Showing posts with label Travel Days. Show all posts

Traveling days abroad are always "super fun" - you have packing, public transportation, long periods of waiting, followed by even longer lines to stand in, overpriced food, sore shoulders, luck-of-the-draw airline seating, language barriers... you get the idea! Earlier "today" (the 26th) we left Tenerife via the North airport at 21:00h and landed just after 1:15am, now the 27th in Barcelona. We had planned to sleep at the airport and take a bus to our apartment at 13:00 when we were due to "check-in" with our host. It wasn't until we landed that we realized; one, we were starving and two, if we tried to sleep in the terminal we would be away from our checked baggage long enough for it to possibly "walk away." After a long debate about finances we agreed that booking a hotel for the night was a good idea, regardless of the cost - losing a bag and it's contents is more pricey in the long run.

Scouring the terminals we found the only open restaurant at 1:30 in the morning - good ol' McDonald's! We ordered off the €1 menu, broke out the laptop and found out that the Barcelona Airport didn't have free Wi-Fi. Luckily we had purchased an Orange (European cell phone provider) USB stick for 30-days of Internet while in Tenerife, which works in mainland Spain, and we were able to score a €59/night room at a hotel near our apartment for the week. After collecting our checked luggage, which we were SO glad to see still on the baggage claim carousels, we hustled out to the taxi line and set off for the hotel.

With each kilometer we traveled Megan became more and more nervous about having enough Euros left for cab fare. After all our snack sessions we had managed to spend every last bit of coin change and between the two of us only had €36 in cash. Luckily as we pulled up to the hotel the meter read €25.90 - but after the driver added the €10 luggage handling fee we were completely drained of all our money! However we walked away with HUGE grins on our face - we made it to Barcelona safely, penniless, but nonetheless ecstatic that everything had worked out in our favor! However, the poor cabby did not receive a tip.

The best part is that the room is awesome, we have FREE Wi-Fi (how we're writing this at 3:45am), and checkout is 12:00 giving us time to get some much-needed ZzZ's in before we head to our Airbnb apartment in the morning.

From Barcelona
XO,
M&K

We’re writing this with no Internet, in Microsoft Word, from the seventh story of our apartment. Below us the people of Tenerife are going crazy, feverishly waving flags, hanging out of their cars while honking their horns, yelling, screaming, taking their clothes off… Spain just beat Portugal in the Semi-Finals of Euro2012 and despite it being after midnight on a Wednesday the city of Puerto de la Cruz is in full celebration!

Fast-forward a few hours: Today began with a slow lull. Knowing that in just a few hours we would be taking off for an island paradise made sleeping Tuesday night impossible, turning us into zombies. We woke at 4:30AM, hoping to give ourselves enough time to catch the tube to Victoria Station, then on to the Gatwick Express, and finally to Gatwick Airport where we could board our 10AM flight to Madrid. As most world travelers know, days of travel rarely go entirely according to plan. There always seems to be something that goes wrong, gets forgotten, or makes the journey “extra special,” we are no exception to this rule – especially today. Needless to say we were both exhausted from lack of sleep, and had difficulty with even the simplest of tasks – reading signs, checking tickets, looking at flight numbers, answering simple questions, keeping track of our items, etc. On top of all that we were flying into a non-English speaking country; Megan’s Spanish is NONEXISTENT, and Kyle throws on an accent, but his words are useless at best (he basically speaks English with a “wannabe” Rico Suave twist).

Our first hang-up was in London when the man at the AirEuropa ticket check-in couldn’t find our flight, despite having confirmation numbers, Passports and credit cards. Eventually he was corrected by a colleague, which saved Megan from tears thinking she had done something wrong, like managed to book us on a flight that didn’t exist. Our next shortcoming was the inability to recognize the time change from London to Madrid, which shortened our layover time from what we believed to be an hour and a half to HALF an hour. Couple that with the primitive layout of the Madrid Airport, their non-functioning bus system, a barely English speaking “siesta” bound staff, and finally, Kyle getting stopped at security because of his suitcase frame (putting us on the later bus route), almost taking another bus to the wrong terminal, trying to get on the wrong plane due to misinformation; we were destined to miss our flight. Luckily, we had youth on our side as we picked up our bags and sprinted through the airport, arriving at the right place seconds before the gate closed. The flight to Tenerife was way more relaxed; a plane full of people vacation bound makes for a pleasant atmosphere! Arrival in Tenerife and the journey to Puerto de la Cruz was fairly seamless.

Next obstacle, hopping off a bus on a street you can’t pronounce, in a place you’ve never been with people that can’t speak your language… what a nightmare! We had a few names and addresses written down, but with Kyle’s broken ‘Spanglish” we couldn’t manage to locate our contact to pick up keys… as luck would have it, smiles and hand gestures once again managed to get us back on track. We finally located our contact, Mikel, got the keys to our apartment, which were in a bakery shop two doors down from his office – and acquired in a drug deal type transaction. About an hour later we dropped our bags and headed out in search of basic necessities and WiFi (not available in our apartment).

During our exploratory journey we ended up getting sidetracked and roped into watching the Spain vs Portugal match in a public square on the patio of a Spanish-German tapas bar. Needless to say, we still have no Internet or cell phone. We did however manage to buy a pre-paid Spanish SIM card for our British phone… that still needs to be “unlocked” to work… OOPS! But of course, these are the things that we love about traveling; getting ourselves into situations that makes us think on our feet and force us to acquire new skills… Can’t wait to see what awaits us on our first whole day on the island!

Xo,
M&K