Barcelona I (part a)
Day 1 (Monday)
We set off in the early morning (one of the earliest times I’ve been up this academic year. Some days I’d not even slept yet from staying up the previous night either playing mahjong (I seldom play, ok!!) or doing something else.
Upon arrival at the train station, we realised that we had to pay extra for the train to Stansted Airport as we were only purchasing the tickets on the spot and we had to travel to London in the morning rush-hour times. It cost £41.20 without Railcard. I brought mine so it cost £27.20, which was rather exorbitant still. I thought they had sorted this out earlier as we could have spent anything from fifteen quid onwards if they had booked earlier or used another route etc. Never mind, it was just something they hadn’t considered (though I did remind them regarding these arrangements). Transport is a killer in UK (and Europe) so that’s why I am normally prepared to sacrifice time and/or comfort for a better price. Save the money and spend it in your vacation place…
On the train something comical happened. Joanne couldn’t find the coffee bar (there probably wasn’t one) and then Nazimah wasn’t going to let her out of her seat. She texted me to ask me where the coffee bar was. Turned out Joanne was cold and wanted a hot drink so I passed her my jacket.
I didn’t sleep at all on the flight as Joanne and I were chatting about things. The other two slept quite soundly at the back. Something even more comical happened here. When we were taxiing on the runway at Girona Airport, Joanne suddenly stood up. The “fasten your seatbelts” sign was still on! She’s always that blur and cute... hahaha… I still have a good impression of Ryanair. Cheap and good. We arrived a little late, and I was a bit surprised that we had to pay €19.90 for the return bus ticket from the airport to the city. This airport is quite far from Barcelona city centre (budget airlines!) and we even got stuck in some traffic jam along the way. I fell asleep despite the unique scenery outside the window. The land was quite dry and devoid of healthy-looking vegetation, and the day looked scorchingly sunny. A trifle arid.
Upon arrival at the city, I took them to their hostel (not that hard to follow the map). I had originally planned to leave them to decipher the map (as they were supposed to have done the homework) but decided that since it was getting dark we had better lug our stuff in the right direction, and took over the leading. When we arrived at their hostel, I was discussing with Joanne and Nazimah about when I’d meet them when Siew Lee interjected, wanting to know what we were talking about. Anyway I made an agreement to meet them again at six (half an hour’s time, more than enough for a place that’s like, 5 minutes away) and left them to explain to Siew Lee what we had spoken about.
Well their hostel was easy to locate, but mine was the exact opposite. I walked up and down Tallers Street searching for no. 7, and did you know that 1) Barca’s building numbering isn’t all that great? There may be more than one door with no. 7; 2) the doors downstairs are locked and can be released by the occupants, so you have to ring the bell downstairs for the exact unit you are looking for and then they will let you in. Tallers Street was a mostly pedestrian walkway with a stone road. Pretty exotic. Being a little blur since it’s quite different from what I’d expected, I actually went up to some other hostel at no.7 and spoke to some unhelpful lady who only knew Spanish and kept saying my hostel was “illegal”. I was like, “great, so I had better get some English help and maybe the police hahaha”. Even checking with the shopkeepers along that street didn’t help much, and I actually went up the dark and dodgy no. 6 to check, to no avail. So I had no choice but to lug all my stuff (2 bags only) back to Hostal Central to meet them and decide on my next course of action.
I checked with their reception (she spoke good English!) regarding my hostel and she was so kind to help me call and check on it. She got me the handphone number of the person who was waiting for me as well. With that, I went off again in search of the elusive hostel. It was nice of Joanne to tag along, even though I still had to carry everything (except her map!) When I returned to that area, another search still didn’t reveal the hostel. I decided to call the person waiting for me to go downstairs to get me. It turned out the sign (hostel name!) was on the small little switchboard where the unit numbers were written and where we had to press the bell for someone upstairs to release the main door lock. And written in ink, on paper, stuck there! Who the heck is going to see it?? They should, for their own good, invest in a decent sign at least readable a metre out on the road.
My hostel had nice (new, too) toilet and shower facilities, a kitchen complete with washing machine, stoves, microwave oven and refrigerator. Fittings from Ikea. Free internet was in the sister hostel, not that near here. And there was a locker for me to store valuable stuff. Not bad, even if there was to be no reception (entry by a set of keys) and the dusty-looking floor (which was actually quite clean. It just looked old). As it turned out, I had only one hostelmate, who was to be staying in my dorm too. There was no one else staying there. After settling in, we left for dinner at their hostel. Throughout the trip I would have my meals with them at their place. This meant I had to get up earlier and sleep later than them.
We set off in the early morning (one of the earliest times I’ve been up this academic year. Some days I’d not even slept yet from staying up the previous night either playing mahjong (I seldom play, ok!!) or doing something else.
Upon arrival at the train station, we realised that we had to pay extra for the train to Stansted Airport as we were only purchasing the tickets on the spot and we had to travel to London in the morning rush-hour times. It cost £41.20 without Railcard. I brought mine so it cost £27.20, which was rather exorbitant still. I thought they had sorted this out earlier as we could have spent anything from fifteen quid onwards if they had booked earlier or used another route etc. Never mind, it was just something they hadn’t considered (though I did remind them regarding these arrangements). Transport is a killer in UK (and Europe) so that’s why I am normally prepared to sacrifice time and/or comfort for a better price. Save the money and spend it in your vacation place…
On the train something comical happened. Joanne couldn’t find the coffee bar (there probably wasn’t one) and then Nazimah wasn’t going to let her out of her seat. She texted me to ask me where the coffee bar was. Turned out Joanne was cold and wanted a hot drink so I passed her my jacket.
I didn’t sleep at all on the flight as Joanne and I were chatting about things. The other two slept quite soundly at the back. Something even more comical happened here. When we were taxiing on the runway at Girona Airport, Joanne suddenly stood up. The “fasten your seatbelts” sign was still on! She’s always that blur and cute... hahaha… I still have a good impression of Ryanair. Cheap and good. We arrived a little late, and I was a bit surprised that we had to pay €19.90 for the return bus ticket from the airport to the city. This airport is quite far from Barcelona city centre (budget airlines!) and we even got stuck in some traffic jam along the way. I fell asleep despite the unique scenery outside the window. The land was quite dry and devoid of healthy-looking vegetation, and the day looked scorchingly sunny. A trifle arid.
Upon arrival at the city, I took them to their hostel (not that hard to follow the map). I had originally planned to leave them to decipher the map (as they were supposed to have done the homework) but decided that since it was getting dark we had better lug our stuff in the right direction, and took over the leading. When we arrived at their hostel, I was discussing with Joanne and Nazimah about when I’d meet them when Siew Lee interjected, wanting to know what we were talking about. Anyway I made an agreement to meet them again at six (half an hour’s time, more than enough for a place that’s like, 5 minutes away) and left them to explain to Siew Lee what we had spoken about.
Well their hostel was easy to locate, but mine was the exact opposite. I walked up and down Tallers Street searching for no. 7, and did you know that 1) Barca’s building numbering isn’t all that great? There may be more than one door with no. 7; 2) the doors downstairs are locked and can be released by the occupants, so you have to ring the bell downstairs for the exact unit you are looking for and then they will let you in. Tallers Street was a mostly pedestrian walkway with a stone road. Pretty exotic. Being a little blur since it’s quite different from what I’d expected, I actually went up to some other hostel at no.7 and spoke to some unhelpful lady who only knew Spanish and kept saying my hostel was “illegal”. I was like, “great, so I had better get some English help and maybe the police hahaha”. Even checking with the shopkeepers along that street didn’t help much, and I actually went up the dark and dodgy no. 6 to check, to no avail. So I had no choice but to lug all my stuff (2 bags only) back to Hostal Central to meet them and decide on my next course of action.
I checked with their reception (she spoke good English!) regarding my hostel and she was so kind to help me call and check on it. She got me the handphone number of the person who was waiting for me as well. With that, I went off again in search of the elusive hostel. It was nice of Joanne to tag along, even though I still had to carry everything (except her map!) When I returned to that area, another search still didn’t reveal the hostel. I decided to call the person waiting for me to go downstairs to get me. It turned out the sign (hostel name!) was on the small little switchboard where the unit numbers were written and where we had to press the bell for someone upstairs to release the main door lock. And written in ink, on paper, stuck there! Who the heck is going to see it?? They should, for their own good, invest in a decent sign at least readable a metre out on the road.
My hostel had nice (new, too) toilet and shower facilities, a kitchen complete with washing machine, stoves, microwave oven and refrigerator. Fittings from Ikea. Free internet was in the sister hostel, not that near here. And there was a locker for me to store valuable stuff. Not bad, even if there was to be no reception (entry by a set of keys) and the dusty-looking floor (which was actually quite clean. It just looked old). As it turned out, I had only one hostelmate, who was to be staying in my dorm too. There was no one else staying there. After settling in, we left for dinner at their hostel. Throughout the trip I would have my meals with them at their place. This meant I had to get up earlier and sleep later than them.
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