Today I began my holiday & cruise to Rio de Janeiro, I set off from Los Alcazares to travel to Barcelona.

Travelling to Barcelona.

My friend June picked me up at 1 pm & we had an uneventful drive to the airport at Alicante where she dropped me off. As I went into the airport I couldn't work out where my check-in desk was but thought it was the one right in front of me. 

I still had 40 minutes before the check-in opened but as there were staff at the priority desk I asked a lady sat there if this was where I would have to check in & what time I should come back. She told me that I was at the right desk & to save me coming back she would check me in straight away. She took my luggage put tags on it, sent it down the conveyor belt & wished me a pleasant trip. It was still only about 2:15 pm & the only thing to do was to go through to departures find a bar & get a beer. 

I went through departures but was stopped when I set the alarm off on the metal detector. After making me take off my belt watch etc I think he decided it was the metal studs on my shorts & waved me through. I got my belongings back & continued to the bar. 

I ordered a beer, it arrived in a plastic cup & cost €5.51. This seemed an odd amount & I ended up with a pocket full of change to take with me. I sat at the bar to wait for my friend Gail. An hour before boarding I decided to walk to the gate as I hadn't seen Gail. As I walked towards the gate, Gail saw me & called out to me. 

We waited in the queue & were soon onboard the flight, me in row 6, Gail in row 23. I was sat next to a nice Canadian couple who were halfway through a 57-day cruise themselves. They had been around the Greek Islands before visiting Barcelona for a couple of nights, then headed to Alicante for a couple of nights & were now heading back to a cruise ship to go around the Greek Islands again. After this cruise, they would be cruising back to Canada. 

The flight was late leaving by about 20 minutes but we made time up & arrived in Barcelona about 40 minutes after taking off. We had got off the plane by the rows you were sat in. I was in the second group off but then had to wait for Gail as she was one of the last off. 

Once off the plane, we had to make our way to baggage collection. Barcelona airport is huge & it seemed we had walked around most of it before we found baggage collection. We had to wait for around 10 minutes for our bags but were soon headed outside to catch a taxi to the hostel on Barcelonas´ Rambla. 

We went outside to where the Cabify app on my phone told us to collect the Cabify taxi we had ordered. Unfortunately, we were two floors to low & when the driver called us to say he was there we had to make a mad dash up a steep broken down escalator to get to the right floor. The driver had waited & helped us with our bags & we were soon heading towards our hostel. 

When we got to the hostel checking in was easy, I only had to pay local taxes as I had pre-paid, whilst Gail had to pay in full at the desk. I did notice that I had got the room around €33 cheaper, it pays to book ahead of time. 

We went to our different rooms and met up in the reception 15 minutes later. We walked down through the Rambla to the port area. We had a walk round but couldn't see anything we wanted to eat & walked back to the Rambla. We went into an Irish pub where I had a chicken & bacon toasted sandwich with a mojito cocktail, I was after all on holiday now & would have to get used to cocktails. We chatted for a while & had another drink. I had a pint of Guinness whilst we listened to the live music & watched people being checked for ID at the door before entering & tripping up a loose floor tile as they came in. After finishing our drinks we returned to the hostel & headed to our rooms to get some sleep.