"I'm sorry Mr Fawkes, your flight reservation to Barcelona was canceled.  Good news though, Mrs Fawkes' reservation still exists."  And so we begin our long awaited trip to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago....after 15 minutes of discussion and pleading with the Lufthansa agent, we were able to get Mike's flight reinstated.  Still not sure why that happened, but other than a few crying babies, the flight then proceeded very smoothly.

We landed in Barcelona on Saturday afternoon and took a taxi to the Hotel Barcelo Sants, which conveniently is situated right on top of the train station where we will take the train to Pamplona on Monday.  I confidently walked up to the check-in desk at the hotel.  "I'm sorry Mr Fawkes, we don't have a reservation for you, and the hotel is completely sold out" replied the check-in receptionist.  Huh?! Jeez, there seems to be a pattern here.   After 15 minutes of showing the clerk our reservation and pleading  that  in fact we had already paid for the room, we were given our room.

I'm happy to say that everything after that went very smoothly and we had a terrific weekend in Barcelona.  On Saturday evening, we had dinner with our good friends Joan (This is the equivalent of John in Catalan and is pronounced Joe Ahn) Canigueral and his wife Esther.  I had the pleasure of working with Joan for almost 20 years, both in the USA and Barcelona.  Joan visits San Francisco several times a year, and we get together for dinner when he is in town.  Joan was also kind enough to loan us a Spanish cell phone to use for our trip!

On Sunday, we spent the day with our very close friends Enrique and Ana and their family.  I worked with Ana at HP when we lived in Barcelona from 1997 to 2000, and we have remained very close friends since.  Their son Borja, who is the same age as our daughter Allison,  stayed with us in San Diego for 3 weeks in 2003.  And, Allison stayed at their home several years ago when she was visiting from London.  We started the day at the beautiful house of Borja and partner Carlos.  Ana and Enrique's daughter Carlota and her boyfriend Tomi also joined us.  Carlos cooked a fantastic paella for everybody, and of course, we drank several bottles of great Spanish wine.  It was a spectacular day, and we truly enjoyed the time together with our good friends.

Later, we out for coffee and wine at a couple of newer hotels in Barcelona with Ana, Enrique, Carlotta.  Barcelona is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and I highly recommend it to any of you who haven't been there.  Of course, it's made all the better when you have great friends and tour guides like Joan, Esther, Enrique, and Ana!

We have a 7:30 train to Pamplona tomorrow morning, so it's late and time to get a little sleep!