We got up at five and went down to the Elite Lounge and had scramble eggs and sausage for free (Thanks, Hil!), collected our luggage and got on the waiting van. Also, thanks to Hilary’s warning, we didn’t go right to the gate after passing through Security, as you can’t return to the huge and entertaining shopping center! We cruised through the FC Barcelona football shop and various others. The floor is very reflective and if you look down while walking, you can get rather dizzy! So we sat for a bit, and heard a plaintive “Meow”, and found we were sitting next to a pet carrier with a very nice black cat inside. The owner opened up the top so we could see her! Very therapeutic for travel stress!
We boarded at 9:30 AM, and, as this is the first day of this particular flight to JFK, the plane was less than half full…so Bob got a window all by himself and I took a whole center row of three seats! Unfortunately even with all that space, I’m too tall to really sleep lying down, but it was fun to try! We saw two forgettable movies had two meals and landed at JFK at 12:30 pm. Whisked though Immigration and Customs and now sitting in JFK while we have a three hour wait until we board for LAX. We’re waiting until we get a little appetite and will go to the deli across from our gate!
Later from SB: We got hotdogs and a coke and went to the gate to wait. We had applied for an upgrade, but didn’t figure on getting that as flights to LA are usually full. As we started to board the plane, we were pulled aside (I figured we had come to the boarding pass area too early) and the attendant ripped our passes in half and handed us Business Class seat assignments!! Hooray!! Why did we eat those hotdogs??
Anyway, we got on and two kind people changed their seats so we could sit together, and settled into our plush chairs with foot rests, and accepted our glasses of champagne, our menus, our Boise head sets with handheld screens gizmos with endless movies and TV programs already loaded!
Even though we weren’t particularly hungry, we managed to eat and drink our way across the country until we fell asleep and missed the ice cream sundaes!
We landed at LAX at 7:30PM, got our luggage, called the Comfort Inn Cockatoo whose van arrived in 15 minutes and took us to the hotel where we picked up our car and started the groggy drive home. We each drove half way and just barely managed not to fall asleep! Arrived home at 10:30 and collapsed.
Picked up Miss Maddie at 10AM on Friday, and she howled all the way home and is very happy to be home again with us!
P.S. final stats: We drove 2074 miles in Catalunya which has 12.400 sq. miles of area (just a little larger than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined).
Bits of history mostly gleaned from Cadogan Guides "Barcelona & Catalonia", an excellent book!
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