In Barcelona!

We arrived in Barcelona yesterday morning at around 6:30 a.m., local time, after a flawless travel experience. It just couldn’t have gone more smoothly. We drove in a rental car to JFK, made it in plenty of time, and had a short wait to get to security. The logistics of going through security with four sets of shoes to take off and laptops, iPads, etc. to take out of bags was the most stressful part of it all, but a nice TSA agent apparently took pity on me and tapped me and the kids to go through the simple metal detector instead of the full x-ray scanner. Once we got to the gate the kids complained that we had to wait an hour before boarding, but that’s because they’re spoiled American children with no appreciation for how much worse everything could have gone. But they were as happy as could be once we got on the plane and they experienced the vast options for the in-flight entertainment. I confess I was pretty impressed, myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a long flight and the entertainment technology has really advanced. So, the flight was as good as it possibly could be and went by quickly. I was sleeping when they turned on the lights and served breakfast (at 11:30 p.m. NY time). The kids didn’t even try to sleep. How could they with all those movies to watch? Anyway, I generally hate flying but this flight was actually pretty great. 

On the other side of the flight we had to go through passport control and baggage claim, but that wasn’t any big deal. We picked up some euros at an ATM and had no problem getting a taxi to our apartment. The very hard thing was carrying all of our luggage up four flights of stairs on almost no sleep. There was an elevator but it was one of those sort of old ones with a cage and we had no idea how to use it. Next time we’ll know. Our Airbnb hosts met us at the apartment and showed us all the best things about it. Those include the incredible view of Tibidabo out the backside (ours and Will’s bedrooms), and the gorgeous light quality in the front room, which is the dining room and living room. The apartment is bigger than I expected and the views are awesome. So far I really like it here! I also can’t complain that our landlords ran out to a nearby bakery and got us croissants and a lovely loaf of bread. They are excellent, warm hosts. 

The view from our bedroom. It is more impressive in real life. Tibidabo is the hill at the far back of the view.

This morning we slept waaaaay too late, which is to say that Will woke me and Matt up at around 12:45. I felt sorry that we had missed so much of the day’s sunlight, but I guess we needed the sleep. After we made breakfast/lunch, we finally got out of the house and navigated the subway for the first time. We were in search of a park in the Glòries neighborhood where we were told (by our hosts’ 13-year-old daughter) that there was a great slide. We finally found it, pictured below. The kids had a good time so it was worth the trek. 

Tomorrow our airbnb hosts are coming back in the morning to pick up some stuff, have a repair done, and give us some more info about the local area. They will be here at around 9, which means we have to be much better about getting up at a reasonable hour! If we have time after that we might go to Ikea. This apartment is beautiful but it lacks certain essentials (like a non-peeling frying pan). Because we’ll be here for so long it’s worth it to buy the things that we need to cook, etc.