Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

Dodgy airlines, Robbery and a Dream holiday in Spain 1st February 2002 in Barcelona, Spain


These Spainish keyboards are sooo messed up, I got an old one too which is even worse. Sorry if some characters don't show up.

Today I woke up and caught a train at Exeter's St. Davids to London Pattington. From Pattington I caught the tube to Liverpool Street. At Liverpool Street I boarded the Stansted Express to get to Stansted Airport. We got delayed on the way to Stansted because there was a problem with the train track. We ended up getting delayed about 30 minutes. I was getting worries because I was short on time and I didn't want to miss my flight to Barcelona.

I got to the airport as my flight was saposed to board and quickly checked in. I had to catch another train to the other side of the Airport to get to my gate. I got to my gate but the moved it from gate 7 to 12, a flight to Copenhagevn, Denmark, Ironically took it´s place. I finally got to my gate and my flight was delayed 20 minutes because of the new Air Traffic Control system in the UK. I looked around but I couldn´t see Tanya, the girl I was saposed to meet up and travel with, anywhere. I rang her mobile about 4 times but there was no answer. I began to get ancious. The flight was finally boarding but there still wasn´t any sign of her. Suddenly she appeared running down the terminal, her express train to Stansted was the one behind mine. We then boarded the plane and got to share the back row between the two of us.

We flew on www.go-fly.com, the dodgiest airline I´ve ever flew on. I knew the plane was crap, you had to walk out to it on the runway and the flight attendants were the bottom of the barrel, but even the pilot¨s were crap. That was the ruffest take off I´ve ever had. They made you pay for everything. A 150ml bottle of coke was 50p (rip off). They forgot to ask us if we wanted to buy any food (we were both really hungry). They also had a coffee pot that had a leak, they plugged it up with tissue. I´ve never seen a plane land so fast in my life. When I say that I mean, I´ve never decended that quickly, I was just about to scream.

We touched down safely, walked right past customs whom were smoking and reading newspapers and headed to our backpackers. The ride to Sants was pleasant but when we got there the whole "no speak espana" kicked in. There were no attendants selling tickets. I went up to the machine and it was completely in Spainish and I couldn´t figure out which of the choices I had to pick to buy a ticket. A security guard came up and helped us out. The Metro had TV showing while you were waiting for the train, there was Spanish and Classical music playing and the Train smelt like marijawana.

We finally made it to Juama 1 Metro station, walked out and down the street to our backpackers. We saw two men struggling then run off. An Australian girl came up to us and said, don´t drop your bag for a minute, if you do they will nick it. We walked into the Backpackers and signed in, the people at the front didn´t speak very good English. The rooms are really clean, there is a 60 inch TV with Satellite (260 channels I´ve gone through so far), beer vending machines and FREE INTERNET!!!! Yeah, I´ve come to Beautiful Barcelona on the Mediterranean Sea and I can hang out on the PC all night.

We got checked in and went to get some food. We ended up at a nice resturant where we had calimari and some other tapas. When we walked into the resturant I asked if waiter if he spoke English, he said yes, that was about all the English he knew. We ended up pointing at another couples meal and said that is what we wanted. Then we pointed at the drinks we wanted. I had a henikin which tasted like it had ginger ale mixed in with it, not bad. Tanya had a budweiser. After word we walked around Barcelona. We went to La Rumbas and walked down all the way to the Harbour. Barcelona has the feel of Sydney Australia, Disney Land and a movie set all in one.

On the way back some guy came up to me, he only spoke Spainish. He asked for a light and I said I didn´t have one, he then shaked my hand and began speaking spanish, he then put his arm around my back and said "football, barcelona" making a kicking action and get really close to me, it was then he went for my wallet. I quickly grabbed him by the wrist and twisted his arm attempting to break it. He pulled away and ran off before I could snap it. You have to be sooo careful here. I´ve seen two robberies in about 4 hours. I´m locking everything up, including my wallet and only taking enough money for the time I´m out.

It´s 2am in the morning and I´ve just gotten back to the hostel to blogg this in. When I get back to Exeter I´ll post photos and maps of everywhere I´m talking about.


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