Our trip is fast approaching, we will be leaving in three days for our flight over to Barcelona, Spain. There has not been a lot of tri planning activities going on recently, we have been busy trying to make sure things in our family life are squared away.
Both of our mother’s are keeping us on our toes as we try and go on this trip that will not be easy to come home from if there are any problems at home. Since we will be crossing the Atlantic on a ship, there is not a lot of opportunity to be able to get off and come home, especially once we leave Madeira.
In the last several weeks, we have had to deal with a lot. Stephanie’s mom had a slight setback, which for some reason always seems to happen in November. Last year it was right before Thanksgiving, and this year it was a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. We are wondering if it has something due to the change in weather as we get into the cooler fall months. Without going into detail, she had to spend about three days in the hospital fighting some aspiration pneumonia. She is just now fully recovered, but that made us realize there is a potential for problems while we are gone.
While my mom’s overall health has been good, her memory is declining rapidly. We have had to set her up with caregivers that are with her for 4 hours each morning, 7 days a week. Plus, she is no longer allowed to drive based on a recommendation from her Neurologist. We are only going to be a week into the scheduled daily care before we leave, and it has been challenging getting it all set up and running smoothly. One of the most difficult things is setting up care for mom’s cat Cammie, she needs to be medicated for a Thyroid condition roughly every 12 hours. I Mom’s care givers will give Cammie her pill in the morning at 9:00 AM when they arrive, and we have our cat sitter going over to to the evening medication at about 6:30 PM, close enough to the 12 hour split. Going over for medication at 9:00 PM is just too late.
Needless to say, we have not had a lot of time to just sit back and let the excitement of the upcoming trip envelop us. This has been the most we have ever had to do to prepare for a trip that had nothing to do with the actual travel, and it has been a little stressful to say the least, but we are getting through it. Luckily, there is not a lot of actual trip planning to do for this vacation, and most of that had already been done for a while.
Last night, we started putting together our clothes, and even that was a little challenging since we have a few nights in Barcelona before we board the Viking Neptune. We are having to do a split between cooler weather clothing in Barcelona, and suitable cruise outfits once we are on the ship. As usual, layering and flexibility in matching clothing are the key. Is is a little more difficult because we have never been on a Viking ship. and do not fully understand what is appropriate clothing to wear, or what the implied dress code may be. We do know that blue jeans are not appropriate for the dining room, and men need collared shirts, which is typical. There are no formal nights, so that is not something we have to worry about. I think we have a good idea of what we need to wear, but because we are on a higher class of ship than usual, we are a little worried we may not exactly fit into the fashion genre.
We will start packing the clothes in the suitcases tomorrow night, and that is where the fun begins. We want to limit the weight in each suitcase to less than 45 pounds, even though we get up to 50 pounds on the airlines. It is just easier to handle the bags when they are lighter and that 5 pounds does make a difference. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have the ability to do laundry on the ship, free of charge, so we don’t need to have enough clothes for the entire trip. Once we get everything packed and weighed the first time, it will probably require some culling. We already have a few items identified as “first out”, we always seem to be overpacked on the first round.
We are getting a ride to the airport on Sunday from our neighbor, Elizabeth, and this is the first time we have not been able to have mom take us to the airport and pick us up when we return, another variable we have not had to deal with in the past. We will need to use Uber to get home from the airport at the end of the trip, another first.
Once the packing is done and the final weight is hopefully within our self prescribed limit, that will eliminate one more stressful activity.
We do know the weather in Barcelona for the first few days will be a little rainy and/or cloudy. Luckily, the temperatures will not be too cold, mostly 60’s for highs and upper 40’s for nighttime lows. That does make packing a little easier since we will not be in any freezing temperatures and need heavier clothing. The rain is a little bit of a disappointment, but that helps to determine what we will try to do and see. It takes a visit to Montserrat off the table, we would only have gone back if the weather was sunny. That is a al day travel event, and required some travel coordination to get to.
We will just stick to sights in Barcelona, and will hopefully have good enough weather to visit the Parc Güell, which is outside and something we have not seen before. Luckily, it is a fairly simple 35 minute bus ride from the hotel and does not require any detailed scheduling to see.
We have decided to get Vodafone Sim Cards once we arrive in Barcelona. They have a prepaid special for Euro 10.00 which gives us 25 Gb of data and some international minutes for calls for 28 days, so that is a good deal. There is a Vodafone store a couple of blocks away from the Hotel Jazz where we are staying, so we will get the SIM cards as soon as we arrive at the hotel, and drop off our bags, or if we are lucky, get to check-in early.
We will take a shuttle from the airport called the Aerobus, which drops us off at the Plaça de la Universitat Bus Stop, just a couple of blocks walk from the hotel.
Well that is all for todays update, and hopefully things will go smoothly for the next few days until we depart for Barcelona.