Barcelona SCSU Chorus Trip - December 28th, 2013 to January 4th, 2014
After marathon packing/laundry the
night before, and a little more in the morning, Bobby and I got to
SCSU a smidge late for rehearsal. There were several people later
than we were, and nobody noticed anyway. We went over all the music
we'd need to know for our first concert, which was good, because the
repertoire we were performing first was the one we'd had the least
amount of practice with. I don't know about anybody else, but I felt
better about it after that. After rehearsal, we got boxed lunches
from Panera bread and boarded the bus. I was a little disappointed
in their cookie quality, but I was starving (Bobby and I missed
breakfast in our fit of last-minute packing), so I was just glad
about the sandwich. I napped uncomfortably for most of the bus ride,
because we'd gone to bed really late the night before. We got to the
airport and checked in. Bobby didn't open a can of iced tea I'd
gotten him for the bus ride, and knowing they'd make him throw it out
in security, one of us (I can't remember who) suggested he put it in
his checked luggage, along with my water bottle, so we'd have drinks
when we got there. I suggested putting it in the plastic CVS bag in
case it leaked, since there were no holes in the bag, and with the
tie facing up, any liquid should stay where it was.
We made it through security easily
enough, though Bobby forgot to take his belt off and beeped in the
metal detector. I really think that the whole "no liquids on a
plane" thing is a plot to get you to buy their over-priced water
bottles. There's a simple test to see if that water bottle I'm
carrying is actually something deadly. If I've got it open while I'm
in line and I'm drinking from it, it's probably not a bomb. And if
it was a bomb, or toxic gas or whatever, one big enough to bring down
a plane, that open plastic garbage can they're having people throw
their water bottles into isn't going to save anybody. But I digress.
Bobby and I didn't buy any of their stupid, over-priced drinks for
the plane. I honestly would have, though, if they'd had something I
liked. In our terminal, they only had one shop, with really bad
selection, and nothing was worth it. So it was that we wound up on
an international flight with nothing to drink. After our meal, when
I was still thirsty, I realized that we're passengers, not prisoners,
and they aren't allowed to deny us drink if we ask for it, even if
they never get around to serving us. So, I repeatedly got up and
asked for water (after they didn't respond to the little light which
is supposed to summon them), which half of the stewardesses looked
annoyed about having to get for me (sorry, but, it's your job), and
they never got the hint to come around with the cart. Iberia is
apparently an annoying airline. We flew through the night and five
or six timezones and wound up in Madrid at like 6 in the morning,
their time, with a three-hour layover.
The flight felt both really long,
because sleeping was uncomfortable and inconsistent, and really
short, because the last flights I was on were to places halfway
around the world and were twice as long. The airport was under
construction, and there was a lot of annoying walking around stuff to
get to places. It was also freaking huge, so huge that they had
airport shuttles to take you from one part of the airport to another,
and signs all over the place with estimated minutes it would take to
get there. The good parts about it were the architecture, with its
cool wavy ceilings and diagonal supports that went through the colors
of the rainbow as you walked from one end of the place to the other,
and the bathrooms which were relatively clean and had bubblers
outside of them with built-in bottle-filling faucets. It also had
glass floors in parts of it that were kind of unnerving because they
were translucent and you could partially see that you were three
floors up. Anyway, during the layover, we wandered around the
airport looking for drink places that were open and a place to
exchange a little bit of cash to hold us over until we found a bank
with a better rate in Barcelona. Then I napped on a portion of
slightly cushy floor with about half the rest of the chorus while
Bobby used airport wifi and such. It's kind of strange when you've
been through enough airports to be able to start ranking features of
them.
Sunrise comes really late in Madrid.
It was about 8AM before any light started to come into the sky. I
guess it's on a really western end of the time zone, and I've never
really experienced or thought much about that before, so that was
kind of neat.
Anyway, it was a really short flight
from Madrid to Barcelona, and I napped uncomfortably and read for
most of it. We arrived in Barcelona a little after 9AM their time,
tired as all get-out, and proceeded to baggage claim. Thankfully,
all of mine and Bobby's luggage both made it to Barcelona. I think
this is the first flight I've been on with a connection that my
luggage didn't get lost. Well, maybe that one other time I shared
luggage with my sister on our group trip to Italy with the Pilgrim
Chorus, and it made it there on time. But since it was a shared
suitcase I think my luggage luck was canceled out that time. Anyway,
this time, my luggage luck rubbed off on other people. The
microphones and other equipment never left Madrid. Because three
hours is apparently not enough time for airport workers to transfer
luggage to another plane. But they said they'd deliver it to the
hotel that day, and we didn't need it for a couple days anyway. All
fine and dandy. Bobby also got some bad luggage luck, of a different
kind. They were apparently rough with his bag, because when we opened
it to get the drinks out after a very thirsty couple of flights, we
found that the can had been crushed, the plastic bag torn open, and
iced tea had leaked through a good portion of his clothing.
Thankfully his concert tuxedo was spared.
So, after hours of traveling, for some
reason, the people organizing the tour thought we'd be able to stay
awake for a tour of the city by bus. It was probably 11:00 or so
when we got on the bus, and we had free time for lunch at about
12:45. In between, we had nearly two hours of trying desperately to
stay awake and pay attention to what a heavily-accented tour guide
was telling us about the Goudi-designed buildings and such. I kind
of felt bad for dozing off between stops to get out and take pictures
of stuff, but I'm not sure what they were expecting us to be like
after getting off of a plane. After the tours we had about three
hours to walk around Barcelona on our own. Bobby and I wound up
going down to the harbor (which was apparently completely redesigned
to include beaches for the 1992 Olympics) and exploring what is known
as the Gothic Quarter, because it has all these old buildings from
the Gothic era. The architecture was pretty cool, and we took some
pictures. We had lunch in the first place that looked edible on the
main strip, which wound up being this deli-type thing. The food was
okay, but there was not nearly a high enough filling-to-bread ratio
for my liking. We were hungry and tired, though, so it was fine. In
our explorations, we came across a pasta bar where they were actually
making pasta in the window. We stopped and watched for a little
while and took a menu so we could find the place again later. We
also came across a guy with a little Pinocchio setup in one of the
squares. He wasn't putting on a show or anything, just had this
puppet sitting in this miniature scenery. The guy kind of looked
like an old Mr. Gepetto should look, too. We also found a weird
nativity scene with the three kings climbing up houses with ladders
to deliver sacks of goods. There was something kind of weird about
the whole semi-modern nativity scene and its little people that I
can't quite put my finger on.
Finally we get back on the warm bus to
go to our hotel. We'd been told 50-degree weather by several
reliable sources, and packed for such, and have since found it to be
much colder than that. We had some time to nap in the room before
supper at the hotel, where the other choral groups from around the
country were joining us for the first time. The food was pretty
good, probably because we were starving again at this point, our
bodies had been burning extra calories all day just to stay awake.
We had veal, made up in a kind of beef-stew-type thing, and salad,
bread, fruit, and cheesecake. Their cheesecake was interesting,
lighter, fluffier, made with more egg and less cream cheese, and with
what tasted like an angel-food-cake crust. I'll have to try and
replicate this at home later. Even Bobby liked it, the man who hates
cheesecake.
It is now Sunday night, at some
ungodly hour, and after over 24 hours of being awake (since Saturday
morning), it is time to sleep.
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