Europe- Part 1: Barcelona and the cruise ship

On Friday, June 7th my mom and I left for Europe.  It was a bit rocky at first, both of our first flights (we were coming from different parts of the country so different flights) being delayed and therefore causing us to both miss our flight to Barcelona.  But we were put on a flight to Paris later that day and took a very nice Air France plane!

The Paris airport was quite confusing, had little direction as to what to do and was without a water fountain in sight.  Once we did figure things out and get through customs it was better.  But spending 5 hours in any airport is not fun, the best part were these:

French Macaroons

The next flight was pretty stressful too.  It was Air France again going from Paris to Barcelona, you can imagine that Americans and English was outnumbered on this flight.  And of course it is this flight where they need to double check that my mom's suitcase is actually hers and she can't find her luggage confirmation sticker they give you when you check in.  They were asking me for it and I explained that I didn't start with her.  Then they said that I can just identify her suitcase but I have to get up in front of the entire plane (that is ready to go and staring me down, mind you) and wait for what felt like forever while they brought her suitcase up.  We got it resolved and on we went.  

It should be noted that it was the most terrifying flight I've ever been on too. We hit a small patch of turbulence then the plane did a straight free fall for about 3-5 seconds.  Yes, no matter what language someone speaks, there's a universal language of fear and terror.  I mean even men screaming- that scary.  YIKES.

BUT... in order to truly enjoy my vacation later we weren't done with the bad luck yet.  We got off the plane to find that my suitcase didn't make it.  They knew where it was, Atlanta, but it wouldn't be there until the next day and would then just meet me on the cruise ship.  So three days in the same outfit, awesome!

We checked into our hotel and we took a walk down the Ramblas, which is a street with lots of history and things going on like street performances and shopping.

Hotel Regina: Conveniently next door to Starbucks

Across the street from our hotel

La Ramblas

Placa de Catalunya- a plaza in the heart of Barcelona

The next day we only had a little time before boarding the cruise ship.  So we went to Sagrada Familia Church.  This church is still being built, the architect, Antoni Gaudi, died in 1926.  I saw many churches in Europe with lots of deep awe-inspiring history, what this church lacked in history it made up for in beauty!

 Then we boarded our ship- Carnival Legend.  

One of the pools and it's retractable top good for sailing the cold Atlantic!

At this rate it's going to take about 100 posts to get the whole trip... :)