No Need to Panic: November, 2008

No need to panic, we tried to convince ourselves. 

Trains come every few minutes. 

Amy will get off at the next stop and come back the other direction.

But wait.

Amy has no money with her, and she doesn't even have her own passport or ID. 

She also isn't carrying her cell phone.

And wasn't there a mysterious looking mustached man who had been overly friendly standing next to her?

Okay, maybe we should panic a little.

I told Julie to get on the next train and follow Amy to the next stop, bringing money for a return trip. I would wait for Amy to return.

From my perspective, it was a very long wait, but according to my watch, it was only a few minutes before a train entered the station and pulled away, leaving Amy on the platform.

Amy said the helpful stranger was just that, helping her get to the returning train and then waiting at the station for Julie to tell her what had happened. A few minutes later, Julie returned for the reunion.


We usually are very good with maps, but possibly because of still being upset about becoming separated at the station, we couldn't find what was supposed to be a tall, modern building. 

Unlike funky La Rambla, however, this area of the city was dominated by tall, modern buildings

After a half hour of wandering around trying to find our hotel presumably located within three minutes of the Sants Station where we thought we had gotten off the train, we found a gigantic train station: Sants.

We had to be close now, and yet we still couldn't seem to find it

I think we spent another half hour at least wandering the streets, eventually finding someone who told us that while we were on a street of the right name, we were on a section separated by several city blocks from a different street of the same name.

When we found the hotel, it proved to be modern and really very nice. Not Ritz Carlton nice, but very nice for the price in a large European city.

The desk clerks were all extremely efficient and helpful. Our room was modern and clean, and we were quite pleased to be staying there. As advertised, it really was within easy access of the Sants Station from which we could reach all of Barcelona, including Familia Sagrada, which was to be our first outing. After the ordeals of the morning following a late night on the ship, however, the girls were ready for a nap.

I walked off to explore the local area on my own, but this was more or less a business area

For sightseeing or even finding a sidewalk cafe, it paled in comparison to La Rambla.

I ended up back at our hotel, checking out the modern bar and restaurant.


It had a very cosmopolitan European vibe to it, and I did a little people watching as I nursed a glass of Spanish cerveza.