Nemo James

2024 Spain – Barcelona

For years, Federika had wanted to visit Marakesh and so for our early spring break, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Wanting to include Fes in our trip made flights very complicated but after a lot of research involving several combinations, it was Ryanair that came to the rescue. The good thing about budget airlines was that there was no penalty for booking one-way journeys so we could travel in a circle. The bad thing was that the charge for a suitcase was more than for a person.

25^th April 2024
We started with a Vueling flight to Barcelona and whilst there was a long queue at check-in we went to the bag drop machine which was very impressive. I placed our suitcase on the scales, pressed a couple of buttons and out popped our luggage tag, so the process was completed in a couple of minutes. I had never understood why airlines wanted us to check in online and get a boarding pass when we still had to queue up and check in our luggage anyway. I hope this baggage drop thing becomes available at all airports.

We had to spend a night in Barcelona for our flight to Marakesh the next day. There was no time to see anything of Barcelona so we stayed at a hotel near the airport in an area called Castelldefel, a couple of minutes walk from the sea. It was early evening when we checked into the Aparthotel Las Palmeras and walked along the promenade where a group of people were participating in some kind of fitness dance class.

The sun was still out but there was quite a cool breeze and although I had no doubt it was a thriving holiday destination in the summer, the lack of people gave it a gloomy, out-of-season feel. We stopped at an almost empty restaurant overlooking the sea but it soon filled up with far more customers than the two waiters could handle. There was nothing exciting on the menu so Federika chose a Cordon Bleu (unusual for her) and I chose something that included one of my favourite words “ribs.” It turned out to be nothing like ribs but a piece of solid gristle impossible to chew.

Fortunately Federika’s Cordon Bleu was very good and so big that we couldn’t finish it between the two of us. Seeing that I hadn’t touched my “ribs” I noticed there was no “How was your meal sir” from the waiter who looked more irritated about being understaffed than embarrassed about the quality of the food he served.

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