ESPAÑA!

(ARDEN) And so our story begins anew, travelling to places we have never seen before, experiencing things that our party of three never have. This time, our story brings us across the Atlantic Ocean, to the illustrious lands of Spain. However, our party must first venture to the Miami Airport, where our flight originates. To get to Miami, we decided to take a train from Lakeland to Miami, which was the first time Sawney and Arden were on a full size passenger train. The train ride was an agonizing four and a half hour trip, stopping multiple times to let passengers both on and off. We finally arrived at the Miami train station, where we departed from the train and made our way to our AirBnB to sleep. We used an Uber to drive to the AirBnB, where people will become taxis, utilizing their own cars as transport. We had the blessing of getting an amazing driver, Alberto. He picked us up from the train station, helped us with our bags, and began to drive us. Alberto was incredibly nice, lived in the states for about 30 years, and loved mango trees. Unfortunately, we had to part ways with Alberto, as we came up to our AirBnB. We gathered ourselves and entered the place, which was a relatively small studio type apartment, containing 2 beds that we retired to during the night. 

Troy, indulging in what appears to be an adult beverage, but is actually a banana soda.

We ate at a Honduran restaurant in Miami before we retired for the night.

As woke the next morning, the party was fully aware of the day ahead. That day, we were to board our plane and suffer through a nine-hour flight to Barcelona. We got ready and promptly left the AirBnB, and summoned another Uber to drive us to the airport. Upon arriving to the airport, we checked in to our flight, checked our bigger bags, and marched through one of the worst aspects of flying, security.

Granted, everything went smoothly, and it only took us a few minutes to pass through security. There was an issue regarding Troy’s bag, where TSA had to check it, because he might have had something sharp. After that small ordeal, we walked to our gate and proceeded to wait for four hours until our flight was ready to board and depart. We noticed while checking in that our seats were not placed together; Troy sat across the aisle from Sawney, and Arden sat one row above, and two seats into the row. We attempted to move our seating, to see if we could sit together, but it was to no avail, so we continued to wait. 

At long last, the plane was ready to board, and slowly we entered the plane, put up our luggage, and took our seats. The plane was more than we expected at first. There was screens on each seat, with hundreds of movies to watch, and each seat also had outlets for charging devices and the like. The real treat came when we survived takeoff and reached cruising altitude, where the plane attendants promptly served dinner. Though nothing spectacular, the dinner came with choice of chicken or pasta, a small salad, a drink, a bread roll, two crackers, and a brownie. Although I do not know how either Troy or Sawney felt about this meal, I was borderline ecstatic, as I expected no food to be served while on the flight.

(TROY) We arrived in Spain nine hours after our flight departed Miami, we got off the plane to find the easiest border customs I had ever been through. They simply looked at our passports and allowed us to enter their country. I’m sure that our bags went through the X-ray machines and a whole line of other security measures, but there were no forms to fill out and no real questions to answer. We collected our bags once we were through security and walked through the airport to the rental car desk. After waiting for ten minutes, we realized that the line was not moving (and that we needed to take a number anyway). It took us another 45 minutes to an hour to get to the desk, but that time afforded us each a much needed bathroom break. I also was able to get a cup of “Espresso” (because this country doesn’t sell “Café Negra” anywhere).

When we finally got to the rental desk, the lady tried to sell us a bunch of unnecessary upgrades. I denied them all, thankfully. A larger car would have been $15 more per day (a “special” they were running apparently), but would have been a major inconvenience due to the small parking spaces. We also denied insurance – a service that is already provided through our credit card company. They did slip one in on me that I didn’t notice – the fuel extra. Oh well, guess I’ll just bring the tank back empty!

We left the airport in Barcelona and drove (which is a nightmare) to our hostel to take a nap. After two hours I sat up so, thinking that would prevent me from falling back to sleep. It did not. I had no problem falling asleep while sitting up. Sawney didn’t get as much sleep as I did, but I think Arden was able to knock out for a solid 3 hours (which was amazing, as he got the most sleep on the plane as well).

Once we were well rested, we drove by the famous cathedral there, Segrada Familia. It was started in 1882 and has still yet to be completed. An impressive sight for sure, but not worth the €18 admission fee per person they were asking. After we saw that, I was getting frustrated driving so I asked to go back to the hostel. We were all okay with that decision. We parked and walked around searching for a place to eat. There were no restaurants – only bars and grocery stores. We learned from the internet that there is no food sold until 10:00pm (We later found out that there really isn’t much food sold at any time – apparently most people eat at home). Finally, Sawney googled "restaurants that are open now". We found a place, but the waitress didn't speak english. She was very nice and tried her best, but was unsuccessful. We got our point across though, and all got burgers. We then headed back to the hostel to settle down for a good nights sleep.

(NOT OUR PICTURE) We drove by, and everyone forgot to take a picture. I pulled one from Google so you could at least see what it looks like. In my opinion, it's much less impressive knowing that they were able to use modern machinery to build it.