We're here!

Ahhh traveling the excitement the adventure the delays the lack of communication the LINES.

We have made it to our hotel around 1:30pm BCN time and now showered up and are ready to face the day… or what’s left of it. It is currently 714am Chicago time and I am feeling a little tired.

We started our trip off nicely. We had decided on a town car in lieu of a taxi as they were the same cost if not cheaper. Our “town car” arrives at our house on time… only it’s not a town car it’s a white stretch limo. Bill and I have decided our neighbors probably think we are super obnoxious but really all we wanted was a ride that was cheaper than a taxi.

So we arrive in style to ORD and go to check-in. Cool! We can use the kiosks. So we check ourselves in and then the baggage lady came by to check our luggage to LHR… not BCN. So then we are told that because we booked through an outside agent not AA we would need to wait in the growing line and check in again this time through to BCN. Excellent, we get our boarding passes for both legs of the flight saving us from having to go through security a second time in London. –more on that to come. So we wander to our gate… on time!! What luck, I never have a plane on time at ORD. of course in the end we were delayed 30 min (though we were on the plane as if we would leave on time.

The flight was uneventful. I think I truly slept maybe an hour, though I did rest for a good 3 hours. I was able to watch the sunrise which was beautiful. And we arrived in good time. The steward told us that since our final destination was BCN we wouldn’t have to fill our custom forms until then.

We get off and go down a spooky hallway down a flight of stairs up a flight of stairs down a flight of stairs… to a very long line for the transport to terminal 1. Then we wait in some more lines to check our passports and head to our gate. Only our carry-on which are an ok size in the states at too big. Now we knew in advanced that there was a strict one carry-on rule but now we were scrambling the guy told us we would have to go through passport control and check our bags and he pointed us into a line. We wait and wait. Finally we get to an agent and we are told that we got in the wrong line and that we need to go fill our custom forms in the line that is twice as long as the one we were waiting in. lucky for us after asking the non responsive agent who was controlling the other line a few times we were able to get through passport control and out to the exit. Then we had to go back up to ticketing and check out bags… with some finagling we were able to get the laptop to fit into one of our two travel bags that we brought for excursions. But our large camera would have to stay in the bag. Back in another security line which was wrapping around the check-in terminal. Finally onto our plane and out of LHR to BCN. The difference was night and day…. If London is going to hold the Olympics properly they better fix up that airport because I think it was the worst airport I have ever been to as far as up keep signage and ease of traveling through the terminals goes.

BCN has a beautiful airport and we were able to get all of our bags and take a bus (3,90E/person) to about a block away from our hotel.

Our room is really nice. The hotel is super modern reminding me of the W in the loop but with wood floors.

Ok more later
-sarah