July 10 and 11 - Day 1 and 2

As always, getting ready for an international trip is daunting but this one was especially so since we will be gone for over three weeks. Spent a lot of time thinking through what we will need and getting my supplements and other regimens together took some serious planning. Met with the doctor the day before we left, who at the last minute could not see me, and I met with the NP instead. I was able to procure an Ativan Rx which is essential for jet lag on the other side. Of course, I don’t reveal that I am sharing this with Matt. 

But the time did come and we were as ready as we will ever be. We took the bus to Fruitvale BART and then BART to SFO. We were there in plenty of time and used the lounge for lunch. Everything was uneventful and we boarded the plane on time, although they did make us check our bags, which always annoys me. The flight went fine until we realized about eight hours in that the pilot had changed course and the map display at our seat was telling us our destination was Rejkjavik, Iceland! We were both somewhat concerned and wondering what the heck was going on. The pilot eventually announced that there was a medical emergency on board that required landing to get care for one of the passengers. So, our 11.5 hour trip got three hours added, with time on the ground and landing and taking off again. Very not fun. But glad someone was able to get help, hopefully medical care in Iceland was good enough to provide what they needed. Eventually, we were in the sky again and the rest of the trip was uneventful although so long. We landed in Barcelona at 5:15 pm instead of 2:15 pm. We needed to get to our AirBnB before 7 pm to prevent additional charges. I was feeling some stress and on the verge of a pretty serious bad mood. Oh dear. Not much sleep on the plane, maybe a couple of hours.

Matt got through customs fine but I had issues. For some reason, the automatic machines could not read my fingerprints and I had to see an officer. Everything is annoying me. And at this point, I’m pretty sure my bag is going to get lost because it just feels like that’s how things are going. But I did get through customs and our bags were the first bags off…so all was well. We figured out how to get on Metro and started our journey to downtown Barcelona. It was long and we are both so weary but we did eventually figure it all out. We parked our bags in our room and headed out. The plan was to get a little something to eat and then go to bed. We did find a place to get some pizza and salad. It was very good. But then we set out to walk a bit and ended up walking a LOT. Saw some pretty amazing architecture in the setting evening sun. Barcelona is crawling with people. Everywhere. We eventually got back to our room, after one more stop for a gelato, and ended up getting to bed about 10:30.