adios, barcelona

Someone wants me to stay in Spain.

Or at least tried to make it hard for me to leave.

I returned home early this morning at 2:00 am, only to wake up at 5:00 am to get ready for my flights - Barcelona to Madrid to Toronto to San Francisco. It was going to be a long day.

Someone made it seem even longer. This someone was first a man, then a woman, then a woman again, though I don't know if it was the same one as before.

After arriving at the Barcelona airport, I checked the board then headed toward gate A1 for my flight. Nice, I thought, just a short walk. Wrong, I realized, gate A1 was at the of the long corridor. Imagine a single, long corridor of gates from A1 to C100 or so. I was dropped off near A35, so I had a long way to walk. No worries. I arrived in plenty of time.

I began my leisurely stroll toward A1. Several minutes, just when I was approaching the gate, this English announcement came, preceded by its Spanish brother: "Passengers on flight Vueling 1012 to Madrid, please proceed to gate B49." Oh, brother. Couldn't they have done this earlier?

After a heavy sigh, I turned around and joined the other folks heading toward B49. I distinctly noticed the clicks of a particular woman's heels striking the ground.

Two minutes later, near gate A13, came another announcement, via a female voice this time: "Passengers on flight Vueling 1012 to Madrid, your gate has been changed to B65." Make up your mind, folks. My silent bitching lasted just a few expletives since B65 wasn't far from B49.

Some time later, I lost track of where I was by this time, came a third announcement: "Passengers on flight Vueling 1012 to Madrid, please go to gate A1 for your flight." Are you friggin' kiddin' me!?#@ Someone had to be playing a joke on us. I felt sorry for anyone on the flight with peripheral vascular disease or a heart condition. (That's as medical as I've ever gotten in my blog.)

I turned around. My bitching lasted longer this time.

More time passed. I was still walking. I was still hearing that woman's heels. I heard another announcement: "Passengers on flight Vueling 1012 to Madrid, your gate is B59." Don't ask me where I was when I heard this; maybe I was somewhere around T709. At that moment, I was hoping that there would be some threat from terrorists who were plotting to blow up our plane with loaded tripes and calamari rings and that this was the clever and ultra-sexy Spanish people's way of fooling them. But no, the only fools were those of us walking from A1 to B49 to B65 to A1 to B59.

Finally, I arrived at the gate. Boarding had already begun. I had to ask the hot Spanish guy collecting boarding passes what those gate changes were about (I had no other motive at the time). He offered no intelligent answer. I was disappointed.

Three flights, two continents, and one ocean later, I returned home to San Francisco.

Did I go anywhere? Did I meet anyone? Did I try new food? Will I do it again? Where will I go next time? With whom will I share that adventure?