Barcelona

When I was younger, nothing excited me more than flying somewhere. It was really magical, going through the airport in a time when everything was less stressful, hopping on the plane with a backpack stuffed full of every CD I owned and several stuffed animals, a new pack of gum, and some cookies for snacks. In fact (strange tidbit about me), to this day I love the smell of diesel engines, because they remind me of the first airport shuttle bus I was ever on, which I still remember taking my mom and I from the parking lot to the terminal. The plane would start to take off, everything got incredibly loud, and I was thrust back into my seat to wait for that sinking feeling that meant we had left the ground. The window seat was always a necessity, and it always fascinated me that, a few hours after hopping on board in Hartford, we'd descend from above the clouds where it didn't even seem like we were moving, and be in Florida. In those days (I feel like I'm 50), the whole crew greeted you as you left the plane, and on more than one occasion I had a quick tour of the cockpit and got my plastic "wings." They still gave you blankets, pillows, peanuts, soda, and sometimes even meals. Included in the price! There was nothing I loved more than trips when we'd fly somewhere, and I'd obsess about them for months before and after.

Planes today are nothing more than enormous, uncomfortable, loud buses. By the time I return to the US in December, I will have flown on 12 separate planes since August, and I can say that almost every experience has been hellish. RyanAir is the the worst thing ever to happen to modern air travel, and it disgusts me that I make use of their services as often as I do. To have to endure seats that press my knees into my chest, blaring techno music, broadcast commercials for perfume and $9 sodas every four minutes, gargantuan British women shoving me into the plane's restroom to get ahead of me for the free-for-all seating, and the airports two hours outside of the cities they claim to serve ever so conveniently reached solely by buses which RyanAir owns somehow takes something away from the experience. This is to say nothing about the 10E per bag, the 10E I must pay for having only a US passport, and the ludicrous weight and size restrictions on carry-on luggage. I use it because it's cheap, but every time I "fly" with them, a little part of the wonder of travel inside of me shrivels and dies, and I become increasingly jaded to something which used to enchant me. I'm placing too much blame on RyanAir, of course - most airlines are similar to this today, with the exception of Korean Air, which was lovely - but they're the worst I've ever encountered.

Other than the fact that I made some painful realizations about yet another step on the road to cynical adulthood, Barcelona was great. The weather was lovely, I sat on the beach and ate lunch everyday overlooking the Mediterranean and the yachts pulling into the Olympic Port, and throughly enjoyed my hotel, which was stylish and in a great location. Until, of course, I realized (on the bus from hell briefly making a swing through Barcelona to transport me to Girona, the city not remotely connected with Barcelona that I was flying out of), that my iPod was missing from my backpack. Many of you know that I loved my iPod, and it had really become a travel companion for me on this trip, until (I think) it was taken out of my backpack while in the luggage storage room at my hotel. I called and emailed them, of course, but I'll never get it back. To compensate, I ate an entire package of crackers and an entire package of pistachios that I bought at the airport (thanks for passing that habit on to me, Dad) and woke up with a splitting headache, something which I have since dubbed a "salt hangover." I really had a lovely trip, went to a Brazilian jazz concert in the modernist/surrealist "Palace of Music," and spent a lot of time with my friend who lives there. Yesterday, though, just wasn't so great.

This week it's midterms, and on Thursday, Edinburgh.


Lunch spot at La Barcelonetta.


The beautiful interior of the Palace of Catalan Music, or the Palau de la Música Catalana in Catalan, the language spoken in Cataluña, the region of Spain where Barcelona is situated.