Panic Purchases
As departure day approached, things were bordering on frantic. We had to obtain Euro currency, pick up any clothes and other items we thought we might need and didn't have, and of course pack. We bought Euros through the local American Express travel office. We paid roughly $1.48 per Euro after all the fees and everything (I believe that was about $0.10 per Euro or so over wholesale at the time), as the dollar had gotten weaker again against most other foreign currencies (go figure…). I was also furiously shopping online for a few clothes items I needed - mainly, if you can believe it, shorts. Most of the local stores where I shop had already converted their lines over to winter merchandise, and shorts were hard to come by. We found the same thing true out at the big outlet mall on 290 towards Hempstead. I finally found some online, though, and I was glad I did. I packed for reasonably cool weather, but also packed for warmer weather. Amazingly enough, even though we travelled in November, the weather was quite warm and I ended up wearing shorts in every port except Barcelona and Toulon. I usually had to start the morning with a jacket (something else that was a last minute purchase), but by mid-morning or lunch, I was usually out of that.
I also made a couple of last minute electronics purchases. As departure day approached, I realized I would need some reading material. I also realized I would likely not have time to go to a book store, and with the weight and space limitations now imposed by the airlines, I also knew I really didn't want to have to lug around multiple print books. So I bit the bullet and bought a Kindle from Amazon. I wasn't really sure I'd like it when I bought it, but I have to say I'm thoroughly addicted to it now and am glad I bought it. It is lightweight, skinny, and most importantly it is easy to read. So I bought four e-books from Amazon for the trip, and made it through two of them.
My other electronics purchase was a new camera. For a while, I had been hemming and hawing about getting one to not really replace my little Canon point-and-shoot (a PowerShot SD1100 IS) that I bought before the 2008 Italy trip, but to augment it with more capabilities. After researching the digital SLR alternatives, I decided I already had enough expensive hobbies (holy cow those things can get expensive!!!). I also realized that while I do enjoy taking good pictures (and ultimately sharing them), I really have no desire to learn shutter settings, F-stops, and all the intricacies of fine photo shooting. I wanted something with a good zoom capability that takes good pictures consistently with the simplicity of a point and shoot. Turns out, Canon had just a month before our trip introduced a new model on the upper end of their PowerShot line: the PowerShot SX30 IS. It is a 14.1 megapixel camera with HD video capability. It has the simplicity of a point-and-shoot with an incredible 35x optical zoom capability and image stabilization. The vast majority of the photos taken on this trip I took with the new Canon. And the best part is that all of that came in a $400 package. Yeah, I spent a little more than that after you add in all the accessories: bag, memory card, spare batteries, and a few lens accessories. But I think I got some great photos - I hope you agree.
One other quick note before I get into the meat of the trip story. As with the trip to Italy back in 2008, Tommy's Tigger accompanied me and the gang to Eurpoe for this trip, too. He holds a special place in the hearts of many, as he represents the carrying on of the memory of a great friend, Tommy Durr. If you know the story, you get the picture. If you don't, you can read why Tigger is important to me and so many others in the Tigger Goes to Italy article. You can see his pictures from the 2008 Italy trip in the Tigger Goes to Italy gallery. For his photos from this trip, check out the Tigger Sails the Mediterranean gallery.
Departure Day - Monday Nov 8, 2010
As with any trip, trying to figure out what to pack is always a chore. This particular trip was an even bigger challenge because of the variety of clothes required. Mom, Dad and I had already made the decision that we would not grace the ship's dining room with our presence on the three scheduled formal nights. That in and of itself gained us a lot of space in the suitcases: no suits, big dresses (in mom's case) or formal wear. The main challenge, then, was to pack enough clothes for a 17 day trip with multiple wardrobe requirements: warm and cool - maybe even cold - weather as well as some smart/business casual type things for the dining room in addition to vacation-wear. All of that had to fit into a single bag less than or equal to 23 kilos (51 lbs). An overweight bag or multiple bags would have incurred an excess baggage fee that all of the airlines seem so fond of charging these days - even though we were flying a European carrier. I guess they've been learning bad habits from the US carriers, damn them. Anyway, mom and dad cheated: they each had a big suitcase and actually ended up coming in under weight for both of those. They then packed excess stuff in their roll-aboards. I didn't want to hassle with a roll-aboard, as I would have my backpack with laptop and other flight necessities, as well as my camera bag. So I had to fit all of my crap into a single bag and keep it under the max weight. I succeeded in keeping it to one bag, but the bag ended up weighing 24.3 kilos - about 53.5 pounds. Luckily the only place the bag was weighed was upon departure at Houston, and the check-in agent said, "That's close enough." How nice of him not to charge me an overweight bag fee! Since our return flight to Frankfurt from Barcelona was considered a domestic flight, they didn't enforce the weight restriction, and they checked the bags all the way to Houston. And it is a good thing, as I was farther overweight on the return trip thanks to the 1.5 liters of olive oil I was bringing home!
Anyway, departure day finally arrived. I was packed and ready to get the hell out of town. I'd taken the dogs over to mom and dad's that morning and made a couple of last minute stops for cash and a jacket. The before departure checklist was complete, and finally the Super Shuttle arrived to take me to the airport. Well, it really wasn't Super Shuttle; they had contacted a cab to pick me up since I was a solo rider. Since the ride was pre-paid, I didn't owe the cabbie anything when he dropped me off at Terminal D. Mom, Dad, and Rod and Odette Smith all came in a different shuttle. We checked in, went through security and sat down for a bite of lunch and a couple of beers at one of the restaurants in terminal D. Rod and Odette were flying KLM to Barcelona via Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, while we were on Lufthansa via Frankfurt's Airport. Our flights left Houston within 10 minutes of each other, so we parted ways and said, "See you tomorrow in Barcelona."
When I had checked in for my flight the night before, I looked at the seating chart and was satisfied with my long-selected seat assignment: seat 40A, window, port side. And the best part: the middle seat still showed empty. I was very excited, as sitting crammed next to someone you don't know for 9.5 or 10 hours just didn't seem very appealing. Upon boarding the plane, I thought the gods had smiled upon me, but it wasn't to be. The last person on the plane, after arguing for several minutes with the flight attendants about his seat location, finally sat down in the middle seat next to me. That was the beginning of the longest 9.5 hours of my life…
Turns out the guy's name was Vladimir, and he was from the Ukraine (originally). He had been visiting family or something in Corpus Christi and was on his way back to his home in Vilnius, Latvia. That was about all I could make out from the one-way conversation - from him to me - for the next 9 hours. That and the fact that he wanted to try and set me up with his 50-some-odd year old sister or something... And let me tell you, this guy could throw back the gin. He had so many that you didn't want to have any flammable objects anywhere near him by the time we landed in Frankfurt. And he had so many that the cabin crew finally told him, "No more!" and cut him off. But he just wouldn't shut the hell up, and he thought that I understood everything he was saying. In mostly Ukrainian sprinkled with a few badly-pronounced English words. I tried to put on my Bose noise cancelling headphones and listen to music while trying to read. That lasted about 45 minutes, and good 'ol Vladimir wanted to chat some more. He didn't sleep a wink the whole flight, and my only break from him was about 2.5 hours of the flight when he got up and went back 2 rows and started bugging mom and dad (I made the mistake of introducing them…). She was sitting on the aisle, and he kept her from sleeping, and he even encouraged the ire of the flight attendants because he wouldn't sit down. It was so bad they even had the head flight attendant come down from upstairs (we were on a 747-400) to try to talk to him. Nobody in the crew spoke or understood Ukrainian, so they told us to pretty much let him be unless he got belligerent. He didn't, but I wish now he would have, as they would have removed him from the main passenger cabin and thus freed up the middle seat on my row. Which would have ultimately led to some peace, quiet, and more rest. But it wasn't to be, so we had to endure Vladimir the entire way.
After what seemed like several centuries, we finally landed in Frankfurt. We got off the plane and started to make our way to where we needed to go, and guess who was following us like a lost puppy? Yep. Vladimir. We found out where we needed to go (but didn't tell him), and then found out where he needed to go. Thankfully, we had a 4.5 hour layover and his flight was scheduled to leave in less than an hour of our arrival in Frankfurt. Funny thing: our flight was scheduled to leave from the same gate as his (B10), just a few hours later. But we fortunately were able to part ways with him before we reached passport control, and finally got some peace and quiet.
Tuesday Nov 9, 2010
The Frankfurt Incident
This part of the story probably falls under the category of Too Much Information, but as I was thinking back on it and started typing it, I found myself laughing. It involves bodily functions, though, so I decided to remove it from this main article and put it in a subarticle. It is somewhat entertaining, though, so if you're not offended by bodily functions, feel free to read it. It definitely defined my day - at least the early part of it. You can read The Frankfurt Incident story here.
Barcelona
There are a few selected pictures from Barcelona sprinkled into this article. To see all of the pictures from Barcelona, see the Barcelona photo gallery.
Rod and Odette's flight schedule got them into Barcelona airport several hours before our 3:15 pm arrival. Besides The Frankfurt Incident previously mentioned, the remainder of our trip into Barcelona was uneventful. We claimed our luggage and caught a cab to our hotel: the Hotel Barcelona Universal. A little back story, we had initially planned to try to use some of the Priority Club Rewards points I've accrued over the years of staying in Holiday Inn hotels for work. I have plenty of points for multiple free rooms, and thought this might be a good time to redeem some of them. Unfortunately, Holiday Inn doesn't have any properties anywhere convenient to the places we needed to be and wanted to see in Barcelona, so that was out. We ran into much the same issue for the night in Frankfurt, so no points redemption on this trip. So we started shopping for a reasonably priced hotel somewhat convenient for us. We wanted something that had breakfast included that was relatively convenient to both the cruise terminal and the main attractions in Barcelona. In the end, the Barcelona Universal worked perfectly for us, and it was just a block or two from the hotel - the Tryp Apollo - where the rest of the gang was staying. So we reserved the hotel for Tuesday and Wednesday nights, as the ship would depart on Thursday.
As we walked into the hotel after our ride from the airport, there were Rod and Odette enjoying a glass of wine in the hotel lounge. We got checked in and settled and then joined them. Everyone was tired, but also pumped about finally having the arrival flights over with, so we explored the hotel some. This particular hotel had a pool and several decks up on the roof, so we went up to take in the scenery. Mom, Dad and I were ready for an adult beverage, too, so I stopped off and ordered a bucket of ice and retrieved the bottle of Glenfiddich Scotch I'd purchased at the duty-free shop in Houston. By the way, even though it was a little bit of a hassle to keep up with - and we caught some grief from security screeners in Frankfurt over it - it was definitely cheaper to buy the bottle in Houston than either in Frankfurt or in Barcelona. Anyway, up to the roof we went. I took some of the first pictures of the trip from up there, and we all enjoyed our different libations. The wind was up that afternoon, and it was a little on the chilly side, but I'd been hot the entire trip over, and the cool breeze felt really good to me. Pretty soon, everyone started to fade a little bit, but we were also hungry.
 Barcelona Skyline   |
 Barcelona Skyline |
 Barcelona Skyline |
 Torre Agbar & Barcelona Skylin... |
 Columbus Monument |
 Palau Nacional |
Most of the people at the front desk spoke a little English, but it wasn't great English. Since I was the only one in our group that spoke even a little Spanish, I was elected to find us somewhere to have supper. You might find it interesting to know, though, that Spanish is not the first language of the Spaniards living in Barcelona or that region of Spain. Their primary language is Catalan. It is very similar to Spanish, and they are taught Spanish, but Catalan is their preferred language. Anyway, we were able to communicate. I worked with one of the guys there, and he finally gave us directions for a cabbie to get to this restaurant he'd recommended for some local fare. He ordered us a cab, and just as it was arriving, he was on the phone with the restaurant to see if we needed reservations or anything. Turns out the gastronomic schedules of Spaniards are different from ours… The restaurant wouldn't open for dinner until about 8:30 pm. It was just before 6, and we were hungry and tired and ready to eat and go to bed. So we cancelled those plans and I asked the cabbie for a recommendation. He replied, "No hay problema," and off we went to...somewhere. For an €18 cab ride, we ended up down in Barcelona's Port Olímpic, or Olympic Port, area at a restaurant called La Taberna Gallega de Marcos, one of many taberna, or tavern, style restaurants in a line there along the wharf area. The food was local Catalan-style and was fabulous. And it seems the more I drank, the better my Spanish got. 
After much food, wine and fun, it was time to return to the hotel for some good sleep after the long flights over. On the way back, I started feeling a smidge of a sore throat - the about-to-get-sick sore throat feeling. And sure enough, it hit me during the night. A horrible headache (I don't think the wine or booze was the cause, as I had it on and off for several days) followed by an out of control runny nose, then the coughing. Turns out the cold would haunt me nearly the entire trip, but the worst of it was on Wednesday.
Wednesday Nov 10, 2010
After a somewhat decent night's sleep, no thanks to my blossoming cold, we woke up and had breakfast (a pretty darned good one, I might add) at the hotel before our guide showed up at 9:30 for our tour of Barcelona. Our driver/guide's name was Albert with Barcelona Day Tours, and he was a fantastic guide. When he arrived, we loaded up in a nice Volkswagen van and off we went. Our first destination was the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. I'd heard about an architecturally crazy church in Barcelona that had been under construction for almost 120 years, but I really didn't know anything about it, and I hadn't seen any pictures of it. I don't think I've ever seen anything so spectacularly bizarre in my life. We didn't go inside - even though it was relatively early in the morning, the line was what would have amounted to several blocks long had you been able to stretch it out straight. But we did walk all around the outside of it. Turns out the Pope had been there just a week before to consecrate the cathedral - they just had recently gotten the roof over the altar/nave area, making it usable for worship services. So the Pope came and consecrated it as a minor basilica. Pretty cool to have been there so recently after that happened, even though we didn't go inside.
 Sagrada Familia |
 Sagrada Familia |
 Sagrada Familia |
 Sagrada Familia |
 Sagrada Familia |
 Sagrada Familia & Columbus Mon... |
After finishing up at the Sagrada Familia, we headed over to the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, also known as the Barcelona Cathedral. Turns out this cathedral, rather than the Sagrada Familia, is the primary cathedral of Barcelona and is the seat of the archbishop there. It is much older than the Sagrada Familia, having been built throughout the 12th through 15th centuries. An interesting feature of this cathedral: the crypt/reliquary of St. Eulalia is accessible and viewable down stairs that lead to a chamber below the altar. Most of the other cathedrals I've been in, the relic or the crypt of whoever the cathedral/basilica commemorates (or whatever the proper term for it is…I'm not a Catholic) is not accessible. But this one was. The cathedral's exterior was under some restoration when we were there, so we didn't get to see an uninterrupted façade. The interior was absolutely gorgeous, though. It wasn't overdone like some of the cathedrals I've been in, but it was large and beautiful to see. The organ pipes were very impressive, and I was a little disappointed they didn't warm them up.
 Barcelona Cathedral |
 Barcelona Cathedral |
 Barcelona Cathedral |
This is where my runny nose really kicked into high gear. I'd gone through just about every piece of paper I could get my hands on to try and stem the tide of goo flowing from my head. Our guide Albert was nice enough to take me into a pharmacy and get me some good drugs. The stuff I got was called Disofrol, and let me tell you - the meth cookers here would have a heyday with this stuff. Each pill had as much pseudoephedrine in it as four of our regular Sudafed pills!!! Let me tell ya, it dries some stuff up!
So with the nose more or less under control, we left the cathedral area and remained in that immediate area in the Gothic Quarter to see some of the older part. We hit Placa Sant Felip Neri Square and then Plaça Reial before we left that area and went over to Las Ramblas, the major market and shopping area that is a very popular attraction of Barcelona. I don't have any pictures of it, but it was really neat to see. There were tons and tons of vendors selling fresh everything: fish, meat, fruits, vegetables, breads, pastries, etc. What little I could smell that day smelled fantastic! And it was quite an experience being in the open market atmosphere like that. It wasn't an atmosphere like you might envision in, say, a Mexican town like Matamoros or Juarez, or something you might envision as an open air market in the middle east. This place had a very vibrant yet calm atmosphere to it, and it was neat to experience.
After walking around Las Ramblas for a little bit, it was time for lunch. As I mentioned, the Spanish gastronomy schedule isn't like ours, so lunch didn't happen until about 2:30. Albert took us down to Olympic Port again, and we had lunch at another tavern-style restaurant just a few doors down from the restaurant we had eaten at the night before. Albert asked us what we wanted to eat, and we told him traditional Spanish/Catalan-style food, and this is where he took us. We feasted on different types of paella, a wonderful rice dish mixed with, depending on how you order it, meats or fish and vegetables. We also helped ourselves to several pitchers (shared by the whole table, of course) of fresh-made sangria. Yummy!
After finishing up lunch, Albert drove us around some other parts of Barcelona, including by the Christopher Columbus Monument. From there we headed into town an over to Park Güell, also known as Gaudi Park. It was designed by (and therefore named for) Antoni Gaudi. Yep, the same guy that designed the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. Like the cathedral, there is lots of crazy curved architecture here, but the site is gorgeous. It is also up on a hill, and when you climb the stairs to the top of the main structure, it offers a fabulous view of the city of Barcelona below, stretching all the way to the Mediterranean.
 Park Güell |
 Park Güell |
 Barcelona Skyline from Park Gü... |
After finishing at the park, we then drove into the area of town that houses the Olympic Stadium and other Olympic-related facilities. Seeing all of that stuff in person was really neat, knowing that I was at home and remembering watching the 1992 Barcelona games. I remembered seeing on TV some of the things we were driving by (like the diving venue - we drove right by it and I remember some of the diving events and seeing the scenery on TV), so that was cool. We also got to see the Palau Nacional up close. We were in the van, so I didn't get any closeup pictures of it, but it was cool to see it up close. We could see it from the roof of the hotel.
After this, the tour was over and Albert returned us to the hotel. By this time, most of the rest of our travel group had arrived in Barcelona. Reba called and said they were at a little café within walking distance of our hotel called El Jibali, so we went to meet them for a light supper of tapas, as we were all still very full from the huge piles of paella we had all had at lunch. At this point, it was pretty much time to wind it all down for the day. I wasn't feeling too hot, and everyone else was either tired from the trip in or worn out from all the touring. The hotel had free WiFi Internet access, so I hopped on, checked work e-mail and Facebook, then turned on a game of communist kickball (aka futbol, or soccer). Barcelona was playing some other team, and were kicking the poo out of them. I finally turned out the light and hit the rack about 11 pm.
Thursday Nov 11, 2010
Thursday arrived, and it was get-on-the-ship day. Most of our group slept in a little bit, meeting for breakfast about 10:30. I still didn't feel horrible, but definitely not 100%. After breakfast, we re-packed, and I made another trip to the pharmacy to stock up on more drugs for the remainder of the trip before we checked out at noon. The cold had moved into my chest and the nose was still running, so I wanted to be prepared - and to hopefully avoid a trip to the ship's infirmary.
We had arranged for the same group that provided the Barcelona tour for us the previous day, Barcelona Day Tours, to take us from the hotel to the ship. Our driver (we were disappointed it wasn't Albert again) showed up about 12:15, we loaded up, and took the short ride from the hotel to the cruise terminal, which is in the modern port area. Cruising is apparently big business out of Barcelona, as they have at least four, and probably more, terminals. Drop-off, check-in and boarding was relatively painless and efficient. The major issue was we were required to surrender our passports. Dad and I weren't too fond of this idea, and dad even threw a fit of sorts that got the ship's purser involved. Dad finally gave in, but it was still a hassle - and a little scary to surrender our US passports in a foreign country. Their reasoning: we would be visiting a non-EU (European Union) nation - Turkey - and there were some funky requirements about the passports for cruise ship visitors so that they didn't require a visa (which is normally required) during the visit. We were told we would be able to reclaim the passports on Saturday the 20th after we had stopped in Turkey and re-entered the EU at Santorini.
One of the big things we had been fretting over before the cruise was the exorbitant prices the cruise lines charge for, well, just about everything on board - but especially the booze. Mom, Dad and I are all Scotch and wine drinkers, the McHaneys are big gin and tonic consumers (along with wine), etc. All of us had purchased a wine package through the cruise line. In my case, I bought a 12 bottle "gold" package that allowed me to pick from a specified list of wines. It was $315 (base price plus, of course, tax and mandatory gratuities), paid in advance, and all you had to do was show your card in any of the dining facilities and they'd bring your selected wine. It was still expensive - after the included gratuity, it came out to about $30 per bottle. Believe it or not, though, it was cheaper to do that than buy the bottles individually as you went.
Anyway, the part we were most worried about was that we all like to light the drinking lamp about 5 or so. Rather than go to one of the myriad onboard bars and get raped at $7+ per drink (and that's for the - what I consider crappy - well Scotch like Dewar's), we really wanted to figure out how to "smuggle" some booze onto the ship so we could have a drink or two in the cabin before supper. When we checked in for the cruise, we went through security and then…and this was after all the scanner stuff…we walked by a bunch of duty-free shops that had all sorts of things. The best thing was that we saw people carting stuff from those shops onto the ship - including wine and booze - and the ship wasn't doing anything about it. They weren't trying to confiscate it or anything - RC might've had a stake in those shops, so they didn't mind. Who knows... Needless to say, dad and I got off the ship and made a stop at the shops down there! We bought four 750s of Ballantine's Scotch - our regular everyday fare at home - for €13 (approx. $19.50 each), and I bought 12 1.5 liter bottles of water. I did that for 2 reasons: first, we'd heard through Cruise Critic that the ship's onboard water supply wasn't the best, and second, I was trying to drink a lot of water to flush the cold out of my system. Turns out, I only ended up drinking 8 of the 12 bottles I bought, but it was still WAY cheaper than buying the 1L bottles from the cabin's mini-fridge. Those things were $3.45 EACH!!! But the Scotch we bought definitely saved us a LOT of money, and they lasted for the entire trip. There was, in fact, a smidge left at the end.
So with the booze situation handled, we explored the ship some, unpacked, and got ready to set sail on what was to become an amazing - and busy - cruise. Everyone had the early (6:00 pm) seating in the dining room, so the whole group finally came together then. As mentioned, a large part of the group on this trip had traveled together to Italy back in 2008, so it was great to catch up with them as well as to meet and welcome the new additions into our merry band of travelers. After dinner - at least for me - it was off to the cabin to rest and try to hit the rack early, as we had an early start in Toulon, France the next morning.
Continue the story and read about our stop in France here.