Barcelona, Spain

Hi Everyone!
Sorry it has taken so long to post another blog, but im sure as you read on you'll probably understand why :) Well, now there are 3... we picked Erica up at the London Heathrow airport on June 4th. Surprisingly she was full of energy, unlike Kim and I (Katie) when we landed after the 8 hour journey. This is about when the craziness started... we had about a 6 1/2 hour layover in London until we were supposed to catch our flight to Barcelona. We had to transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick with our extremely large bags (always embarassing to walk around the city with those monsters on our backs) but we made it in plenty of time. We sat in the Gatwick airport until our flight took off. Kim and Katie actually purchased books to read too to keep us occupied (most of you know, thats not a normal "hobby" of ours). We made it to Barcelona late, around 11pm and decided to let a taxi take us to our hostel instead of getting lost in another city again. However, we ended up getting stuck behind a trash truck on a 1 lane road and it took us much longer to get there. When we got to the hostel, they copied our passports (important for later) and let us into our 6 bedroom shared dorm. Yes, a shared dorm....a bit awkward! When we walked in there was a couple in the room already from Poland, but they were a little weird, but very nice and respectful to us. There was a shared shower/bathroom, with no toilet paper. well there was toilet paper, but some jerk kept on stealing it. This took a little getting used to as Kim and Katie were lucky and never experienced this in Paris. We felt bad for Erica because she was now up for almost 24 hours, spending most of her time in airports and on planes, her back was really hurting her, and this is where she called home for the next 2 nights. She is tough and made it though. Kim and Katie ended up going out for a bit this night while Erica tried to catch up on some sleep. We wandered around Barcelona with no direction on where to go, and lucky us, we ended up in a gay bar. Music was ok, lots of Brittney and Rianna as you might expect but we were too tired for dancing so went home soon after we arrived.
The next day we were all refreshed and went out to see some of the sites. We went to the Temple of Sagrada Familia designed by Gaudi which was amazing. This church started construction back in 1891 when Gaudi was still living and as you can see in the pictures they are still not finished! There was a museum with a model of the completed temple and it is going to be even more gorgeous then it already is. Then we went and had some Spanish food (yes, even Katie) which was so good. (there are pics below, Kim feels the need to take pictures of all our food..haha). We started to make our way to an area of the town called Las Ramblas but the rain kind of stopped us so we went back to the hostel and waited it out. Later in the evening we went to Las Ramblas and did some shopping, ate ice cream, and had a horrible, wanna-be American meal. We then went back to our hostel and found another roomie named Ed from California who was travelling alone. He was cool, but another odd character. Katie "set the alarm" to be at the airport at 7am to fly to Tenerife in the Canary Islands and then we went to bed.
The next morning was when the hell week of our trip began. The alarm never went off. It's Kim's alarm and she had warned us of the sketchiness of it working so this is what we are blaming it on. Katie woke up at 7:30am when our flight was scheduled to take off at 9:05am. We rushed around, trying to pack everything, and got a cab as soon as we could. This was a weekday so the morning traffic in Barcelona was horrible and we were stuck in it for about 20 minutes. We made it to the check-in counter at the airport about 8:30. However, we were flying Clickair and their check-in time is 40 min before departure when usually it is 30 min before departure, so needless to say, we missed our flight by FIVE minutes!! We were so upset! We went to the Click-air desk and asked if we could get another flight later in the day. They were extremely unhelpful and told us they had no other flights leaving that day but we could check another airline or buy a ticket for the next morning for 173 euros (about $300 US). So we rushed around for about the next 2 hours checking every single option we could with other airlines (their tickets were about 500 euros for that day) and ended up giving in and buying another ticket with Clickair for the next morning. It hurt to have to do this but our options were limited. For the next couple hours we walked around the airport with our 3 massive bags on our cart trying to decide what to do for the next 24 hours. We talked about getting another hostel, but that was another 25 euro cab ride back to the city, plus whatever cost of the hostel; then we talked about getting a hotel room near the airport, but that was too expensive too, so we made a group decision to suck it up and just sleep at the airport until the next morning. It was pretty bad, we are all scarred from airports for a while. But, we made the best of it and settled into our new hotel called Barcelona airport. We hung out for a few hours, read, slept, and even decided to make a night of it... we changed out of our travel clothes, put on make-up, did our hair, and decided to go to dinner at a restaurant in the airport. (hey, at least it took up some time...ha). We made short friendships with people outside coming and going from their flights so the night went by fast. And remember, we are still pushing around this cart. By 1:00am we were all tired and we found some nice, comfy couches to sleep on. We lasted until about 2:00am until we got kicked out (because technically they were part of the restaurant seating!) then we went to another area, layed down blankets, and were able to get kicked out of about 2 more places. So we finally moved to hard metal seats and tried to get our last hour of sleep in. Katie was completely passed out, and Kim was trying to sleep and was able to for about a half hour. By now it was 6:30am and we were allowed to check-in for our flight at 7:00. Katie was sleeping and did not have her mini-backpack on her or under her head. Erica was sitting there awake, and Kim had fallen asleep for a few. Erica left to go use the internet at the airport and this is when it happened. She came back and woke us up, and Katie's backpack was stolen. It included her passport, 3 credit cards, 10 euros (thankfully not more), her camera with all her pictures taken so far, her Ipod, her book (I am scarred from reading now, I was almost done!!!), sunglasses, etc. It was the worst feeling in the world for all 3 of us. We had just been stuck in an airport for 24 hours and were about to miss another flight because Katie did not have a passport to get on the next flight. We all panicked. We searched and searched around our area in trash cans, corners, anywhere we could find. We talked to the extremely unhelpful Clickair staff, who told us they did not know what to tell us but we needed to make a police report. So we found the policia, who barely spoke english. We told him our time restraint for the next flight (remember we had to check in by 8:25) but he had no care and took his time typing the police report out in spanish. Katie ran to the Click-air checkin counter and asked if it would be ok to board the flight with a police report and no passport. The guy said this was ok so Katie ran back to the police to beg them to hurry. The police finished the police report about 8:20am and we ran to the check-in counter. Kim had gone to a different lady than the man who told us Katie could board and she told us that we would not be able to. We disregarded her comment and found the man who told us yes and he let Katie on the plane. He must have thought he was witnessing another Niagra Falls because we were all crying, begging, and thanking him for actually helping us. We boarded the flight and we all tried to get the most sleep that we could, but Erica and Katie both got sick on the plane. Too much nerves/stress we think. But, the good thing is we all made it in one piece and were safe.
After making it to Santa Ursula, Tenerife in the Canary Islands we thought the worst was over, however even though the Island was gorgeous and the resort we ended up staying had a fabulous staff of helpful people going out of there way to help us get Katies life back together, the worst was still to come. Monday morning at 6am began the search for the American embassy. When we arrived to a neighbouring Island (2 busses and a ferry later) we were met by a less than helpful American embassy representative named Anna Maria. It was only after many long distance phone calls/faxes and crying that we finally had all the info for the consulate to make Katie a new passport. After recieving the always encouraging "We'll cross our fingers" from Anna Maria, we were off. Now we just had to wait. We tried to make the best of the week and visited a couple of beaches (1 was black sand, a first for all of us) and relaxed by the pool while waiting for Katies passport to arrive. We were scheduled to leave Friday morning (non refundable flights to Athens) and the passport was delivered with a half day to spare!!! We celebrated with a buffet dinner at the resort. We ate a lot (not as much as Kim would have liked) and rested up for our travel day to Athens!
So a warning to anyone planning a trip like this: Make sure you have copies of everything: Itenerary, passport, green card (for Kim's immigrant buddies), health insurance cards, etc. Always keep a copy with one travel mate (if you have one) and another with a trusted fax-savy person back home, and no matter how redundant this may sound ALWAYS BE CAREFUL and look out for each other!

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