Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
OK, here we are on day three. Another early day to wake up and get out to do our last bit of sightseeing in Barcelona. I can't wait to get on the ship just so I can have a day to sleep late; it's called "Vacation" after all.
We decided to hit the Gaudi House Museum as the last thing we see in Barcelona. We hop in a taxi from the hotel after breakfast and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. It's on the edge of a beautiful park. There are virtually no signs directing you to anything. We approach the entrance and all we see is this huge set of stairs going up to some tiled covered area. There is a picture of it on the photo page.
We decided to walk all the way up the stairs. We get to the top and, still no sign of the actual museum. Now I'm a little pissed. It's about 85 degrees and I just walked up a huge freekin' flight of stairs (which on a 70 degree day would be completely out of character.) I'm hot, I'm sweating, I can't find the damn museum ....... I'm not happy. Beth is noticing my tension begin to rise. She knows that I'm really just here this morning because she wanted to see it and now, we can't really even find it.
We walk back down the stairs and begin to walk up the side path. We pass a guy wearing a Gaudi House Museum shirt and, in my nicest New York accent, ask if he can please direct us to the actual House. He virtually ignores us, mumbles something in Spanish (at least I think it's Spanish; it could be pig latin for all I know - or at this stage, care), waves his arm in the general direction of "up" and keeps walking in the other direction. Good old European customer service at work; this guy might actually have been a transplanted New Yorker!
We keep walking and eventually find the House/Museum. It's 10 euros to get in (about 16 dollars - yes, the exchange rate SUCKS!!!) and I'm a little concerned that it looks really small. We pay the admission fee and realize that even though it has stuff that is over 100 years old, there is no air conditioning. I guess they don't care about preservation of old stuff here. I'm already rethinking the admission fee. We see some very interesting furniture and some drawings that Gaudi did in the middle of his life. We walk up a small winding staircase to the even hotter 2nd floor (remember, heat rises) and see some more furniture. We also see some of his original cast works for parts of the Sagrada Familia, which we saw on day 1. It's somewhat interesting but, that's all there is. We are literally in and out of the House/Museum in 7.5 minutes. That's like 2 bucks a minute. Now I'm hot, tired and just got ripped off.
On a side note, I actually started the day a little pissed. We asked the concierge at the hotel for a restaurant near the Barcelona Casino (by the docks) and they recommended a place. The food was just ok and the service wasn't great. We then walked over to the Casino and couldn't get in because we didn't have our Passports; no one thought of telling us that our drivers licenses weren't good enough to get in (especially after the Hotel front desk told us NOT to carry our passports around the city on day one.) We then decide to save a few bucks and take the tourist bus back to our hotel. Our tickets from earlier are still good and it's a beautiful night. I actually like riding the bus better at night. It's cool outside, the city is all lit up, etc. Then ................ the bus gets to a central location in the city and we are told to get off and that it's stopping for the day. We have to find our own way back to the Hotel. We decided to keep the adventure going and find the metro (trains.) We still have 4 trips left on our 10 pass. We find the train, figure out which two we need to get back and head underground. Word to the wise; it's like descending into Dante's Seventh Ring of Hell going into the Barcelona Metro in the summer. The trains are cool but, we have to walk alot at both the first stop (it's a stop that is the meeting point for 4 train lines) and then at the connection stop (it's a stop for 2 lines.) We finally exit the Metro into the cool air again about 30 minutes after we entered. We now have to walk about 6 blocks back to the hotel. It was kinda fun but, in retrospect we both agree that the extra 10 euro at the dock for a cab back to the hotel would have been well spent. I'm Fat, 44 and sweating is not my thing. Oh well, back to the Gaudi House Museum story.
We follow the trail which leads back to the top of the big set of stairs we started at. Beth thinks there is something at the very top so, I decide to listen to her and try to salvage this place. After some more climbing there is a big open area with some cool looking tile benches but, nothing else. Beth has lead me up a sweaty path of destruction.
We climb back down and take a picture of a cool looking iguana type thing made of tiles. There is a pictures of this on the photo page also. We get back to the cab line just in time to take the same driver back to our hotel.
10 Euro for the cab there,
10 Euro to get in to the House/Museum,
5 Euros for water (yes, I skipped the water break),
10 Euro's back to the hotel.
Getting ripped off in Barcelona = Priceless
It's about 12:30 by the time we get back to the Hotel and I lay down to take a nap. We are all packed to go to the ship and leave about 1:30pm to get there. It's a short trip (especially since they have cleaned up all of the fallen trees from last night's storm.) The dock registration is amazing. We are in our room by 2:30pm and explore the ship; it's huge - 4200 people.
Dinner was in the Italian Restaurant. If you don't know how NCL works, it's not the standard Cruise type eating. You go to whatever restaurant you want every night at whatever time you want. You can make reservations and some of the restaurants charge an "up charge" to go there ($10 to $20 per person) Tonight's restaurant is one of them. It's good but, not great. After dinner we saw a singer/comedian named Steve Sorrentino. He is actually pretty good and we are all laughing for the 45 minutes.
So, the first day started out kinda rocky but, ends pretty good. I'm in the room now (it's about 9:30) and Beth is in the Casino (or her boyfriends room, I'm not really sure which one and I'm not really sure I care.) I get to sleep late tomorrow because we are at Sea all day.
I'll write soon.
Mark
- comments