Divemedic

We got up early and had breakfast. The hotel where we were staying provides breakfast as part of the price of renting a room. They had a European style buffet with plenty of ham, fish, cheese, fruit, and some baked goods. They also served omelets to order. This place made the fluffiest ham, cheese and onion omelets I’ve ever had. Once breakfast was done, we headed out to see the sights.

Whenever I visit a town I’ve never been to before, I try to find the double decker busses. They usually charge you a fee for the day, which allows you ride those open topped, double decker busses without restriction. They usually have a circular route around the tourist areas, where they play a narration in several languages, and are a cost effective way to see the sights.

As you can see, the weather wasn’t great for sightseeing.

There were at least two squads of troops patrolling the immediate vicinity of the Eiffel Tower. Note that they have magazines inserted, but also have chamber flags in place. You can see the chamber flags if you zoom into the picture. We would periodically see armed patrols throughout the city, mostly centered around tourist areas. These aren’t parade troops- they appear to be (to my non-soldier Navy eye) regular troops- rifles with the bluing worn off in places, that sort of thing. The beret colors varied- we saw black, dark green, maroon, blue, and black.

These guys were just standing on the banks of the river Seine.

There was a giant shopping mall, two buildings- one for the women that was five stories tall, then you cross a pedestrian bridge over the street to the men’s building, and it was three stories tall. Even the building looked like artwork:

I really like the little cafes that are everywhere. Less of the franchise slop that you find in the US, more of little privately owned places.

The buildings and architecture make me realize just how talented craftsmen used to be. Even in the US, we don’t make stuff like this anymore.

Despite the fact that we rode a bus most of the way, we still managed to walk nearly ten miles, according to my smart watch. After a day like that, it was time to get some dinner and head back to the hotel.

We woke up at our hotel in Barcelona and headed to the train station. Because we didn’t know what to expect, we arrived at the train station 45 minutes early. There wasn’t much of a waiting area, I guess Spaniards don’t arrive early very often. Still, the train station was clean and there was no graffiti. You did have to pass through airport style security, complete with X-rayed luggage. Then they had all of the passengers for the entire train line up cattle style, then pushed all of us into the train at once.

We soon boarded the train and it headed off to France. The train was nice, and since we paid for first class tickets, we got comfortable seats and were seated on the upper deck, surrounded by large windows.

It was a beautiful ride, and the GPS in my phone said we were moving along at 120 miles per hour for most of the trip. It seems like there was a castle about every half a mile or so.

We soon arrived in Paris and took a cab to the hotel. It was rather chilly outside, 46 degrees. There were low clouds that looked a lot like it was about to snow, but I know it was too warm for that. What this did mean for us, was that it would rain every single day we were there.

When we arrived at the hotel, my wife’s true genius at this sort of thing finally made sense. Some of you asked how we managed to turn time share presentations into a free stay, and this is how she did it. We always stay at Hilton hotels. Whenever you do that, you are always approached by someone who offers you 100,000 honors points (Hilton Honors is the company’s loyalty program) or more for listening to their pitch. My wife would say yes, and we would be roped in to a 3 hour time share pitch. Once, she even booked a stay at Myrtle Beach, for which she got even more points. Again, another time share spiel. All told, she earned (we earned) over 2 million points in less than two years.

When she was planning this trip, she found a nice hotel in Paris that was part of the Hilton system and cashed in half a million points for a 5 night stay. When I say this was a nice hotel, I mean when you walk into the lobby, they offer you canapes and champaign while you wait for them to check you in and get your bags to your room. The place was really nice. She was determined to make this trip memorable, because we have been together for twelve years and married for ten.

Once we were in our room, we went to dinner.

Looking at the wine list, I wanted a Riesling, and they wouldn’t only sell non-French wines by the bottle. The wine was 54 Euros for the bottle, and (French) Onion Soup was 15 Euros.

That price was a bit of a shock, but everything, and I do mean everything, in Europe was expensive. Gasoline was 2 Euro per liter, which works out to $8 per gallon. Still, a crock of onion soup costing $20 explains how they afford “free” healthcare, and also explains how Europeans stay so thin.

Dinner was duck confit, followed by a shared crepe for dessert.

In all, dinner was about 180 Euros- yeah. That’s $220 American dollars for dinner, even if you don’t count the wine, the dinner was more than $150.

We walked a block back to the hotel and arrived to find the bed had been turned down, and cans of spring water were left on each bedside table and some jazz was playing in the room. Oddly enough, the song was c’est si bon. Nice touch.

At this point, we are 16 days into our 21 day vacation, but this is debarkation day from the cruise. As we go through customs, there is a new twist. I’ve been to Europe before, but this time, they both take a picture for facial ID and take everyone’s fingerprints. As we traveled about Spain, I noticed African “migrants” in each town, blatantly breaking the law by their mere presence, and selling black market goods by laying them out on the sidewalk.

It seems the world is full of police powers and restrictions for everyone except illegal immigrants, happening everywhere and in every country, almost as if it were an international conspiracy. It’s shit like this that make me understand where the “one world government” theories come from.

We were spending the night here in Barcelona, so we checked in to the hotel then proceeded to walk around and do some sightseeing. This was a charming little book and stationery store near our hotel.

I love writing letters on parchment paper using fountain pens, but that is something almost no one does any more, and I wanted to go in to see what they had. What did they have? Four stories of fine paper, expensive, high-quality pens, and interesting paper goods like these book sized models:

This pen was on sale for more than $2000 Euros- that’s about $2500. I like fine pens, but not this much. A pen costing this much should come with a membership to the blowjob of the month club. If you’re getting screwed, might as well get some foreplay.

We weren’t especially hungry, so we decided for a light dinner. This is what we had:

Along with a few glasses of Sangria:

Off to bed, so we can take the train to Paris in the morning.