:44 pm in Calgary) and I am the only one in my family awake. I can’t figure out why I’m not sleeping – I had about 2 hours of sleep on the way over here and then another 2 hours here but now I’m just tossing and turning. I have finally decided to get up and write until my eyelids fall down!
Our trip here was perfectly uneventful – which is exactly how you want it to be. Our flight from Calgary to London was on time and we all managed to both catch a little sleep as well as watch a few movies. Don’t waste your time with The Bounty Hunter… I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did! We killed some time by having a Guiness in a London pub (disclaimer – it was in terminal 3 in Heathrow, but it was still a London pub!), then tiredly dragged ourselves over to our final leg of the journey. By this time we were all a little droopy but the plane boarded outside and the sunshine temporarily revived us – that is, until we pushed away from the gate and then inexplicably sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes before taxi-ing for takeoff. Our arrival into Barcelona was so smooth and easy – the airport was clean and clear and we could walk right up to customs which is always a pleasant surprise. The girls quickly put their Spanish (and independence) to the test by going and buying a bottle of iced tea all by themselves with nothing but some bravery and a 20 euro note. After that our great intentions of taking the train to the metro to get to our apartment quickly faded when we realized we would need to transfer terminals so we hopped into a cab for the journey into town. Both Jeff and I were surprised by the city we saw between the airport and the older area of Barcelona – we both felt like we were in south San Francisco or Chicago, or a strange combination of the two. The drivers were courteous and calm which was also interesting to note.
Our apartment is okay, but admittedly not the best one we’ve ever had. Besides the sketchy wi-fi situation I think the walls of this building are made of cardboard. Every other apartment we’ve stayed in has been quiet and I always thought it was due to being made of stone and simply the way things were built ‘back then’. Apparently not in this case, although on the upside this apartment has 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms and we’ll hopefully get the wi-fi figured out tomorrow. Oh, and location location location! We are literally across the street from the Sagrada Familia. I could throw a softball through one of it’s windows if I was so inclined! It was beautiful lit up last night as we walked home.
We went for a tapas dinner after settling into our apartment and it was great and exactly what we were hoping for. We just randomly ordered little plates of food – olives, manchega cheese, codfish with garlic and peppers (which Julia basically consumed all by herself!), and other stuff I can’t remember in this sleep deprived state. It was so interesting to see all the babies and kids out eating so late at night – definitely not the way it works at home! It was 10 pm and almost every second table had a stroller or kid sitting at their table (and all of them perfectly behaved!) It was nice.After dinner we went from feeling like we weren’t tired to hitting the wall in the span of about 3 minutes. Jeff and I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to connect to the internet but our brain capacity and patience were no match for whatever was going on! Worst case scenario is finding a Starbucks and using their wi-fi to get online – I have a feeling I’ll need the caffeine!
Update - I eventually did get back to sleep for about 4 more hours (thankfully!) and everyone else seemed to do pretty well too. Phew!
No comments:
Post a Comment