Sometimes things don't go as planned

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

We slept in a bit this morning, leaving the hotel around 9:30 a.m. for our 10:30 train to Barcelona (via Montpellier). We arrived in Montpellier around 2:30 p.m. or so. We had purchased baguettes in Cannes to eat for lunch on the train. Our train into Barcelona was approximately an hour late. We arrived at nearly 9:00 p.m. when we were supposed to arrive just before 8:00 p.m. We were a bit concerned about this first of all because the semi-final soccer game between Spain and Germany started at 8:30 p.m. and secondly because David, Tim’s brother, was supposed to have arrived in Barcelona earlier in the afternoon, and we had no way of communicating with him to let him know our train had arrived late. And not only was our train late, we had thought that we would be able to take a train directly from the station our train from Montpellier stopped at to Montmelo station, where our hotel was, but as it turned out we actually had to take a train to Barcelona Sants Station, the main Barcelona station, before heading to Montmelo. And sadly, that is not where our troubles ended. Once we arrived in Montmelo, we could not find a taxi, so I inquired about how to get our hotel with a local restaurateur and was told that it was a mere 5 minute walk and was given directions. Once we had fulfilled the directions given I stopped in another restaurant and asked again, and found that we had been misled, from that location it was still another 2-3 kilometers. So of course I inquired about a taxi, only to be told that there was no possibility of a taxi at this particular time of night. So we started our long walk to the hotel. I have to say that I am extremely glad that I was not traveling with other women, or by myself, because even as it was, I was terrified. We walked for what seemed like miles without seeing any signs of civilization down tree lined dark streets before reaching a factory laden area that did not seem likely to have hotels before we finally saw the familiar “Holiday Inn” sign, and I couldn’t have been more relieved. It was nearly midnight and we had been traveling for well over 12 hours and were more than 3 hours later than we had anticipated, but we had made it. Whether or not we will stay in this hotel for the duration of our time in Barcelona is yet to be determined.