25 Feb

Day 16 – Travel to London

We slept until around 8 and all met for breakfast.  Well, all of us that were left.  Dad, Mom, Chase, Ally and myself.

Las Ramblas was already alive this morning.

We walked to everyone’s favorite – Dunkin Donuts! Yum!

And that is where the pictures for today end! We did nothing!

Well we sat in the airport all day. Here’s how it went. We went back to the hotel, got our bags and waited for our shuttle which was about 30 minutes late. That would have been okay if a very loud alarm had not been sounding the whole time. At least we thought it was an alarm.

Turns out it was a protest. Several people were blanketing the tiny bank next door in flyers and sounding horns. They put stickers on the ATM, the windows and the doors. It was unbelievable how loud it was!

Finally, we were off. When we arrived, the line was ginormous! We tried to check in on the kiosks and go to bag drop but couldn’t get it to work. We stood in line for a while and Dad told someone the kiosks weren’t working. They told us to get in the bag drop line so we did. When we got to the front, we found out why the kiosks weren’t working. Our flight was cancelled!

Air Strike! Didn’t we get the text messages? #hazardsofnotturningonourphonesinEurope

We left and walked to customer service. We weren’t very hopeful and were making plans for where to stay that night while we waited in line there. While we waited in line, that line got ginormous behind us too! But what do you know, they put us on a flight that night!

Unfortunately, we had 8 hours to kill and weren’t landing until 11:00. But beggars can’t be choosers. And that’s what we were – beggars!

We would have gone back into Barcelona if we could have done something with our bags. But we didn’t have any good options, so we went through security.

The Barcelona airport is interesting. Once you’re through security there’s a large shopping area with restaurants. To get back to the international gates though, you have to go through customs and there isn’t much back there. We ate some pasta for lunch and shopped a little. Then we still had about 7 hours to kill! We decided we might as well go through.

The customs agent tried to talk us out of it. She kept saying “Long time!” “No coming back!” and so on. We assured her we were okay.

So we sat. And sat. We all used our 1 hour of free internet and I bought internet on my iPad and we passed it around.

Oh, I forgot I took phone pictures! This sums up our day:

One very important thing we did? We booked a hotel in London. Yes, for that night. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

Finally, we were off. We arrived late, but our hotel was near the airport.

There are two things about riding in a car in London that threw me off. One – we were on the wrong side of the road. Two – the dividing line was not only white, it was dotted. I can’t tell you how many times I thought we would be killed only to realize we were exactly where we should be.

We checked in at the Doubletree and went to bed!

Our 19-Day Mediterranean Adventure – Greece, Turkey and the Search for Free Wifi

Day 0 – Crazy Days Before Departure! 
Day 1 – On Our Way! 
Day 2 – London Layover 
Day 3 – Embarkation!  
Day 4 – The Beauty That is Monaco 
Day 5 – La Spezia aka the Road to Pisa or Florence 
Day 6 – Rome Baby!
Day 7 – Sea Day Fun! 
Day 8 – Introducing The Pneumonia 
Day 9 – Athens and the Inside of the Hospital Onboard!
Day 10 – Turkey 
Day 11 – Mykonos and the Start of a Countdown to Get Back to Mykonos 
Day 12 – Sea Day and Palo Dinner 
Day 13 – Segways in Malta! 
Day 14 – Last Day Onboard 
Day 15 – Disembark and Barcelona 
Day 16 – Travel to London
Day 17 – London Baby! 
Day 18 – Harry Potter Heaven