- Since our flight wasn't until mid-afternoon, we decided to meet late in the morning. Unfortunately, we must have had a little miscommunications the night before because Ari and Steve thought we were meeting in the lobby at 11:00 AM and we thought we said 11:30. Just about the time Lisa and I were going to head downstairs, Ari called to find out where we were
- We were moving a little slow (euphemism!) after the long night, so Ari and Lisa were in the mood for a greasy burger. We wandered around a bit before heading toward the Plaza de España--we were pretty sure their was a McDonald's along the way. Ari and Lisa were very happy when we found it. We thought it was fairly disgusting that we had traveled to Spain only to eat at McDonald's, so we captured the moment with a couple of pictures in the McDonald's in front of advertisements written in Spanish. Even in the McDonald's we had people (in this case, young teenagers) asking us for money
- After our lunch (everyone felt much better), we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and grab a taxi to the airport. We took a completely different way to the airport than we did when we arrived on Wednesday. Apparently, this was the faster (though more expensive) way to go. Even so, the prices seem very reasonable (only about $15)
- History repeated itself at the Madrid airport. I forgot to take my book out of my luggage before I checked it, and Ari and Steve had to pay a fee for their overweight luggage (for some reason, it was only about $20 this time). Despite a short line, it took (what seemed like) a LONG time for Ari to pay the fee for the excess weight
- When we retrieved our luggage at the Barcelona airport, we noticed several iPlanet advertisements in the baggage claim area. Somehow, we hadn't noticed them the first time we'd passed through (of course, we were much more jet-lagged the first time). Ari took a picture of Steve and me standing in front of one of the signs
- Our travel agent had told us that we were in a hotel that was close to the airport--this was because Ari and Steve had an early flight the next morning. We were surprised, however, when our taxi driver drove us into downtown Barcelona. It crossed my mind (more than once) that he was taking us to the wrong hotel, but Ari and Steve were waiting at the hotel when he delivered us
- We didn't have much time (it was already close to 4:00 PM), so we just dropped our bags in our rooms (we were right next door to each other, so we were pounding "messages" on the walls) and headed out. We took a taxi to the Museo Picasso. Before we went in, we found a couple of nice shops where we could buy some of the last gifts we wanted--they closed at 8:00 PM, so we needed to get moving (it was 5:00 PM by this time)
- The Picasso museum was amazing. He had donated many of his works to the museum, including doodlings and paintings he had done during art school (which I think he did in Barcelona). There were two full rooms dedicated to works which were inspired by Velázquez's painting The Family of Philip IV which we had seen a few days earlier in Del Prado. There were also some very late works which he had done on cardboard (we speculated that he had whipped them up at someone's request during a party!)
- We had gone through the entire museum by 7:00 PM (compared to the other museums we'd visited, it was relatively small), so we had a full hour to do some serious shopping. There were some great art galleries nearby, and we purchased (among other things) a large polished aluminum serving plate for Kristina and Brian's wedding gift and a printed silk scarf for my Mom's birthday present. Steve and I also tracked down some postcards with pictures we just couldn't get on our own (these were purchased with our now dwindling supply of Spanish pesetas--we were now carefully estimating the cost of a taxi to the airport and comparing that with our remaining local currency)
- After our shopping spree, we decided to go directly to dinner rather than going back to the hotel. We took a taxi to Las Ramblas since that is the center of downtown and Ari and Steve hadn't been there. The place was packed with people--it looked like Times Square on a busy night. We were getting tired and hungry, but we didn't see many dinner options as we wandered a few blocks in the crowds. We stumbled upon a deli (it reminded me a little of a chain restaurant, like Jason's Deli) and we weren't in the mood to keep looking
- We sat in the back of the fairly large restaurant. Like virtually everywhere else we went, it was a bit smokey. We each had a beer and ordered an appetizer. the waitress laughed a bit at us and acted like we were ordering a lot of food. After we ate the appetizers, we each ordered an entrée as well--the waitress seemed REALLY surprised by this
- Despite the (relatively) early hour, we took a taxi back to the hotel when we had finished our dinner. After a week on the road (two weeks for Ari and Steve) and many late-nights on the town, we were all ready to get some rest before our travels home