Spain Trip 2

Damn those French - always messing up everyone's travel plans. Delayed mom and dads train to Amsterdam by 2+ hours, scared Jenni and John for thinking they wouldn't be able to get to / from London and Paris - plus dealt with delays and a crazy trip to the Brussel Zuid station on a Sunday evening - see post 'Jenni and John Guest Post #2'. And now, this week the French air traffic control went on strike - and how do you get to Barcelona from Brussels - flying over France of course. Evidently the planes were only allowed to fly over France at specific times so we ended up getting delayed over 2 hours flying out Tuesday night. Which ultimately meant not getting to hotel and in bed until 3AM - short night.

A bit tired on Wednesday but still had a good day at work and a better evening. There were over 10 people (all from the client except for one other, who skipped dinner) staying in the hotel that night so we all went out to dinner and drinks after. Great food, nice to get to know more people from the business, and I tried I first authentic Spanish sangria - delicious.

Its amazing the lifestyle over here. We showed up at the restaurant at 845 and the place was empty - we left around 1145 and the place was packed and people still arriving for dinner - they eat and stay up so late, the beauty of the siesta. Unfortunately we don't believe in siestas because I could have used one on Wednesday.  After dinner we went out for a drink at the bar across from the hotel and they only had one Belgian beer which evidently people didn't want so were were drinking Budweisers and it hit the spot.  A colleague ordered a Corona and they are actually Coronitas in Spain (and evidently Mexico... never been there!), it was a female that ordered it so she now has a new nickname - Coronita.  

Most interesting thing that happened Thursday was when we arrived to the parking garage by our hotel there was a few people trying to pick up and move a car that was two spots away from us. We couldn't immediately understand why, but they ended up backing into the front end of the car to the left of them - it was a perfect right angle. The back left part of the car they were trying to move was against the front bumper of the other car. So we helped them push / pick up the car off of the other car, quite humorous. After we kept saying 'cervezas' as we thought they should buy us a cold one.

The flight back on Friday was much of the same, a three hour delay but at least we took off on Friday. Had to cancel my dinner plans but more sad that our flight didn't get canceled - I wanted to stay in Barcelona for the night! Next trip will be when my first project should be over, so I will definitely plan to stay the weekend then.  The good thing about being delayed is we were able to see the sunset over the mountains when we walked out to our plane! 

 

Stupid Ryanair!