Planes, Trains, Buses

One of the perks of traveling is seeing beautiful old cities, eating delicious foods, and discovering new cultures.  However there is one large, looming downside: GETTING THERE.

Now many of you know some of my horror stories with my previous travels, most noteworthy my 36 hour train trip during that lovely ice storm this past January or missing my flight in Zurich due to that damn I-Phone glitch.  Yet I am finding the more I travel, the more I am dreading the process of getting where I need to go especially when traveling alone and overseas.  My flight to Barcelona was suprisingly simple.  Of course it was exhausting and the food was crap and there were like 3 t.v. screens playing movies I was uninterested in, but (and this is a rather large one if you've traveled before) I had no major complications.  No one saying I was delayed 4 days or my reservation is for the next day or I've missed my connection and am stuck in a foreign land alone.  I should have known my luck would be running short...

Some of you may know that Ryan has a conference in Granada, Spain.  His wonderful plan was for us to take the overnight train together, which should be noted is a 11.5 hour ride.  Well the good news is that he took the train...my downside: it was full.  This left me with a few fun options all summing up to me traveling alone.  In the end I booked a flight out of Barca leaving at 7:15 this morning.  The flight is a mere hour and 25 minutes, truly an upside when thinking of the train....yet I still had to wake up at 5, walk the desolete La Rambla (aside from the drunks still partying and the Nigeria hookers propositioning the drunks), catch a bus, get through the airport in Spainish, get on another bus, and hopefully find my hotel while Ryan spent the day at the conference.  I do have to say, it all went well aside from our hotel not getting booked resulting me waiting in the lobby for 4 hours upon my arrival.  This is why I've included a picture of my hotel.  I know it isn't near as exciting, interesting, or as beautiful as I hope most of my other pictures to be.  No, it is a picture of triumph.  Finally I'm sitting on a bed, awaiting a hot meal, inside from the rain.

Victory, sweet victory!