Barcelona: Aug. 12, 2023

In May, Not Jersey was invited to a geek workshop in Spain. He texted me at work to ask if I wanted to go. I tried to google translate "duh" from English to Spanish. It doesn't translate. Instead, I added all the party emoji's and "YESSSSSS!!!!!"

Three months (and many hours of air travel) later we landed in Barcelona. We were impressed with the Barcelona airport and customs process, which whipped us through in under 20 minutes. We grabbed the Aerobus to Placa de Catalunya.

The interwebs described the Catalunya Plaza as a prime tourist destination. Upon arrival, it didn't look like much. Just a city square with a few sculptures in the center. It was a transportation hub with all the city tour buses, a metro station, and bus stops.

We had 5 hours before we could check into our hotel. We dropped our bags at luggage storage and boarded a double-decker Barcelona City Tour hop on/hop off bus. We had our first scare of the trip when Not Jersey couldn't find his wallet after we sat down on the bus. He just used it to pay for our tickets, so he ran back downstairs to check with the attendant. We found it lying on the floor in the aisle. We breathed a huge sigh of relief and sat back to enjoy the tour.

I have taken excellent city bus tours in NYC and Philly. They were fun, relaxing, and a good way to get familiar with a city. This was not my favorite bus tour. There was not a live guide and the information playing through the headphones was not interesting.

We got off the bus at La Sagrada Familia. While I was filling my water bottle, Not Jersey saw a girl hike up her dress. Apparently, she was not wearing any undergarments. I totally missed it.

After grabbing some sodas at a supermercado, we hopped back onto the bus. When we were near our luggage, we hopped off the bus to grab a late lunch. We found a nice restaurant. Not Jersey was brave and had a local rice dish. I had steak and potatoes.

Once we were finished with our lunch, we picked up our luggage and lugged it down into the metro. Google maps told us which lines to take to our hotel. We had a hard time determining which type of ticket to purchase. Barcelona had several different metro zones. We finally decided on the 10 rides for $10. We found our train and rode the couple of stops and emerged from the tunnel onto a boiling hot Barcelona sidewalk and walked with our luggage for what felt like much longer than 5 minutes, but arrived at our hotel with no problems.

We threw our stuff down and slept for the next 24 hours.