This doesn’t require further commentary.

And now that I’m in the middle of a 30-some odd hour journey from Spain to the US, I’m bored. Solution: blog about the things I see lol

Barcelona.
¤ My flight is delayed 1 hour . I guess that’s ok since it brings my next layover down from 10 to just 9 hours. Sweet.
¤Everything is closing. I should have grabbed food for the flight or for later. Oh well.
¤I’m seated next the most irritating couple alive. The woman is bitching about her flats hurting her feet, which are situated on the chair between us. She then starts going off about the Harry Potter kid getting $26 mil for the last 2 movies. Best part: berating her boyfriend/husband for being too much of a bloke. “I try very hard to speak well. You should too”. Said of course in a holier-than-thou tone. To top it all off she starts whining and actually threw a tantrum because she wanted chocolate. Are you for real!

Dublin.
¤I took my sweet ass time getting off the plane. Then I leisurely made my way to passport control. Even the flight attendants passed me. I guess being after 1am made people want to get home. Not me. I have time to kill. It turns out passport control was closing by the time I mosied over haha.
¤The departures terminal is closed. There is a growing group of us on chairs by the entrance to security. I found a corner to set up my raft. The poor Japanese dude next to me must think I’m crazy.
¤The raft is hard to inflate. I’m not sure why, but air seems to be getting stuck in on of the tubes. So I’m laying on the floor in an under-inflated raft. Either way it’s better than the chairs. Or worse yet, the floor.
¤I’m hungry. The stuff in the vending machine costs 1€. I have 70 cents. I am going to break into the candy I bought for my internship. Sorry in advance guys lol.
¤I just changed my clock. It was depressing turning it back an hour. 7 more to go!
¤It’s freezing in here!

¤Finally set up the raft. People have definitely given weird looks but I’m sure they’re jealous they don’t have a raft too. I managed a couple of naps between 4 and 7 before being disturbed by someone who told me I can’t sleep here. This officially made me feel like a hobo sleeping in the streets. But look buddy if you don’t want passengers sleeping on the floor, don’t give them 10 hour layovers in the middle of the night when everything, including the terminal itself, is closed!

THE raft

*Finally made it to the terminal, got on my flight. It’s almost empty!! Choosing seat 43K really was a great idea, because the only other person in my row has the other window. Note to self, always sit in the back of the plane. Anyway, I moved from the 2 window seats to the 4 middle seats, where I stretched out and took a nappy new. 2 Benadryl + 4 airplane seats = awesome flight.

New York:

*Well I’m back in the US. Only problem: I switched airlines so now I have to recheck my luggage. But…you can only do this 4 hours in advance. My flight is in 7 hours. Awesome.

*Update: After bitching about this to J, he suggested I switch my flight. DUH. How did I overlook this possibility??

*YES. 7 hour layover reduced to 2. I’m on an earlier flight!!

The runway:

*I’m chillin on the plane, in the middle of the runway. Yes, the MIDDLE of the runway. We backed out of the gate and taxi’d for a bit, then it started raining. Well more than just raining. There’s a thunder and lightning storm and the pilot just informed us all planes are grounded. Apparently it’s not safe to take off in lightning. Whatever, at least I’m on an earlier flight. Who cares that I’m in the very last row of the plane, next to a lavatory, and stuck by the window trapped in by 2 Hasidic Jewish guys? Speaking of, I don’t think Hasidic Jews are allowed to touch members of the opposite sex. Maybe I should keep my elbows to myself. Or maybe the plane should just take off. I’m ready to go home!

….and I’m HOME!!!

I totally wanted one. Yes, this is a BRILLIANT idea. I will just get one back in our little beach town.

Finding an inflatable raft became quite the mission. It seems the stores in our town sell pool noodles, swim wings, inner tubes, inflatable dolphins you can ride, and even inflatable pool sets if you’re weary of the beach. But no simple little blow up rafts to float on.

I was thinking something similar to this:

Looks pretty comfy, and not too bold (maybe in a more neutral/less flashy color than orange and yellow, but you get the point). Even this super small basic one would have worked:

Xavi suggested I try a department store so I hit up El Corte Ingles in Barcelona the next day. Mind you this is an 11 story store that takes up the entire city block. I read the signs and it appeared it might be on the 7 floor.

When I didn’t see any, I approached a sales lady and asked. However, I don’t know how to say “inflatable raft” in Spanish, so I asked “where would I find something I could use to float on in the water?” lol

She pointed me in the right direction. However, this section was filled with more pool noodles and some boogie boards. So I asked another sales lady who looked at me funny and asked “for you?” Yes. She directed me to the 8th floor with the sporting goods.

There they were. I had finally found them!

But something was terribly wrong. Yes very wrong. These all had weird cartoon like creatures on them. Surely there were others?

not the exact one i found, but you get the point

I walked around the section a few times and didn’t see any so I expanded my search. The entire floor. This didn’t help so I found a sales person.

“Do you have anything similar to this but without…(pointing to the weird cartoons) THESE?”
(chucking) “No that’s all we have left”
“Ok I guess I will take it. Where do I pay”
“Right here”
As I pulled out my credit card and asked if they take cards, he said yes and even asked if I war to be charged in euros or dollars.

Whoa! They can do that? Dollars please!

So despite the fact that I will be spending 17 hours total on a raft a la Dora the Explorer or some weird gremlin-like things, I’m totally stoked with my purchase. Practicing Spanish + getting charged in $ (avoiding the foreign currency fee) = a totally stoked Caro. With a child’s raft.

I´ve already written about the horrible entry we had into the city. Things got a bit better, but not much. I´m convinced the French truly do not like people who don´t speak French, nor do they enjoy tourists. I fell into both of those categories.

Our hotel was pretty cool. It was small (both the hotel itself and the room), but it was very centrally located. In fact, it was like 2 blocks from the Louvre. I brought a travel sized French phrase book and brought it everywhere I went. I must say though, French is not an easy language. Sometimes you drop the last letters of the word, sometimes you don´t. Also the words for water and where are spelled different, but sound something along the lines of ¨ooo¨. We didn´t learn the basics. We learned the essentials: etiquette (hello, please, thanks, etc), water, bathroom, even ¨where is there a bar that has sports tv¨. All this aside, the single most important thing we learned, very early in the trip, was ¨Parlez voux anglais?¨- Do you speak English?

We did most of the touristy things, including the Louvre, which is by far the single most impressive museum I have ever vistied. Ever. We also saw Notre Dame, the Musee dÓrsay, the Pantheon, and the site where Marie-Antoinette was held before her execution. We were also able to see a ballet at the Opera Garnier, which is a really spectacular building. However, we bought the 7euro tickets, the ones with ¨a partially restricted view¨. Unknown to us at the time, but that partial view was not just from a pole being in our way. No, it was also from the people in the 2 rows in front of us leaning over the side so they could see. Some women even stood up at times. We officially had the worst seats in the house. On top of that, it wasn´t the best ballet I´ve ever seen. It was nice to watch, but we were over it by intermission and left.

We went to the Erotic Museum one day, and apparently this is located in a sort of red light district. After deciding to not stop in the strip club next door for a lap dance, we went into the 7 story museum. It was interesting, especially since some of the floors also played porn. Thankfully we wound up here in the middle of the day. I have a feeling this place would be crowded with ¨crazies¨after dusk.

Our last night in Paris involved getting a nice dinner at the restuarant across from our house. Because I´m lazy and don´t feel like typing it all out, and because I could never in a million years top Petra´s poetic account of this dining experience, please go to her entry: Americans Dining In Paris.

So after ending up drinking 2-3 of a bottle of wine, we wandered over to the Eiffel Tower. At this point it was dusk and it was sooooo pretty! We stood in awe of it for a little while, then stood in line. Petra left for the bathroom and to scope out the other lines, and in the 10 or so minutes she was gone, I had not moved once. It appeared this line would take 2 hours to get through.

Fortunately, I was feeling bold enough to take the stairs. There was no line there, and you could take the stairs to the second floor and then take an elevator the rest of the way. I saw a landing about 15 stories above me and figured that couldn´t be so bad. So we did it.

It turns out that landing I saw was only the first floor. The second floor involved climbing up even more stairs. I´m pretty scared of heights, but I powered through. We enjoyed the view and then took the elevator up. While in line, the lights kept turning off. We weren´t sure if this was supposed to happen or if there was a technical problem. Either way, I was getting to the top of that damn tower!

I will post pictures once I´m home. They´re breathtaking. The lights from the city plus the light of the half moon really gave a great view. It was totally worth it.

Finally it was time to go home. We were worried that since the airport shuttle driver couldn´t find us at the arrivals section of the tiniest airport EVER that he wouldn´t be able to find us in the middle of the Arc de Triumphe, which is a large monument in the middle of the single largest roundabout I have ever laid eyes on. What gets me the most about this roundabout is that there are no lane lines. There are simply 10 or 12 streets funneling into this insanity, otherwise known a giant clusterfuck of cars. While waiting for our shuttle driver, I took a video. Again, that will be posted in a couple of days

Amazingly enough we were found. Now onto Paris BVA. This is the craziest airport ever. There are 4 gates, but there´s a total of probably 30 chairs. The rest of the room (yes, one room, singular) is a big open space. I wasn´t sure what to do given the amount of people standing there. So we just stood and looked around trying to figure out what gate we were at. But our gate wasn´t yet assigned. No one´s was. Just as we learned that, an announcement for another flight came over the intercom. IMMEDIATELY people started rushing over to gate D. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it was a stampede. I couldn´t move so I clinged tightly to my belongings and hoped no one knocked me over. Soon enough it was over and somehow a rather neat looking line had formed. This process repeated itself until finally it was our turn. We ended up being one of the last in line, but were still able to sit together somehow. Gotta love RyanAir.

So that was my one trip to Paris. I was grateful to be back in Spain, where I knew the language and didn´t feel so helpless. Having the beach just steps away from me didn´t hurt either

We were pretty frantic the day before so we went to the library to book a shuttle. How expensive could that be?

Answer: Very!

It turns out that you have to plan your flight around the shuttle service because there is a 15 euro surcharge for early or late flights. We had both. Awesome. I charged the 142 euro shuttle to my card, then realized we had used Petra’s email address, which she can’t access from her phone. The confirmation page said we would receive an email within 24 hours telling us what time our driver would get us. But…our flight was leaving in 20 hours.

Our Paris trip was quickly turning into a nightmare and we hadn’t event left yet!

By some small miracle and a lot of help from Mario we learned our shuttle would pick us up at the bright hour if 4am. Wow.

This driver was prompt and courteous. However I had only slept 3 hours and my ability to express myself in Spanish was seriously lacking. I was eating my breakfast in the car and the driver asked what I had. I responded “un sanwich de nutella y pantelones” at which point the entire car erupted in laughter. While I had meant to say a nutella and BANANA sandwich, I said pantalones instead of platano. Yes, I was apparently eating pants. He explained that eating was not allowed in the car but he would make an exception for us. Lol

We arrived at the airport for our flight on Ryan Air, “the low fares airline”. I see why it’s cheap. It costs 20 euro per ticket to check in at the airport. F-that! We saved our money and did that online. Add 30 euro to your fare if you want to check a bag. If not, you are allowed just 1 carry-on. Not 1 + a purse. Just ONE. TOTAL. And no more an 10kg. Petra and I were experts! 9.9 for her and 9.8 for me.

Too bad no one checked. I could have carried on a pet elephant and they wouldn’t have cared.

The fight was good and we arrived in Paris BVA. Our shuttle driver would be waiting with a sign with our name in it. I felt special.

Except this would be the first of many experiences in Paris where I learned I am not special. I’m a non-French speaking American, the most loathed of all tourists.

For a HILARIOUS ACCOUNT of what happened, see Petra’s blog: Will it F up my passport if i put it in the fridge?

To sum up the events, our driver left us waiting over an hour, then put us on a bus bound for EuroDisney so he pulled over on the side of the highway and had us switch buses. I thought we were being sold into prostitution.

I see now why this was so inexpensive. Who would have known the most fun shuttle ride would be the expensive last minute one? The one with a 4am nutella and pants sandwich.

The colonization patterns of insects

That sounds like QUITE the page-turner LOL

And better yet, I wanted to post a link to this book, but I can’t seem to find it on amazon.com or any such sites. Maybe I’m checking sites that are too mainstream/not nerdy enough. Whatever, it’s a 50 word post. I’m not going to waste my time scavenging for a book I will never read

Anyway these posts will mostly be from my phone and will more or less lack photos. I’ll try to add pictures as I can. Otherwise I will just edit from home.

Let the fun begin!