Thursday, October 1, 2015 Barcelona at Long Last

We land in Frankfurt around 11 AM. My hopeful recollection of being the first one on the plane fades, dashed by the realization that I will be the last one off. Once again, we watch all the people exiting the plane, marveling at just how many flew with us last night.

The internet gives various figures for number of passengers on a 747-400, depending upon seat configuration, but guesses 375. Save the seat neighboring us, this plane appears full.

The same airplane everyday flies from Frankfurt to Denver, arriving in Denver around 3:30PM. Lufthansa cleans the plane, fills it up again and two hours later sends a different group of people to Europe.

I’m always so excited when the plane lands and I’ve pulled off Europe again. “Yes!” I say to myself with a fist pump.

Bird greets me on the jetway. Keith reassembles her. I transfer from the aisle chair into Bird. As well-behaved animals, we find our next gate for the flight to Barcelona. Waiting quietly for our flight, we sit next to two women from Brazil. They take one look at Keith, and begin speaking to him in rapid-fire Portuguese. Keith can be from Brazil now too. No one ever guesses Keith’s real nationality ─ American. Ever the helpful Bear, Keith looks at their tickets and tells them they’re on the right flight.

We converse with the Brazilians in pidgin Spanish. “So you speak English?” the women ask. “We’re meeting our family in Barcelona. They speak English. Everything is okay as long as you speak English!” Funny, English won’t really help us much in most of Spain.

In the American papers, we read that the Catalans have elected a separatist, pro-independence government. Threats fly back and forth between the Catalans and the Madrileños.  Rajoy, the conservative party prime minister down in Madrid, shrieks that independent Cataluña won’t have any euros. He will personally shut down their economy. We decide to use one of the ATMs in the Frankfurt terminal, just to be safe.

Our next plane arrives and boarding begins. With all save me on the plane, Lufthansa can’t find their aisle chair so I personally delay takeoff. Eventually they do find one, hustle me aboard and off we go. The two hour flight to Barcelona allows me to sleep again. Yeah!

We exit the plane in Barcelona, last off as always. We reunite with Bird again on the jetway. Downstairs, we collect our luggage and begin looking for a handicapped taxi. I call the correct taxi phone number, but my Spanish is so bad that no one can understand me. Acknowledging failure, Keith and I decide to wander farther down to taxiland. Keith pushes me the wrong way to the end of the line. Nope! Taxis leave in the order they entered, not to be changed for you, Mr. Greene. Following another futile phone call, we roll to the front of the line. The people directing the taxis find a bigger taxi for me, not handicap accessible. I learn that I can stand up and sit down in any car without much hassle really. Keith moves my legs into the cab after I sit on the seat.

The driver speaks English and takes us to our Airbnb rental. We’ve been instructed to call a Jordi who will come bearing keys and open the apartment. But Jordi never answers the phone! Our taxi driver approaches the cleaning lady, gets the correct phone number and calls for us. Turns out the phone number listed for Jordi hasn’t been his for two years.

We tip the driver heavily and heartily. He leaves. We sit next door to the apartment and have glass of wine. Jordi arrives with keys, lets us in and tries to collect the €150 deposit that we’ve already paid. We argue for a while before he leaves vowing to return tomorrow for the money. We do actually owe a €10 key deposit which Jordi doesn’t collect. I get on the Internet, contact the hosts, and ask them to call off Jordi.

Always good to have a place to call home if only for a week! We have the penthouse of a very small apartment. Squeezing really, really hard, rubbing Bird’s spokes, we get into the elevator. This trip will not be easy on poor Bird.

In our apartment, Keith puts some of our clothes away. From our terrace we can see Sagrada Familia, and the Agbar tower. Despite knowing its name, we never learn the purpose of the Agbar Tower. Keith notes that it looks like a large penis in the sky, often bathed with different colors of light. Perhaps this is a tribute to Spain’s machismo culture. Wait! We’re in Cataluña. Whatever.

We instantly fall in love with Barcelona. What a delightful city! And we sit in the middle of town, where everything remains open late into the night. We see greengrocers, ham places, places that sell meat, and shops with dairy products. Are we visiting in the real Europe with daily grocery shopping, choosing dinner on the way home from work?

We descend from our penthouse into the evening, shop at a small store buying milk, eggs and bacon for breakfast tomorrow. Bear takes our prizes upstairs and stashes them in the refrigerator. I await him on the street.

Hungry, we wander down the street and find a place selling tapas, called the Gent of Barri. We order some ham and fried peppers. A woman asks us if we want Catalan Bread. “Sure,” we say. “Why not?” we think to ourselves, primed for adventure. She takes a piece of toast, rubs it with garlic then tomato, creating a tasty treat which we greatly enjoy. We’ll be recreating Catalan bread in our kitchen in Denver.

Sated with tapas and wine, we return to our apartment to sleep for the night.