La llegada – The arrival

Barcelona, the city known for its beaches, architecture and Catalonian flare.

What seemed like a wonderful day in paradise turned into a long and exhausting day. It’s safe to say we were a little disappointed in ourselves by the end of it.

After going through customs we found a taxi and headed towards our Airbnb. The host had messaged me that the cleaning lady would let us in early to drop off our bags. We were both beside ourselves with exhaustion so I was hoping we could check in early and be done with it. However, that was not what Barcelona had in store for us.

Finding the Airbnb was not a problem. Getting into it was another issue. Outside the building another lady stood there waiting. I asked, “¿Eres Ana? ( the name of the cleaning lady). She replied , “Sí”. From there she explained that she had left her keys in the apartment for the previous guests and that the doorman should let her in, but he was no where to be found, even though he is suppose to be there till 1pm.

The three of us waited for a bit and finally got ahold of Juan the doorman who said he had left and to try the call buttons to see if someone would let us up. (If you’ve never been to Spain, let me enlighten you that this is not uncommon logic.) Eventually we got up, but we still didn’t have a key to the actual apartment. Ana finally had WiFi (which is what most Spaniards use to make calls because cell service is so expensive) and was able to reach out to the host and get someone to bring us a key.

We made it! We were in the apartment. I could’ve collapsed right there and slept the whole day, but Ana needed to clean and check-in technically wasn’t till 3pm. Mom and I were left to our wits and needed to kill 3 hours in the Barcelonean wilderness.

At this point the jet lag was winning. My stomach had been on fire (remember what I said above it all the food offered in first class) and mom and I were struggling to put one foot in front of the other. We went to the park a block away which was beautiful but it was wasted on me because of my current predicament. I couldn’t tell if I was going to fall asleep on a bench or maybe throw up. Mom wasn’t moving too fast but she definitely had the upper hand compared to me.

We kept walking and about halfway through the park I felt a splatter on my arms. Did I step in a puddle? Did a bike go by? No…a bird had relieved itself and managed to hit me instead of the open space all around. I was told by a local that’s it good luck, but frankly Mom and I were not feeling lucky.

Sitting on a bench we contemplated what we were going to do for the next two hours. Do we go to a museum? Do I dare try to eat despite my queasiness? The thing about Spain is there aren’t any public restrooms and some of the smaller restaurants don’t always have one. With this information in hand we decided to go to the zoo as it was right there and bound to have some facilities we could utilize.

I wish I could say there was some animal only found here in this zoo, but unfortunately most of the animales were ones we’ve seen before. However, considering our state it was the right pace. We could stop and sit and watch and there were restrooms all over the zoo, which we definitely partook in.

I don’t think many people travel across the Atlantic to go to the zoo. It certainly wasn’t on either of our agendas for the trip. In spite of it being the most expensive restroom experience either of us has had, we at least got to see a bit of Barcelona on our first day.

Eventually we came back to our Airbnb and embraced the finest of Spanish traditions. The siesta. After some decent rest we were finally ready to see what the city had to offer.