Friday, July 10, 2015

First return to Barcelona/ Carlos Pueblo

First return to Barcelona/ Carlos Pueblo

I finished four nights staying in Malaga and should first return to Barcelona
for my seven days cruise trip to the Mediterranean. It took about 6 hours
from Malaga to Barcelona on high speed train AVE. I was assigned to a
silent coach with a middle age Spanish lady named Charlotte. She and I had
had some conversation yet it was not broadly due to my Spanish limit. The
train ran with great speed with few stops on the way. On the west side,
it is Sierra Nevada mountains with no snow cap at the time. I saw that
Korean student again with two of his Korean fellow students who just finished
their tour to Granada.

After checking in to the hostel, I asked the market direction on La Lambla. Anna
at the front desk, who helped me to change one night stay schedule, indicated
that Passeig de Garcia to la Plaza de Catalunya and could see La Lambla on a side
street. The streets from the hostel to the market were all full of people. It was very
difficult to find a seat in the counter restaurant inside the market yet I found one.
I ordered a piece of snow fish and changed to a small sword fish due to lack of supply.
The grilled fish was fresh and tasty with two glasses of cold beer. My next seats were
two Chinese students, from Macau, China, who ordered a big plate of sea food
combination with shrimps, clams, crabs, fish etc. Kelly Cheng was very busy to take
pictures of the plate. They go to school in Munich, Germany. She mentioned the
annual German Beer festival in late September and I was thinking of another opportunity
to come back to Europe.

Passing by the travel agency which I had reserved a last minute cruise deal, I dropped
by to say hallo to the agent. I explained to her what I had found of the reasons why I
could not get a full deposit of $250 applied to my ticket. One of the two reasons is
the U.S. dollar vs Euro exchange fee, another one is solo traveler makes less profit for
the cruise. The advantage is that the cruise company apply U.S.$100 to the tips on the
account; therefore, I make another deposit again on this trip.


   

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