DAY 56 - BARCELONA- MADRID

We are off the cruise- and should have earned degree's for managing it!! Dont know what the story was but geez Louise, every staff member told you a different story at every turn- to get your passport, no you couldnt get your passport, the deck to disembark, the Correct deck to disembark, that you could get off, No that you couldnt get off, go up, go down ....you get the drift. Could have severely smudged the massive offliner off one of them- BUT....having had 10 flights, 2 cruises and 2 coach tours you learn if nothing else- to hang loose!!

We did manage in the end to get off the frickin ship in Barcelona at 8am, in a taxi by 8.10am. Knowing we had the option IF we got to the airport early enough, to change our flight to an earlier one, we got the slowest taxi driver in Spain! Again, relax and if its going to happen it will happen. We got to the airport and I found the Vueling sales desk and changed our flight from 11.40am to the 9.30am one with 10 mins to spare. They didnt charge us the fee we thought they would to change, then put us through the last minute check out- We LOVE Vueling- they are our new most favourite airline!! And all because they had a really well laid out website that had all the FAQ's and then some- offering to change flights up to 1 hour prior etc.

To top it off, the lady had given us a spare seat in the plane And the exit row seats to boot!! The flight was only 50 mins instead of the projected 1 hour 15 mins. Our luck was changing.

Hit the tarmac at a quiet trot as we had 15 mins to get through customs and get our bags for the hotel shuttle. We rang them at the bag carousel to ask them to wait a few mins as the baggage was s.l.o.w to come then Yay- can we believe it- ours came out first! The shuttle took ages to turn up, but meant that we could catch that instead of a taxi way into the city- a good day all in all!

Back to Hotel Atlantico and they gave us our old room back- the corner room on the 8th floor- I called "we're home" as we went back in"! There is a pic included of the hotel- our room is the rounded one with the balcony- 2nd from the top on the left.

We wandered around in town for a few hours as we are right in the thick of it and last time had that awful day with cancelled flights so never got to see Madrid. This time we found clothes (its cold here), listened to a classical quartet in the street who almost made me cry playing Ava Maria, Carpe Diem? (National bank music) and another really famous Beethoven one. I didnt want to go, they must have been with the Philimonic orchestra or similar, out practising - their busking was moving. We have it on movie if you enjoy that stuff too.

Then bought Graeme a big thick jersey that was very him and he made me buy a sparkly lambskin (I doubt) coat, that isnt bad apart from the sparkles!

Then after one false start in a spanish only speaking tapas bar, we stumbled across a Spaniard , who is my new best friend- he spoke excellent english and was happy to explain tapas to us on the menu. If it wasnt for him we would have left Spain having never tried them cos you cant read the menus- so many Spaniards speak no English. He was funny though, he told me mine was "children-baby squid in aoili"!!! The kids were yummy though, along with a couple of local beers- cheap too!

Back to relax tonight before making the best of our last full day tomorrow.