Travel (cont'd): In which I am exhausted and frightened
Now where did I leave off? So we take our first steps into Barcelona, and we’re met with a wall of hot, humid air. This is gonna be a great trip XD It was a huge, bustling airport, and for some reason, one of the automatic doors tried to close on me!?! It was scary. I’m going to keep a chronicle of the scary things on this trip. It’s going to be a long list….
When we finally got our bags out from amongst the hoards of people trying to find their own bags (at least we only had to do this once), we were met by the representatives of Princess Cruises. Yeah, a pretty dumb name for a cruise line. So they got us all loaded on to the bus (there were at least 50 people on that flight) and we drive off into Barcelona!...For about thirty seconds. Then the bus stopped and the driver left. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. It was really weird. So eventually he came back and we actually hit the road. I didn’t take any pictures on the way to the ship though. Because I hate taking pictures from the bus. I have no control over the shot that way. So very few pictures of Barcelona.
So then we had to stand in three or four different lines and in the end we made it to the state rooms. They’re small, but comfortable, and it’s definitely enough for two people. Although, if I can afford it, I would like to do this at a much higher level one day. All the extras, you know. First class flight and a big suite and everything.
This is the lovely view we had. You could even see the water through the lifeboat window.
The toilet is the second thing to scare me. when you push the button, it flushes really loudly. It was frightening. Really. You try it sometime.
The third thing to scare me comes next. There was this tour of the ship that we mom and dad wanted to go on so of course we had to >_> The meeting spot was up by the nightclub Skywalker’s and we were hanging out in the hallway waiting for the guide when all of a sudden CLOK!!! The hallway clocks are freaking scary!
Ahem, so the tour was all well and good, but I’d rather have figured things out for myself. There were a couple of things I wouldn’t have known about, but mostly he took us to the bars and stuff, the “adult-only” areas. There’s practically an entire deck dedicated to adults who want to escape all the kids around here. That’s my kind of deck!
One thing that I’m kind of interested in (because as I mentioned, my neck is really stiff and sore) is the free acupuncture. I dunno, it couldn’t hurt, and it’s free.
My hair is getting so much volume with all this humidity (so much unwanted volume).
Well, after the tour we went to what is probably the second worst buffet I’ve ever been to. But of course, they were just finishing up lunch and starting preparations for dinner. It was so crowded though and the food was cold by the time we actually got to eat it (it wasn’t even great food). And then I tried to order lemonade, but they don’t have any (I can’t seem to find lemonade anywhere this year, and that’s what I drink most often during my holidays) so then I asked for orange juice, but for some reason it isn’t included in the buffet? Because the buffet is included in the price of the cruise or something (and you can eat as much as you want whenever you want) so you’d think they would include at least most of the drinks with that. I understand charging extra for alcohol, but for orange juice!?!
Um, yeah, I had issues with that…
After the less than satisfactory dinner/lunch I went off on my own to explore a bit. Let me tell you, the ship is gorgeous. Marble, mosaics, paintings, live entertainment every which way…it’s incredible. In just one part of the ship, I saw three different entertainers today (a string quartet, a hula hoop champion (don’t ask), and a pianist). And, oh the food! (I’ll probably use that expression a lot in this journal.) There’s a fancy little cafe on the fifth floor and the food there is so pretty. Mussels, lamb, and all kinds of other little bits, beautifully plated and probably ridiculously expensive (I’ll take a picture when I can). They had tuxedoed strawberries too ^_^
And then the internet cafe…*sigh* $0.75/minute. Or if you want, you can order up to four hours, each hour at a lower rate than the last. *rolls eyes* so I got the second highest amount of time for the second highest price. And then I used a third of the time in one day x_X
And then they made us do this drill in case of emergency which was annoying, but the law. So we did it. They taught us how to put the life jackets on if we had to abandon ship. We listened to them talk. Everyone was happy. And for some reason I got The $ocial riot Machine$ stuck in my head again. I forgot to mention before, but I had it stuck in my head for the entire time we were on the quest for the third terminal in Toronto. It’s such a great fun song….yeah….well, I thought so. =P
While we were waiting for the drill to start (yeah, they told us exactly when it was going to start and gave two or three warnings (including one that said “The drill is about to start” or some such thing) before it happened) we decided to go for ice cream afterwards. It wasn’t great. Fake strawberry flavouring and all. But it was cold, and the weather was hot.
So while we had our ice cream, we had a good long look at the port in Barcelona. There were a few small tour boats going by, so I waved at them ^_^/ It looked like some of them waved back, although they might just have been doing the same thing I was…I took a few pictures of the castle that was on the hill on the other side of the bay (I think it was a bay) and of the top of the ship. And then my camera batteries died. And I had replaced them just before we went up.
Basically after that we just hung out until the ship left port. They gave off a few loud blasts of the horn to “say goodbye to Barcelona”. And then they started the Sailaway Party which was, uh, loud? I dunno, I’m not really into that sort of thing. So then I showered, wrote a bit in here, and went to bed and I was basically out cold for the next 7.5 hours.