Friday, March 23, 2007

Barcelona, Day 0

Okay, I'm not complaining or anything, more just musing about things that I've forgotten about Europe... But will somebody please tell me why, in God's name, is it that the Europeans just *love* to line up 30 minutes before the *boarding* time of a flight in front of the gate??? Do people fear that the plane would leave without them??? Has the plane ever left just to punish someone for *not* being in line 30 minutes beforehand??? And why is it that people stand up from their seats as soon as the plane lands, no matter how many times they're told to wait until the plane has finished taxi-ing? Has anyone ever *not* gotten off the plane because they weren't quick enough standing up? I mean, I literally had the guy sitting next to me climbing over me, tripping over my legs to get out into the isle! In the US, people just couldn't care less. We line up when we absolutely have to; we sit around until the plane's come to a complete stop; tripping over your neighbor's legs to get in the isle is considered bad manners. But it seems that the US, or its Protectorate Canada, are about the only places this is true -- people do the same thing in Asia. I just don't get it.

My very first experience in Barcelona is that the ATM machine ate 120 Euros of mine! The damn thing had this slot for dispensing money that looked exactly like a slot for dispensing trash. So I shoved some receipts into the slot before taking out money. Maybe that was just me being stupid after a 20 hour trip. But of the course the first 100 Euros I tried to take out wouldn't come out because of the receipts jammed into that slot. The I tried to force them out by withdrawing another 20 Euros. Lost those too. Thank God Vicky speaks fluent Spanish. She ran around the airport, made some calls. The final verdict? I have to call my bank in the US and have them resolve it with the Spanish bank. So for now, I'm just out of 120 Euros. Barcelona has already been an expensive, expensive date. Barcelona's the guy that made me pay for dinner before even putting out. That's all I'm saying.

Thankfully, I'm of the peosonality to not let little things like loosing 120 Euros ruin my trip. In the grand scheme of life, or even the smaller scheme of my 4 days in Barcelona, what's 120 Euros? Just another adventure.

It's daylight. It's bright. I'm going for a run to a little while. I'm looking forward to my next 4 days. It should be fun.

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