Home » Spain » We Disembark, are Accosted by Gypsies, and are Unable to Purchase a Car Due to Concerns Over Possible Terrorist Connections

Barcelona, Spain
May 16, 2001
Scoreboard: 11,100 miles; 5 Countries, 20 states

We Disembark, are Accosted by Gypsies, and are Unable to Purchase a Car Due to Concerns Over Possible Terrorist Connections

Claytononboard
2005-11-18 12:55:30

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The final days of the cruise blew by. Funchal, Malaga, Alicante...they were all nice, but we like Tenerife better. Perhaps the most notable port of call was Alicante.

The fortress overlooking the town is very nice, as is the cathedral they call Cathedral de Tourista, but I chose to spend my day chasing Volkswagen vans. I figured that with the depressed economy I could score a really good deal, then race up the coast and meet everyone in Barcelona.

There were numerous problems with the plan, the primary one being that there were no used Volkswagen vans for sale in Alicante at any price. A secondary problem was that the local inhabitants consider anything short of trans-continental pilgrimage to be easily walkable and likely to take a duration of "five or ten minutes".

After taking several 45 minute walks to places that I could easily reach in "five or ten minutes" I must have been a fool to set out for a destination easily reachable in "about fifteen minutes." I swear I must have walked 25 miles at least.

From the luxury of the cruise ship we were thrust into the harsh reality of the Barcelona Sants Stacion (train station) after a logistical nightmare of trying to get our 22 pieces of luggage from the port. Things got worse.

You can't check bags on Spanish trains, and the ride to Hamburg would involve four train changes, one at a 12 minute interval "if the trains are on time." Impossible! The bus wouldn't take all of our baggage no matter how much I offered them.

We must have gone through, I estimate conservatively, 35 strategic variations of shipping things by various means, going ourselves by others, etc. It went on, and on. Nothing worked.

As I ran back and forth (on blisters from Alicante) from the train station to bus station to tourist office to phone to internet to....Theresa held off the gypsies circling our 22 bags like sharks on bait for ...