Traveling with Ray Owens

The two-day first day. 

Day 1 of my Barcelona learning experience with my good, soon to be better friends from my church.   Eight of us have ventured from Liberty to the lovely city which is the capital of the Catalon region of Spain.  Historically the people of this region have been distinguished from the Spanish people for some many centuries both culturally and linguistically.  I was told that this region and people were nearly wiped out by the Spanish under the dictator Francisco Franco in the 1940s.  The Catalon people opposed Franco’s dictatorship and Franco opposed the Catalon people.

Confession:  I need to pay more attention in meetings!

The eight of us (Alena and Cole, Jana and Dave, Billy Ray and Becky, and Karen) joined me to travel to work with Matt and Michelle the missionaries stationed in Barcelona.  Originally, the church web site gave us the information that if we were to make our travel plan on our own, we should book airplane tickets to arrive in Barcelona on Friday February 20.  So, I booked my nearly free unchangeable tickets for that day via Delta using our milage points we had accumulated.

This is where the attention or memory came into play.  At our first group meeting some weeks later it was announced that the plans had changed and we should arrive on Saturday February 21.   It was further suggested that if we had already booked unchangeable ticket that we would be there a day early.  

I honestly don’t know if I was not paying attention when this change was announced or whether I heard it and noted that I would need to book an extra night of hotel in Barcelona when I arrive on Friday February 20 and then promptly forgot this detail and assumed that all my fellow travelers would be arriving on Friday.  

When I announced to the group that I had gotten through TSA security and was on my way to Barcelona and would see them on Friday, I was quickly informed that most people would be there on Saturday.  

Fortunately my lovely bride, Penny, was quickly able to book a nice room for me near the airport with a free shuttle service to deliver me to the hotel for one night.   I will go back to the airport on Saturday morning and meet the other for folks who are arriving then and Matt and Michelle will meet us and take our luggage to the hotel we will stay at for the duration of our trip.

Continuation of day 1ish. 

The flight to NYC was nice.   Small aircraft but was able to get my carryon bag in the overhead and had an empty seat beside me.  Got to New York around 2:00 and caught the flight to Barcelona around 6:00.  I have been in the New York airport several times an do dearly love it.  The people are diverse and marvelous.  All except the one airport employee that I asked how to get to terminal 4.  He said I would need to go that direction for about 20 minutes and then make a right turn and take the train to terminal 4.  So I made my start and after15 minutes of so I came to a Delta Information desk and asked the nice employee how to get to terminal 4.   She said: “That will not be difficult.  You are in terminal 4!”  She checked by ticket and said it will be gate 31, and pointed back the way I had just came from and said about 10-minute walk that way.

I found the gate and found some food and waited for a couple of hours.   During the wait Penny called and told me she had found me a hotel in Barcelona and gave me the details of how to find the free shuttle.  I did.

At the Best Western plus Hotel Alfa Aeropuerto, a very nice lady said my room was ready at about 9:30 in the morning.   Great.

So now my job was to stay awake until later in the day.  I opted to take a walk to El Prat -Parque Natural (The meadow Nature Park).   It was a lovely park that runs along an estuary.  There were lots of walkers, runners, and bikers on the path I walked. I saw a flock of parrots, a herd of sheep (OK a group of 5 sheep) lots of agriculture exhibits growing labeled crops AND every 5 minutes a plane flew low overhead to land at the airport

It was a good walk with no business nor restaurants.  I got back to the hotel at around 3:00 and went to the restaurant for lunch.  Lunch is served from around 1:00 to 4:00 and Dinner 8:00 to 11:00.  I had a nice bacon burger with the obligatory European bacon that is really thinly sliced ham.

At 4:00 I was back in my room with the goal of staying wake until around 8:00 PM.  I was asleep at 6:00 and woke up to pee at midnight and am still awake at 1:30 as I write this.  I am going to attempt to get some more sleep in a few minutes after I post this.

Day 1 and 2 have been very good.

More later.