Barcelona!

The fun weekend was pretty much sandwiched between two pretty miserable traveling days. The first you know about, the second we’ll get to in a bit. Sit tight, this might be a long one.

This statue at the Pisa Airport pretty much sums up how I feel about all of my travel to and from Barcelona!

I finally made it to Barcelona after the travel day from hell. Throughout the night, I gave myself a countdown. “In 6 hours, you’ll be napping in the hotel.”  Of course, in between landing and getting settled, I had to head to pick up the tickets for the concert. I received no less than 5 emails from Ticketmaster telling me to be early, get my tickets! I was on a mission! I arrived at a pick-up point to find I was the only one waiting. Guess I beat the crowds. :)

I got back to my hotel, showered and finally took that nap. All an hour earlier than my mental countdown!

I didn’t do a lot of the tourist things while there. Thursday I wandered around the neighborhood my hotel was in and then eventually ended up at La Rambla for a drink. At the bar, I met a group of French guys away for the weekend. We hung out for the rest of the night, ending up at some random club near the beach. I eventually headed home at 3am on a night that I was meant to catch up on sleep. It was looking like that wasn’t going to happen.

The next day I had intentions of seeing some sights, but when you leave the hotel around noon and have a concert that night, chances go way down. So I did the things that were close to me, which were two of Gaudi’s buildings: Casa Mila and Casa Batllo.

Casa Batllo

Casa Mila

Of course, I headed back for a nap before the concert. At this point, I still didn’t have anyone for the extra ticket. There was a group of 3 Irish guys at my hotel, but by the time I had thought to ask, they had left the hotel bar. I left a note for them with the hotel, but didn’t hear back by the time I left.

When I got to the stadium, I learned 1. There were still tickets available 2. I wasn’t the only one selling tickets. And as you can guess, selling one is a bit trickier. Being I paid for them months ago, the amount I got wasn’t all that important. I finally found a man on line to buy a ticket, Ian, and asked if he wanted mine instead. It took a good 5 minutes convincing him it was a real ticket and he eventually gave me some money. It really wasn’t a lot but it was something and the ticket wouldn’t be wasted. When we both made our way to the seats, we got to chatting. He was kind enough to buy me a few beers to make up for the good deal he got on the ticket!

He turned out to be pretty good company.  He “loves to dance” however I don’t think he would know a beat if it smacked him in the face. He was dancing and clapping away to a beat that was only in his head. But gotta give him credit for the effort!!

The concert was great!! Bruce, as always, was fantastic. Still has it at his age and played for 3 hours. A downside of seeing him in a non-English country is the minimized story telling. He read from his “script” in Spanish but I was missing his diatribes in between songs. But outside of that, it was so fun. The Spanish had their groove on all night and everyone was dancing in the seats and aisles. (However, I think I was the only one singing at the top of my lungs for each song!) :)

I traveled back down to the center of the city with Ian and we went for one last beer. It might sound like we had a lot, but I think that was only beer #3, so not bad. The night ended yet again at 3am.

I forced myself out of bed on Saturday to head to Parc Guell. I stopped by La Sagrada Familia for a few pictures on my way. I didn’t go inside the church this time because the line was crazy long and I had already been.

I wandered around the park for a bit and then made my way back toward the city center. I did some shopping on the way and headed back for yet another nap and shower.

Before I came for the weekend, I decided to treat myself to a fancy dinner. I ended up choosing Comerc24 and got all dressed up. It is the type of restaurant that each time you get up, there’s a new napkin, chairs are pulled in and out for you, etc. I mention this because the first time I asked where the restroom was, I was escorted to it. In my mind, once I know where it is I’m pretty sure I can make my way there again. I was on my way back and one of the waiters comes running up behind me to get to the door before I do. I looked at him with the expression “Are you coming with me?” and couldn’t help but laugh. I kept them busy because after the two huge bottles of water and glasses of wine, I made a few more trips! :)

OK, now to the main focus of the restaurant – the food. The food was very good. You had the option of doing a la carte or a tasting menu. I did the tasting menu as I think most people do. It was 7 courses (versus the other option of 12) and you tell them what you like and what you don’t like based on the a la carte menu. So you weren’t exactly sure of what you were getting. But all of it was really good. It was mostly seafood, raw fish in the beginning and a few meat dishes toward the end. Then an assortment of 5 desserts after! However, you had the option of a cheese round before dessert. As much as it looked amazing, I just couldn’t do it. And I couldn’t just get one piece; I would have had to get 4. It wasn’t going to happen.

After I rolled myself out of the restaurant 3 ½ hours later, I headed out on the town. Yes, I was by myself and managed to stay that long, but I did strike up conversation with a couple next to me at the bar. So that made up for the last 30 minutes or so.

I wasn’t exactly sure where to go so I went back to what I knew. All dressed up and at an Irish pub!! That’s how I roll. But while there, struck up conversation with 3 Spaniards and headed to a bit classier place. I eventually got back around 4am. It’s definitely a city you don’t realize where the time goes!!!

Sunday was a struggle getting up and out of the hotel by noon. But somehow I managed. I did more wandering and eating before getting on the bus to the airport. At that point I didn’t mind the hour bus ride – I got in a bit of a nap.

My flight back to Pisa was at 10:30pm landing at midnight. We left a bit late but still arrived on time. I already head my train ticket so headed to see the times. There was one coming at 1:03am to Pisa Centrale where I would catch the next train out to Empoli. But for some reason, I wasn’t confident about the 1:03am train. My gut told me to get a taxi to the main train station just so I didn’t miss the 1:12am train out. That would have sucked!

The 10 Euro was well spent because while I got there around 12:40am and had yet more time to kill, I spent it putting two and two together that the 1:12am wasn’t a train, but a bus!! I would have pulled into the station waiting for the binario (track) number to be posted and never happening! So I figured out what and where I had to wait and proceeded to wait.  

According to the schedule, I would arrive in Empoli at 2:20am. That’s what I had to go by as to what stop was mine. The buses don’t announce stops and most of the time, there’s no sign when you get to one.

The bus wasn’t crowded obviously and had some interesting characters to say the least. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep. I wanted to make sure I got off at my stop! But it’s funny what your brain does to you when you’re in an unfamiliar situation at 1:00am. Around 1:40am, we got to what I know was the second stop (Empoli was #3) but it was at a train station, just like it would be in Empoli. Logic told me it wasn’t Empoli because 1. It sure didn’t look like the train station I know 2. We couldn’t have been there because even if the schedule was a bit off, it wasn’t 40 minutes off. But even as we pulled away and drove on, I couldn’t help but feel that panic of “What if that was my stop?” I relaxed a bit and tried to calm my brain. To top it off, it was raining so I couldn’t really make out the street signs as we went on. But I eventually saw what I wanted. And just like last year (almost a year to the day!) I was very excited to see a sign that read “Empoli”!!! We got off the highway and pulled into the station at 2:20am. It was a very welcome sight!!

And just to add a cherry on top of the fun adventure home, I walked the few minutes back to the apartment in a light rain. Why should it have been easy?! On the walk home I vowed I wouldn’t fly back to NY until they made a transporter of some kind. The idea of getting on a plane again was painful!!

I was completely spent when I got back but it was a great weekend!  

My plan for today is to do absolutely nothing. And I’m off to a good start. I woke up around noon and it’s now 2:15pm and I haven’t accomplished much other than a shower. :) Food is probably not a bad idea…..

So now is the countdown to home. I’m down to my last four days here, which is completely crazy. I’ll see what I can get myself into between now and then!