13 June

The four-hour delay at Charlotte came courtesy of US Airways.

We just arrived in Montserrat after an interesting day.  I can't begin to describe all that we saw today.  We met several neat people on our flight. There was a foreign exchange student from Ohio who was going to Bilbao for a year. There was 3 year old Juan Carlos and his parents who were returning to Sevilla after a year of working in Kansas.  I've got to look up the word "vale" because that's all that everyone keeps saying.

We don't want to go into the sad tale of the missed flight to Barcelona because of flight delays on the part of US Airways. What I will say is 'thank goodness' I did my research before we left home. Even though I had booked a flight from Madrid to Barcelona, I kept all of the research I did on the train option in the trip notebook that I made with all of our plans. Once we settled on taking the train, I was able to figure out where we had to go based on the paper printouts. 

From the Madrid airport, RENFE operates a commuter train that has several stops along the way into central Madrid.  We took the commuter train to the Madrid Atocha station (site of the tragic bombing in 2004), which took about 25 minutes.  The high speed RENFE trains depart from Atocha and work kind of like an airline, minus the hassle of course.  We had about 45 minutes to grab a bite to eat before boarding the train.  We ate some sandwiches.  We had cold chicken and mushroom sandwiches with olive focaccia bread and a couple of waters.  The lady in the shop was really sweet.  She didn't speak a lot of English, so my very limited Spanish was the tool of communication.  She taught us how to say 'to-go' (para llevar) and 'napkin' (servilleta).  I felt like I missed a question on a quiz with the 'napkin' word because I've always seen the French word for it on the big boxes that the cafeteria gets and they are so similar. 

We had a little time to try to look for a SIM card for Andy's phone, but we didn't have any luck.  We entered the RENFE high-speed area.  We had to put our bags through a metal detector, but we weren't subjected to TSA-style harassment   We read the departures information and got our gate (plaza) number.  The gate attendants (plural because there were about four people working at the desk) were friendly.  They scanned our tickets and we took our luggage down a long ramp to board the train.  We had to find the correct coach (coche) and there was another friendly attendant at each coach to welcome us on board.  Andy hefted our bags onto the luggage racks and we enjoyed knowing that the train was going to take us from point A to point B. 

The RENFE high-speed train is a classy way to travel.  Everything was clean.  The other passengers were not sketchy.  The attendants provided announcements in Spanish and English.  They gave us free earbuds so that we could watch the movie they were showing or listen to one of the radio channels they provided.  There are bathrooms on the trains and a snack bar.  We noticed a family return with sandwiches that they ate in their seats.  The seats have way more legroom than airplanes, but the setup (with a tray table) is similar. 

The movie that they were showing was a film called Flypaper that starred Patrick Dempsey and Ashley Judd.  It was dubbed in Spanish.  It was a pretty standard storyline, so you could figure out what was happening.  I thought it was funny that they were showing a movie that I don't even remember hearing about being in the theaters in the US.  While it wasn't a blockbuster, it was probably about as good as anything else. 

The train allowed us to relax and enjoy the view.  Madrid and much of the countryside between it and Barcelona look like the scenery in a John Wayne cowboy film.  It is dry and dusty and many of the landforms are similar to the American southwest.  The trip took about three hours.

The RENFE train dropped us at the Barcelona Sants station, which connects with all other forms of public transport.  We bought a metro pass in Barcelona and went to the Plaça d'Espanya station.  You may notice the interesting spelling of 'plaza'.  Barcelona speaks Catalan, instead of Spanish.  At the Plaça d'Espanya, we had to find the regional train system (FGC) that took us to the base of Montserrat.  We had to purchase two segments for this trip.  One segment to take us out of town and one segment to take the rack train instead of the cable car up the mountain.  We checked with an attendant about the tickets to make sure that we would have time to get to the top of the mountain.  Our flight delay really pushed us into the danger zone.  The attendant was afraid that we were wanting to go and return this evening, but we told him we had a hotel.  Purchasing the ticket required using a vending machine that was surrounded by a pack of pickpockets. 

Not knowing the language definitely puts us at a disadvantage, but shifty characters all tend to behave in certain ways.  I mean, who hangs out with their buddies at a ticket vending machine in the metro and stands close to oddballs like us? Since Andy and I are also a team, we watch each others' backs and give the stinkeye when necessary.  There was a disabled man also standing nearby when we were being besieged   He couldn't speak, but he made a loud noise and waved at some security officers who were also nearby.  Andy thought that the man was part of the shifty group, but I'm not so sure.  The shifty guys were all dressed in a similar style and the other man didn't seem to fit with them.  In any case the shifty guys ran away when the disabled man alerted the security officers and we managed to purchase a ticket without any harm done.

This leg took about 45 minutes to get from Barcelona to the base of Montserrat.  Of course, this train is a regional train that makes frequent stops and seemed to be populated by more residents than travelers.  There is a certain edge to the people of Barcelona.  There is a bit of bohemianism to it.  There is a certain grittiness to it.  I think it would be tough to live in the suburbs and come into Barcelona to shop and then carry stuff back home on the train.  It was very crowded when we left Plaça d'Espanya.  Everyone looked a bit tired from the day.  A woman sat across from me and put her sunglasses on to sleep without being obvious.  We were some of the last passengers on the train by the time we got to our stop.  One of the stops on our path connected with the RENFE system.  It wasn't the line that we took, but it would be worthwhile to know if there is a direct route from Madrid to this line for the next time because we spent a lot of time waiting for the train and we have backtracked a bit.

Montserrat is like Lookout Mountain on steroids.  It is greener here than what we saw around Madrid.  We took the rack train, cremallera, to the top.  Andy, the conductor, the janitor, and I were the only passengers going up the mountain because this was one of the last trains up the mountain for the day.  The grade is something like 15.6% on the actual 'rack' section of the route.  I had read in the guide book that Montserrat was beautiful and a treasure to the Catalan people.  It's hard to say how beautiful and amazing it is.  It took about 20 minutes to get to the top.  Once we exited the station, the temperature was something like 20-30 degrees cooler than in Barcelona.  The air was crisp and fresh like a nice March evening. 



We followed the signs to the hotel, checked in, held our breath in the elevator approved for six people that barely held two people and two large backpacks, entered our room and opened our window onto the most amazing view I've ever had from a hotel window.  It has been a long day.  We should be good to go on jet lag because we were too busy to sleep today. 

We decided to eat whatever was cooking in the first floor restaurant in the hotel.  For me, it was a Catalan sausage with salty white beans (a regional specialty).  For Andy, it was chicken and rice.  Deciphering the Catalan menu was crazy.  Our first waitress figured out that we were Gringos and found a younger fellow who spoke enough English that we weren't completely surprised by what we were getting. We were just ahead of the dinner crowd, a large group of elderly local tourists.  It was neat to be enjoying something that the people of this region also enjoy.

After dinner, we grabbed our jackets and then walked around a bit.  We were greeted at the doorstep of the hotel by a friendly black and white kitty who wanted a good scratch on the head from Andy.  We had an instant best friend.  He followed us to the monastery, which Andy and I had all to ourselves.  The Black Madonna, the revered Virgin of Montserrat, is one of the patron saints of Catalunya and is enshrined in the monastery.  We were not able to see this, but we didn't really come to see it anyway. 



We walked toward the trail heads that lead all over the mountaintop.  As we walked toward one, we heard a whistling sound that we thought was coming from several birds.  But the late hour didn't fit with it belonging to a bird.  As we got closer to a fountain that was surrounded by a garden, we realized it was a kind of frog.  Behind the hotels, we saw a lot of firefighting equipment.  In 1990, a forest fire caused significant damage.  So, it is good to see that this equipment is right here. 

We returned to our room to get some rest.  We have been awake for more than 24 hours. We asked and received a room with a view at the Hotel Abat Cisneros. I suggest room 203, if you come.  The bells from the Benedictine Abbey ring the quarter hour just next door. Hasta mañana, y'all.