Days 1-2 – August 6th & 7th, 2006

Day 1 of the honeymoon went by incredibly fast! We think this was due to the long flight and big time change! And since the first two days blended together, we’ll write them that way. After a wonderful brunch (now that Seth’s nerves have calmed down, he can eat again), we go home to finish packing- quickly! Did we forget anything? Sure- Dad B. runs over with some AA batteries and a bag of snacks. Debbie picks us up and we head to the airport. While waiting, we run into Uncle Mike! Turns out he’s on our plane to Philadelphia. He scares us a bit about how big the Philly airport us and how it will be tough to catch our flight to Barcelona after only a 50 minute layover. He mentions we may have to leave the airport to take a taxi to get to our other plane. Yikes! No problem, we think, it’s under control.

So we think….When you have a 50 minute layover for an international flight, and your plane is delayed 40 minutes, it gets you a bit nervous. Will we make the flight? Will our bags make the flight?? We explain to the flight attendant our predicament (and of course that we’re on our honeymoon), and he sounds very confident that there will be no problem getting to our flight. He returns 5 minutes later with a complimentary cocktail card to use on the next flight, a preemptive apology in case something goes wrong! We are not feeling as confident anymore.

We land in Philadelphia- man is that airport big! We’re in Terminal F and we need to get to terminal A. We board the shuttle for the ten minute drive across the runway to our terminal and then sprint (well, as much as we can sprint) to our gate which feels like a mile away. They are making last minute calls over the loud speaker for our flight - YIKES! We make it just in time! Again, we tell them we’re on our honeymoon. First class upgrade?! No, not so good – only if we want to shell out $500 per seat, what a deal. But we did get free movie headsets and wine. Add it to the list of freebies- we’ll take what we can get!

While on the plane, our plan worked. We thought that reserving the outer two seats in a three seat row would deter anyone from booking the middle seat (especially if they knew it was us they’d have to sit between!). We lucked out. Amy got to sprawl out and sleep on the plane. Sorry Seth! On the plus side, Seth did get to enjoy watching “Shaggy Dog” in its entirety.

We make it to Barcelona successfully. Well, almost. We get to baggage claim and wait for our bags. And wait, and wait , and wait. An hour later they turn off the conveyor belt when all the bags are gone and here’s the two of us morons still standing there empty handed. Apparently we were able to survive the short layover, but our bags were not. After standing in line a long time at the lost luggage counter, we find out 3 of our 4 bags are scheduled to go out tomorrow on the morning flight here. The other 1 they have no record of. Will they be delivered to the hotel? To the boat?? No, they said the best bet was to come back to the airport in the morning. Sure, easy enough…

So we go to check into our Ritz hotel (Hotels Arts Barcelona), and spend the day in our plane clothes (keep in mind we slept in these clothes on the plane, too). We ask the concierge what the best way is to see the whole city in 1 day. We wonder how the concierge in a Cleveland hotel would answer this question. She heads us towards a tour bus. It worked out wonderfully! It was an all day pass to get on and off this tour bus that went all around the city to all the major sights. We rode for a while, taking in the sights, and stopped periodically to see places.

We checked out the Sagrada Familia, what everyone says is the “must see” while in Barcelona. It was very very cool! We could’ve done without the hour and a half long line to go up the tower, and the guy in line behind us who puked in his hands, then stayed in line and went up with us. Oh yeah, and the guy who empties the trash cans just reaches into the trash cans barehanded. That wasn’t gross at all. But otherwise, it was breathtaking!

We stopped in the city and did our best to order food in Spanish restaurants. Finally, exhausted and wiped out by the sun and ordeals of the day and weekend, we head back to the hotel around 6:30 to go to our room.

Awaiting us was…another bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. AWESOME! The hotel room was magnificient. We have never in our lives seen such fanciness! Seth especially enjoyed the buttons next to the bed for all the lighting options, maid service, and privacy request. Fancy, fancy place. We enjoyed it for a while, before falling asleep at 7:30. Seth woke up at 1:30, ready to go out, only to find out that La Rambla was all closed up on Monday nights. We tried! Back to bed…