JillMelancon Travel

21 June 2023

Headed out via Cabify to meet for today’s tour—Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia—because there isn’t a close by metro station to the meeting point.

Found the spot and sat outside waiting for the tour person…then discovered they were inside (even though instructions said to wait outside).  Parc Guell is sort of like a gnome built a park.  It was originally going to be some sort of a utopian community for rich people, but Gaudi only wound up finishing three of the houses, one of which is where he lived until his death in the 1920s.  You can also see a great view of the city when it isn’t covered in smog.

Really cool tile work with scraps of tile used to create designs.  They transferred me to a different tour guide who would take us to the meeting point for Sagrada Familia (I hate these piecemeal tours where I am not informed in advance how it is going to work).  They took us by bus to where the tour office was next to Sagrada Familia and gave us 45 minutes to grab lunch. 

Of course I headed to a fast food place—Taco Bell—where I ordered a burrito supreme that came with fries.  I said I didn’t want the fries, so he suggested something I didn’t understand, and guess what, it was fries.  Gross.  Met back at the tour place and got a new tour guide to take us through Sagrada Familia.

Our guide had such a strong accent it was hard to understand a lot of what she said, but she had a good, silly energy so I liked her.  She walked us through, then we were left to go through the museum section on our own and get home.  The church itself is beautiful…and incomplete.  They’ve been working on it for over 100 years and still have lots to complete. 

I zoomed through the museum, went across the street to get a decent photo of the outside, then took the metro back to my Airbnb.  While walking, I saw a place with chicken stroganoff and a salad as a menu del dia, but they had just stopped serving!  I stopped at a grocery store, got some lasagna and a yogurt for breakfast, then went home and made dinner and took a shower…so ready to be home!

Thursday, June 22:

Up at 3am (!) and left for the airport at 4.  First leg to Lisbon went well, even though we were an hour late leaving.  Had some food at the Lisbon airport (ham and cheese toastie with OJ) and sat to wait for the gate announcement for my flight to Boston which leaves me with 3 hours to kill.

Uneventful flight to Boston…and my first experience in Premium Plus which I paid extra for because the seats go back farther and have a footrest.  The seats were nice, but the memory foam pillow is too big and I couldn’t use it.  The blanket was too small and I was cold.  The food was basically the same as economy—they just give you a fancy menu instead of asking “pasta or chicken.” The noise cancelling headphones didn’t, and hurt my ears. I think we got an extra snack too and a face towel.  Not really worth it, even though I got a nice amenity pouch as well.

It WAS nice to have my legs stretched out and up.

Once in Boston, my flight had been delayed by about 30 minutes back to Atlanta. Finally made it back in the morning and Ubered home from the East Lake station.