The Journey Home and Final Thoughts

If you read our Egypt blog, you'll remember the clusterfuck with the luggage. Foreign country and all. Understandable. But here in the US!? Yup. More than the one in Egypt. Grab some coffee.

We fly from Barcelona to JFK. Bumpy ride and the hardest landing ever but we did walk away from it. So then we walk halfway across the airport to get to Passport Control and Customs, the people who protect us from all the dangers out there. Since we were late those who had a short amount of time to get to connections were given orange cards (OC)  to get them to the head of the Passport Control line. Sounded like a very thoughtful idea. All of us, orange or not, went to the same large room where there were queues set up. One lady sends the OC's to one line, which was full of non-OC people. We all wound around and then someone pulls out the OC's and send them to a different line which was actually moving slower than the non-OC's. After all of us went to automatic kiosks to get our picture taken and we answered the same questions we did on a form on the plane, we were all sent to different places to join others who were a mixture of OC's and non-OC's. Then someone else pulls out the OC's and puts them in another line that was being helped by one person while those of us non-OC's had three helpers! Those of us with the most time to make our connections were passing those who had the least amount of time. Then it got real interesting. Those four people who we stood in line to see took one look at the paper that was printed out at the kiosk and our passport and just sent us on. No questions, no acknowledgement. The queue was hundreds of people long for this.  They then herded us to pick up our checked bags to go through Customs, which we all did. We got in another line and this time the OC's bypassed all the rest of us and went straight through Customs. And at Customs we rolled our bags up to the counter and the guy asks "How long were you gone?" We say a month and then, without examining at our bags,he tells us to put the bags on the belt to get put back on the plane. And it wasn't just us. Before we went through I told Belinda to watch what happens. Not a bag was examined. Your government at work!  One lady in line next to us said she was going to write Senator Chuck Schumer.  He was a "local boy" who would fix this mess.  I assume he's Amy's father.  I think I'll write him too. (Done)

We fly into Seattle and have to wait about an hour and half for our 45 minute flight to Portland.  So good to be back in the Northwest.  But that doesn't mean those of you who are not in the NW can come here.  If you do, make sure you have a round trip ticket.  Another bumpy flight on a puddle jumper.  A small turbo prop actually. And finally we land in Portland. Our luggage made it as did we.  We walk out to wait for the HUT shuttle about 12:45 am.  The only good thing I can say about HUT is that it was there on time.  But it was also the worst of the transportation methods we took.  Noisy, smelly, uncomfortable.  If it hadn't been a 28 hour day already I would have cared.  We just wanted to get home...but really, can't Oregon do better than HUT.  It's a truck with flat seats !  The driver was nice and called to have a taxi ready for us, which it was, Probably his shortest fare of the day.  But he got a nice tip. Next time I'm going to look into a limo.  HUT is that bad.

Ahhhh, our little home looked so good, even at 2 am.  And it was happy to see us.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS:

As usual, Belinda came up with a great trip.  And Alice really was a life, or marriage, saver.  There is no way on God's green Earth that I would have gone to all the stores they went to. And Alice is a breeze to travel with.

All of the transportation we used worked well, with few exceptions.  The worst was our local HUT shuttle.  A couple of trains got cancelled, which made it all the more interesting and we saw some things we might not have otherwise seen.  Everyone was willing to help us find the right train in the right direction.

Our accommodations were excellent, with the exception of the one AirBnB we used. It was not as advertised in the pictures nor in the description.  We would give it a 1/5 only because it wasn't a zero.  The interesting thing is that AirBnB will not let you post a review without first setting up an account and emailing them a copy of a government issued photo ID.  They seemed to take our credit card info and communicate with us by our email just fine, but I think it's a way to discourage reviews.  What they did was discourage our use of AirBnb.  Now I know some folks really like AirBnB, but this was our first, and last, use of them.  We stayed in 11 different places.  Nine were from Rick Steves' guidebooks, one was recommended by Alice's daughter Angel, and then we had AirBnB.  All but AirBnB were great.  In all our travels we have never had a problem using recommendations from reputable guidebooks like Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, and Moon. Twice we strayed and we were sorry for both of them.  Most guidebooks you can get at the library but even if you buy one or two it's a pretty small price to pay for the information.

We had no problems with using ATM's although we only used ones at banks. The one issue we did have was they offered to "convert" our withdrawal to US dollars during the transaction. Of course it's going to get converted when it hits our bank account, but in checking on the internet this was a method for the ATM bank to charge more so we always selected Euros.

Take a cell phone with data access.  We bought an $85 package through Verizon that gave us 250/250/250 minutes/texts/data MB.  We used most of the data and very little phone and some texts but when we needed a phone or GPS, we needed it.  It was worth the $85 for the month.  You can get a sim card when you get there but your number changes and updates from the airlines or notices from the bank for ATM or credit card usage won't get to you.

For those of you who take a tablet or phone with you, you probably won't need any converter as such. Most of those chargers are 110/240 volt and will work in Europe. All you need is a $3 adapter that changes the flat plug to a round one..

Also, if you don't like to wait in security lines at the airport, look into TSA Precheck. No taking off shoes, no opening bags or setting out laptops or phones, and the lines are very short. I think there is an $85 fee, but it's worth it.

I'd be glad to share any other info if you like. Just send me an email. Now I have to make sure all our receipts and withdrawals got processed correctly so I'll sign off.  Until the next blog, safe travels to you all.

Good night Alice.  Good night Scotty.  Good night Belinda.  Good night Scotty.  Good night Belinda.  Good night Alice.  Goodnight everyone.

Barcelona

Eating a great meal in first class at 190 mph on the train is the way to travel. USA trains are so 1800's. We think Hi-speed is 70 mph. I think almost every train in Europe does at least 120 mph-150 mph, even the "slow" inter city trains. They are so smooth and quiet..... AND no damn horns.

We are on our way to Barcelona, our last stop before heading home Saturday. I'm ready to leave. A little tired of having to go through one of the girls to order something, or to ask a question. But even they have a problem with the Spanish here in the Catalonia region.
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Thursday, October 1

Nice hotel again.

This time breakfast is included which is nice for a couple of reasons. First, I don't have to wait for the girls. I can get up, shower and head down for my coffee while they're planning what to wear. That also means we don't have to waste time looking for a place. Breakfast here isn't like in the US. A croissant and coffee isn't breakfast! So having yogurt, eggs, toast, cereal, etc. in the hotel really makes it so easy. I only had an hour until the girls came down to join me. By then I was heading back to the room.

Since I still have a bit of a cold I went back to take a nap while they went shopping. As I said earlier, I'm not inviting Alice again. After a couple of hours they came back to get me and we walked to the harbor. It was pretty and lots of interesting folk. Some in Predator costumes, Angel costumes. You know, the ones that look like statutes and don't move, then they do and you jump.

Then we all came back to rest for a couple of hours and the girls went back out shopping. See what I mean !  No more Alice! Then I get a text to meet them for dinner, which I do, and they promised to take me to a bakery. Well our dinner took a little longer than planned so the bakery is closed when we get there and it starts to rain. Alice starts screaming she's going to get a sore throat and melt and starts to run the 8 blocks back to the hotel. Damn it! They promised me a dessert and I'm going to get a dessert. Besides I had on my Berlin hat and wind breaker. I wasn't going to melt.

On the way to their bakery I saw a bakery of my own and I said I'm going in there. They reluctantly followed (I didn't invite them) and I had my coffee con lecce and a Carmel whipped cream rollup. Yummy. By then it was really raining and everyone was standing under canopies or using their umbrellas. And people selling t-shirts on the street corners were now selling umbrellas at twice the price as earlier. The girls had run ahead and apparently a young women found me irresistible and offered to come home with me. I think it was the hat. I thanked her and told her my wife and girl friend were just up ahead..... maybe later? I guess she had another appointment as she begged off. Just some poor little girl trying to stay dry.
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Friday, Oct. 2

We had a nice breakfast again and then we took the metro to the Gaudi, Sagrada Familia Cathedral, more like GAUDY. By the time we got there about noon tickets were gone (YAY) so we had a Starbucks across the street. This Gaudi thing, whatever it is, is not a Cathedral.

It is a successful attempt at extreme excessiveness! You can see by the pictures of pineapples and Star Wars Storm Troopers that this isn't a structure in the praise of God unless it's built by the Church of Scientology. Then we walked for an hour trying to find the Gaudi "houses". We found some houses with turrets that had colorful tiles. Maybe that was them. I was unimpressed..... And my feet hurt. We found the metro and got back to our hotel. Actually we got to the restaurant on the square next to our hotel.

Thirty years ago Belinda and I worked with an organization called Educational Foundation for Foreign Study (EFFS, now EF). This was an organization that sent high school students from around the world to live with host families in the States, some in Salem. One of those kids from Spain was having some problems and the Salem EFFS representative wouldn't do a thing so, speaking Spanish as she does, Belinda stepped in and, long story short, we became the EFFS reps for three years. We became friends with one of the Spanish students by the name of Elias and contacted him when we knew we were coming to Barcelona. He met us for drinks Friday night outside our hotel and it was wonderful catching up on work and family. It was especially nice hearing that he wants his daughter to spend a year away like he did because" it was the best thing " he ever did. Of course, it was. Belinda took care of all those kids. They were so lucky to have her. During our third year was when we met our Thomas from Berlin. And the rest is history. I guess this wasn't a long story short.

We walked around a bit after Elias left in a vain attempt to get rid of our Euros. Of course Alice was more successful than we were. We ended up giving most of our change to a nun at the church next to our hotel and went to bed early. We had a taxi picking us up at 7am.

At 3 am my cell rings and its a recorded message from American Airlines saying our 10 am departure has been delayed until 10:50 am. Really! I need to know that at 3 am!? What's the worse that could happen? We get there three hours early instead of two! Shit! I couldn't go back to sleep as about that time one hellish thunder and lightning storm hit. Now you how I love to fly in good weather. And in the back of my mind is the effing hurricane coming up the East coast. Double shit! Even Belinda thought it was the worst storm she'd seen. We had another windowless room but did have a skylight and the lightning really lit up the room and the thunder was deafening.

Well needless to say we got to the airport with time to spare and the storm had subsided so that was good. We split up with Alice as she was on United and we were on AA. So we check in our luggage after a lot of security questions about who's luggage, where have we been, yada yada, yada. We go through security and are sitting at McDonald's eating an egg mcmuffin when I get a text from Alice. Apparently security won't let her check in because she can't show receipts or tickets showing how she got to Barcelona. All that is in her luggage so she has to open her luggage and dig through until she finds a credit card receipt as they won't take a cash receipt as it has no name on it. She finally gets through and joins us for a last breakfast together. After eating we head our separate ways, she flying to Newark, us to JFK.