Day 13 - Wednesday 25th May

Today we are flying to Barcelona with Nicky and Amelia. We had breakfast at the B&B at 7:30 and the car arrived to pick us up at 8:45. By the time we had loaded up the car at Nicky's place, the boot was very full. Once again it took a while to figure out how to install the child seat for Amelia.

The flight was on easyJet from Luton airport which is about 40 minutes north of Hampstead. It was an easy run on the motorway despite being peak hour - probably because we were heading out of London. EasyJet rigorously enforces their 20kg limit for checked baggage and so we had been very careful to stay within the limit. It turned out that my bag was 20.2kg and Suzy's was 20.1kg but the check-in clerk didn't question these weights.

There are some advantages in having a baby with you because they give you priority boarding. With easyJet, there is no allocated seating and so everyone lines up to rush for the best seats. At Luton, they had three queues at the gate - the first one for people who paid extra, the second for special boarding groups (like us) and the third queue for the masses.

Nicky's plan was to get four seats near the front of the plane and put Amelia in one of them. The plan worked because nobody asked for Amelia's seat.

Although, we managed to keep Amelia quiet for most of the journey, she wouldn't go to sleep. Her crying attracted some unhappy looks from other passengers but this changed when Suzy and I took turns to walk her up and down the aisle. The passengers were now waving and smiling at Amelia.

At Barcelona airport, our driver was waiting for us. Originally we had wanted to find an ATM to get some euros. However, we insisted that there was no time. We were worried that this would be a problem because we had to pay for our accommodation in cash on arrival at the apartment.

It didn't take long to reach the apartment. When the driver tried to double-park outside, he became very unpopular with the cars behind and so he drove around the block until he found a nearby loading zone. He didn't speak much English. His comment was "many traffic".

I managed to find an ATM about a block away in a room next to the bank. Because it was siesta time, the room was locked. Just as I was giving up and going back, a bank customer came along and opened the room with his bank card. So I followed him in and got my cash once he had finished.

Although the apartment building looks old, our apartment is modern and spacious with a large lounge area, three bedrooms, kitchen and two bathrooms. There is air conditioning in the lounge room and two of the bedrooms.

The kitchen is well equipment with a dishwasher, oven, cook-top, microwave, crockery, cutlery and large refrigerator and freezer. On the balcony outside one of the bedrooms, there is a washing machine and clothes drier. The agent asked if we keep washing machines and driers outside in our country. I think he was joking.

After settling in, we set off to explore the streets. We went through Catalonia Square to the beginning of the La Ramblas area. In contrast to when we had arrived, the streets were now teeming with people because the siesta time was over and all the shops were open again.

We had dinner at a bar across the road from our apartment. Naturally we went for Sangria (and some red wine). The girls had tampas while I ordered from the standard menu. By this time we were tired. Nicky was particularly tired because Amelia hadn't slept well last night in Hampstead.

Before going back to the apartment, we went to a small supermarket a couple of blocks away to get food, drink and other supplies for the apartment. We'd heard that you should drink bottled water rather use the tap water.