So here we are enjoying the good life up in business class about 2 hours into the trip when we notice that it has started to rain inside the cabin. Ok, so it probably wasn’t actual rain coming down on us but the roof of the cabin was leaking and dripping on the heads of about 20 passengers (most of whom actually *paid* for a business class ticket).

Advanced Travel Tip #1:
If you have not done a lot of plane travel, you may not know that it is not normal for it to rain inside of the cabin – especially when you are in the air. If you experience this situation, you would not be unreasonable to think that something was amiss and should ask to speak to someone about this.

The flight attendants took immediate action to correct this problem and began stuffing white towels into the slots of the roof where the water was coming out. These towels remained there for the rest of the flight and the change in precipitation allowed us to enjoy the remainder of the trip in proper business class comfort.

Mental note: I am glad that Air Canada’s current financial problems has not let them lower their standards in important areas like aircraft maintenance.

We made it to Toronto and transferred to our flight to Madrid which found us back in the economy section again but comfortable nonetheless. We had to pickup our luggage in Madrid as we had to transfer to another airline for the
1 hour flight to Barcelona.

Small problem: Barb’s luggage doesn’t arrive in Madrid. OK, so we have dealt with this kind of issue before and have learned to tough it out in a foreign city with only the clothes on her back and a VISA card to comfort her.
Somehow I know that Barb will survive.

We end up making it to our hotel in Barcelona around 8PM and fall asleep almost immediately. As it is now Saturday night and we have effectively lost one day from travel, we prepare to make a fresh start early Sunday morning to start exploring our new city.

Day 3:

We wake up at 1PM – not exactly the early start that we hoped for but hey, we’re on vacation and don’t have to live by the clock. We have missed our free breakfast at the hotel so decide to look for a good place for lunch. We find a nice cafe where there are actual local people eating and have a couple of café con lechés (coffee and milk) and a tasty sandwich. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that we are in Europe as just about everyone is smoking.

Since today is Sunday, most of the stores are closed and we will have to wait until tomorrow to engage in one of our favourite pastimes: European shopping. At around 7PM, we make it back to the hotel room to relax and prepare ourselves for a typical Spanish dinner which we will not start until about 9PM. My first dinner will hopefully be a popular Spanish dish: Paella (pronounced pie-eh-ah). This is a rice dish with many types of meat or seafood served in a large flat pan.

Our main objective over the next 3 days that we are in Barcelona is to explore more of the city and experience as much Spanish culture as possible before we leave for Madrid on Thursday.

Stay tuned …

Barb & Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent Spanish Adventure – Part 3

Our planning for this trip began a mere six weeks ago due mostly to the fact of us moving into our new place and finishing our renovation consumed most of our time which we would normally be using to plan the details. I say we in the generic sense because truth be known, Barb does about 95% of the planning on all of our trips. It’s not that I don’t like to do any of this kind of stuff but we’re talking about easily over 100 hours of time that Barb spends planning each trip. I usually just ask her to do a presentation on the short list of choices of where we will be staying so I can add my two cents before we book anything. You’ll just have to take my word that this system works quite well.

When we were considering where we might travel to this year and decided on Spain, one can’t help but start thinking of the great names of history that one associates with Spain. Names like Christopher Columbus, Don Juan and Manuel, the waiter from Faulty Towers. Spain seems to have a varied blend of culture and rich history that in many ways is unique among other European countries.

This trip will be interesting in the fact that we are the *least* prepared of any of our trips to speak the native language. Armed only with a few translation books, we’re hoping that we won’t run into too many problems in this area.

The first destination on our Spanish adventure will be Barcelona, then onto Madrid, followed by a week in the southern area of Andalusia where we have rented a villa. We’ll finish our trip in Sevilla (Seville) for a few days before making our way back home.

I’ll check in again in a few days after we have settled in on our discovery of Barcelona.

Take care,

Barb and Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent Spanish Adventure – Part 2