By Friday, April 27, around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. we had landed at the airport in Barcelona. We weren’t really prepared to finally stand up and walk off the plane only to encounter a three-hour long line for customs… The truth though, was that I was so excited to have finally made it to Europe that I didn’t really care that much about the wait. The people around us were all arriving on the Mediterranean to begin springtime cruises and they were pretty happy and chatty, which kept us smiling. And since there were a few hundred of us all squashed together, the were a few people-watching, smile-flirting opportunities to be had.

The drive to the hotel felt like a whirlwind to me — I just wanted to look at everything, and soak it all in. The people, the buildings, the plants, the sky…it all felt real and surreal at the same time. Jet lag probably wasn’t my friend, as I a reeled and felt somewhat disassociated from my own self.

The hotel wouldn’t check us in to our room until past 3:00 p.m. local time, so we checked our bags and headed out on foot to explore the city.