Back in San Antonio

Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009--Barcelona (Continued)

Since I have no plans to return to Europe anytime soon, I stopped by an exchange office and got rid of the rest of my Euros. The airport exchange offices are always more expensive in terms of fees than the ones in town. Of course, it costs to change money, so I lost some by re-converting to dollars; however, it would do me no good to hold $70 worth of Euros for several years!

I returned to the room for another quiet and early night. After packing my luggage and getting everything organized for a quick process of getting ready and away tomorrow morning, I went to bed. It was about 21:00, but the alarm was set for 3:15. Yuck!!

Monday, Sept. 28, 2009--Barcelona to San Antonio via Frankfurt and Los Angeles

I overslept!! I'm not sure how it happened. I removed one of my earplugs around 2:00 and moved my alarm clock to my chest to keep it close, because I still needed to use the pillow a bit to muffle the noise from outside. How can the Spanish stand living where people are up making noise all night every night?!! Anyway, the next time I awoke, I started to just go back to sleep. But then I thought I should check the time in case it was almost time for it to go off. Instead, it was already 4:05. I had missed my bus and the next bus after that already!!

I knew I didn't have time to get ready the way I normally would. I just spashed water on my face, rubbed water into my hair and combed it into place, got dressed and left the hotel. I walked fast to get to the bus stop and made it about 8 minutes before the next bus which left at 4:40. While riding on the bus, I pulled out my razor and dry-shaved myself as people watched in amusement. The bus didn't arrive at the airport until 45 minutes later, and then it wasn't at my terminal. It was 5:30 before I entered the terminal, and my flight was scheduled for 6:55, less than 1 1/2 hours away. I used electronic check-in to avoid the lines that were formed.

After all that rushing, the plane was delayed by 30 minutes because of a faulty emergency exit door. With only an hour to change planes in Frankfurt in the original schedule, I knew there would be another potential problem when we got there. Fortunately, the repairs did take only 30 minutes and we were on our way. Just before landing in Frankfurt, they announced that there would be a special bus meet the plane to take those of us who were connecting to San Francisco and to Los Angeles. That assured me that I would make the connection, although I wondered if my checked bag would. Two men with the bus, after having crossed the tarmac to a gate far from where we landed, guided us up a set of stairs, through passport control, and to our gate where our plane was already being boarded.

The flight to Los Angeles was a long one--11.5 hours!! I read, I listened to music, I slept, I thought, etc. One thing that came to mind was that it would have been nice to have Arne sitting beside me on the flight. We were seldom together on long-haul flights. We took vacations once a year in the spring when I was working and Arne visited, usually by combining a business trip with a holiday. After I retired and was spending more time in Copenhagen, we took two vacations--one in the spring in the U.S. as usual and one somewhere in Europe during the fall or winter. Our trans-Atlantic crossings together were very limited--once in 1985 when Arne visited Texas from mid-November to early December and we traveled together to go to Denmark for Christmas and once in 2004 when we crossed from London to San Antonio as the first leg of the around-the-world tickets we had both bought for that year. We were about to take our first trans-Pacific flight as a part of that ticket when he had his stroke and died in Calgary. Of course, we made that flight, but it was me and his ashes rather than Arne himself. All these years since, I've traveled alone, but we would have traveeled together if he had lived.

I finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabetyh Gilbert on the flight. It is a book that I had gotten in one of the riads in Morocco by making an exchange with a book that I had already finished. Unfortunately, this was not a good book. The first few pages were quite witty and uniquely written, so I had my hopes up. Then it became a self-absorbed, woe-is-me tale. The Indian section, except for the witticisms of Richard from Texas, was boring. But I don't have much tolerance, if any, for people who "need" yoga, spiritualism, self-centering, etc. I gave the book 1 1/2 stars out of 4.

By the time we reached Los Angeles, everyone was tired and restless. Kids were kicking the backs of seats and screaming, others were standing in the aisles, etc. Thank goodness it did come to an end. Then I had one of my best experiences in terms of processing through passport control and customs. I was finished with both and walking to my terminal for my next flight within 15 minutes!! Unbelievable.

Flying to San Antonio, I sat next to an employee of Toyota who is moving here to help with the transition of the manufacturing of the Tacoma pickups from the factory that they co-operated with GM to their San Antonio plant. We talked about Toyotas, the car business in general, and especially the fact that GM and Ford still don't seem to understand what happened to them and why in terms of loss of business.

Rose and Jerry, my two volunteer colleagues at the airport, were waiting at the gate area when I arrived in San Antonio. It was so nice to see them again and to be greeted that way. When we went downstairs, Sue, my sister, was standing there waiting. Usually I arrive alone and wait for a ride to pick me up outside. It's nice to be greeted.

At home, two big boxes held 4.5 months of mail. Also, the toilets needed to be cleaned before being turned on due to the accumulation of calcium deposits from the water that had evaporated during my time away. I unpacked my bag, put a few things away, set some clocks that were off, glanced through the mail and organized it in stacks, etc. By 22:00, however, I was too tired to continue. I went to bed.

Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009--San Antonio

It was 5:00 when I awoke and decided I could not sleep more. I did a load of laundry, organized all my statements and entered the information in Quicken on the computer, checked all my statements from travel expenses with my receipts and records I had kept to make sure everything was right, put my travel clothes in the washer and afterwards in the dryer, discovered that the battery in my car was dead and unchargable, filed away important communications I had received related to accounts and policies, etc. Then I bathed and went with my sister Sue to get me a new battery and to have lunch at a Thai restaurant. I'm barely home, and life is a rush again!! It will take several more days to get caught up on everything which will include having to give each room in my condo a thorough cleaning due to 4.5 months of accumulated dust and dead bugs, etc., that seem to find a way into a home. But I am happy to be here. I'm tired of traveling for now. It will be a few months before the itch returns!

Final Spending Report: During my 5 days in Barcelona, I spent $219.94 for an average of $43.99 per day. Since leaving Texas in May, I have traveled for 161 days and spent $6597.77 (not including my airfare of about $4400) for an average of $40.97 per day. This is the first year my daily spending average for a trip has gone above $40. Of course, the value of the U.S. dollar keeps going down and inflation also keeps prices rising, so the difference was inevitable. Still, my average this year was only about $2.75 more per day than it was last year.