barcelona

November 7, 2012: Barcelona day 2
I wish I could have slept more, but I was glad to get breakfast before work. I was fine for a while at work; I just read the book Daniel’s lending me. But after an hour of just sitting there in the cold, I started to fall asleep. The girl came up with her aunt, but then decided she’d rather go with her family so they left. A few minutes later she came back up with her mom and her mom tried to convince her to stay but she really wanted to walk around with her family all day. After that, I did end up falling asleep on the couch for a few minutes a few times. I knew the other kids weren’t coming up so I was basically just waiting for Brian to relieve me. He came a little before twelve and we ate lunch together before I got off the ship.

I got off the ship and took the shuttle bus to the city because I didn’t want to walk the 20-30 minutes alone. I walked down the main street where the shuttle dropped us off and kept walking. I saw a few things I wanted to look at, but didn’t stop because I had plenty of time to come back later. I did stop for pictures often though. After about 45 minutes of walking, I saw one of the hop on-hop off bus tours. Ginger had told me they were really good, so I got on this one (it was around 2). It went back down the street where I had just come from and stayed about 15 minutes at the fountain I’d taken quite a few pictures at. Finally, we moved on. I decided just to stay on the bus unless something was really, really interesting because I was starting to get worried about time (after that long stop at the fountain). It was a long tour just riding it.

I ended up not getting off the bus at all. I did see the places from the bus, hear about them thanks to the headphones, and read about them in the brochure. I was really getting anxious about time when it took us 20 minutes to get from one stop to the next. With only a few stops left, I was really worried because it was already 4 and I had to be back on the ship by 5:30; it was a 20 minute ride to the port and when I had left, there was a very long line to go through security, so I was hoping to be at least at the port by 4:45. I prayed the whole time, trusting that I’d get back on time.

Finally we got back to the big fountains (it was closer to Las Ramblas, which was down the street from the shuttle) and I walked quickly down to the shuttles, sadly I was too worried about time to stop and see the things I had planned on seeing (the market mainly). When I arrived at the monument to Christopher Columbus (that’s where the shuttle dropped us off), I didn’t see the shuttle. Really worried now, I got a taxi since there were a lot waiting there. That was an experience because he didn’t speak English well and I’d never gotten a taxi by myself before. I was really praying hard by that point, nervous about taking a taxi alone; I was so nervous I almost considered walking the 20-30 minutes back to the ship. At first, he thought I wanted to go to the airport, but finally I got across that I meant the port at the water, with ships, so we got on the right track. That didn’t help my nerves though. I made it to the terminal fine and there was no line at security so I was on the ship by 5, thank goodness.

I was tired and was getting a really bad headache, so when I got back to the room, I immediately climbed into bed. I looked through some of my pictures for a bit, but then fell asleep. I didn’t wake up until around 8:30. Cass was back from her deck set and dinner and was getting ready for their set in the Crow’s Nest. Apparently the room steward had been in and vaccumned and cleaned while I’d been asleep, she had walked in and noticed my key on the desk and my curtain closed so told him but he was nearly done anyway. I can’t believe I slept through that.

I had also slept through dinner, so I ordered room service hoping food would help me feel better. It did a little bit, but my head was still hurting so I went back to sleep almost as soon as I finished. I did wake up when Cass came back though, she told me about their set and I told her a little about my day before I fell asleep again.

November 8, 2012: Palma de Mallorca
I woke up and got ready this morning because I knew we had a boat drill so I assumed we had a fire drill beforehand (since we always do). However, I never heard the alarm so I sat going through all my pictures from yesterday waiting for the boat drill.