Spain reloaded 4: A-Costa-ed

             Five hours on a bus each way, combined with another jam-packed day of hotel inspections.  It’s no wonder most of my recollection of this day is fuzzy, I was running on fumes.  We all were.  When the people leading the trip start handing out Coke, cookies and chips to keep us functioning like normal humans, you know something’s up.  Not that I’m ever going to argue with free Coke and chips (Spanish Lays come in this great Tomato and Onion flavor, I highly recommend it.  Skip the ham and cheese ones, the flavor is creepily accurate, but there was something about that taste coming from a potato chip that weirded me out.  According to the seafoodies amongst us, the Prawn Cocktail is also really good, but I’ll have to take their word on it).

            From our hotel in Salou in the Costa Dourada, we drove back past Barcelona (I know, the logic of moving to a farther south hotel only to tour hotels in the north is lost on me, too) and up to the Costa Brava.  The scenery is pastoral and fairly uneventful, though we did get a great kodak moment of the jagged Monserrat mountain from the freeway.  This drive went really fast for me, but then again, I was plugged into my MP3 player (practically everyone else was asleep, it was early) and grooving out to some Rihanna and Robbie Williams.

            The first two hotels, the Hotel Blaumar and it’s sister Hotel Blaucel are connected by an underground tunnel.  This tunnel also has skylights that look up into the adult’s pool, and clearly most swimmers forgot that they could be seen from below.  With perfect timing, we look up to see a female body bob past, wrapped tightly around a happy male body.  The look on the sales rep’s face as he tried to just keep talking as if nothing was going on was great.  Naturally, we all squealed like a bunch of teenagers.

            Then the underwhelming Hotel Tropic Park, the very overwhelming Hotel Florida Park (the pool is gorgeous and even has the ever so rare patch of private grass to lounge on), another buffet lunch, the Hotel Neptuno, Apartmentes Neptuno, the Best Western Las Palmeres (guess what?  It looks like a Best Western) and finally the Hotel Kaktus Playa (my favorite hotel name, just seeing Kaktus spelled like that makes me snicker).

         More Coke and chips, two and a half more mp3-filled hours on the bus and we and our numb bums were back at our hotel in time to hit the buffet.  Hmm, it seems I was hungry on this day, as the main things I remember involve food.  Ooh, I miss gelato…   Focus, Holly.  Anyhow, after dinner a couple of us wandered down to the beach to burn off some buffet calories and officially dip our toes in the Med and hit up all the tacky souvenir stalls.  And these are a new standard of tacky.  I got a great keychain of a guy wearing a barrel for my best friend, and when you lift the barrel his spring-loaded bright pink penis pops out.  It’s awesome! We gotta get us some of this crap at home.

Tags: BlogSherpa, chips, costa brava, hotels

Spain trip reloaded: Barcelona hotels

        Got back from Spain a day ago and am still overcoming the jet lag.  I swear it hits me harder from Europe with just it’s nine-hour time change than it does with 16 hours in Asia.  I’m falling asleep standing up at this point.  Need caffiene – stat!

          So now it’s time for a trip recap, picking up where I left off:

         It’s the giant “tour every possible hotel and then, when you think it’s done, tour another one” walking tour day.  Starting off at 8am, we hit the Sunotel Central, Century Park, Aston, Junior, Evenia Rosello and the Barcelona Centre.  I would book clients into any of these, the rooms were nice, clean, and the properties were more modern than I had expected for a European city centre.  The Barcelona Center was particularly impressive, all beautiful black and white marble mixed with super-luxurious furnishings (and this is not swayed at all by the free glass of champagne they gave us, because, as a non-drinker, it turned my cheeks embarassing flaming red and everyone asked me if I was okay).  It would be the perfect place for a wedding reception, it would photograph so well.

           By now our feet were starting to feel the mileage, so we stopped for a classic Spanish tapas lunch at the Cervesceria Catalana.  The ambiance was cool, with wine and olive oil bottles lining the walls library-style, but tapas is not my thing.  I don’t eat seafood and am not a huge meat fan in general, so I took one look at the menu and knew I was relegated to eating the smallest sandwich known to man while my coworkers passed around these giant bowls of octopus parts and deep fried heads-on shrimp.  Can you say bill, please?

             Then we were back pounding the pavement, seeing the incredible Casa Fuster (OMG, this hotel is spectacular.  Seriously.  Google it, it’s worth it), right on the Passage de Gracia.  The Gods then intervened and brought a bus to take us to the beachfront to see the Front Maratim and H10 Marina, then finally Catalonia Princessa and Citidines Las Ramblas.  Dinner was an interesting appitizer spread (seafood on sticks, deep fried veggie chips and gummy bears were amongst the options) at the H10 – this was designed as a snack, but I was ready to gnaw off a limb at this point, so I took advantage of the free food and went for it.  I love gummy bears

              The work ended at 830, and I took one look at Las Ramblas and found a second wind.  It was the lure of shopping.  Finally crashed at midnight, exhausted, but with some great souvenirs!

Tags: Barcelona, BlogSherpa, hotels, Jet lag, seafood, shopping, tapas

Hola from Barcelona!

Wow, it’s hard not to make the title sound like a ‘wish you were here’ postcard  

So, it’s day three here in Spain (or four, it’s all running together), and this is the best work week I think I’ve ever had.   Landed at 7am on Saturday and got to our hotel to find it wasn’t ready, so we all ditched our stuff and, because this was really our only free time in Barcelona, (screw the jet lag!) hopped on the hop on hop off bus touristic for an overview of the city.  Saw all the main sights, Montjuic, the Port Olympic, Colom, Barri Gotic, etc, but honestly it will be easier to remember once I’ve had the pics developed because i’d been up for more than 24 hours at that point.  The goal was to stay awake to get onto local time and, with the help of caffine and lots of aimless walks down the Ramblas, I made it until 11pm before I crashed. 

So far I’m really loving this city.  Staying at the beautiful Catalonia Duques du Bergara hotel beside the Placa Catalonya, it’s a perfect location with great ambiance and an incredible amount of marble.  Barcelona is a city for wandering, and eventhough I’m a total Spanish newbie, I feel totally comfortable here.   The first vibe you get from a city makes a huge impact, and this one is great. 

Yesterday we started the working part, touring the Norwegian Gem and Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas cruise ships.  Really impressed with the Voyager, if I sailed that’s the one personally I would choose.  Loved the central shopping promenade, it looked just like a mall.  The Gem was good, but most people found the gaudy coulour scheme jarring.  I loved it, but then again I am twenty years younger than most of my co workers and I my tastes are a bit out there on a normal day!

Got finished with work about dinner time and wandered back up Las Ramblas,  finding the coolest bar on the planet along the way, right by the wax museum.  I think it was called el bosc de les fades, or the magical forest, but I’ll double check my Spanish later.  It was filled with trees, even coming out from the table centers, the bar was all carved out of fake rock and there was a blue grotto waterfall/fountain in one area.  I have never been in a more family-friendly bar in my life.  It was so funny watching everyone’s faces as they walked in,  looked around in wonder and then started taking pictures.

The metro here, and in any city, is a thing of beauty and for 1.35 Euro we were at the incredible La Sagrada Famillia cathedral in less than ten minutes.  Grabbed a nice German tapas (meatballs, beer rings, wurst and pizza, I don’t get it either, but it was good) dinner on the Place du Gaudi, seated at one of the sidewalk people-watching tables.  It was a great location for under $12 a person, drinks included.  Saw the lights of the cathedral go on at 10pm, and it was cooler than I could have imagined.  I mean, really, what was that guy on when he designed it?  There amongst the prerequisite saints and  angels there are carved frogs and a christmas tree covered in doves and a pile of oranges.  WTF ?  But most importantly, now I feel I’m truly in Barcelona, now that I have seen the one place more than any other that differentiates this city from any other.

Loving this city so far.  I’m not actually going to see any of it today as I have 12 hotels to tour (oh my god! This one has a sink too!), but a job is a job.  I wanted to get a bit of an overview posted, but hopefully I’ll get to blog tonight about all the cool little things that have happened, like the naked bike people with the pool noodles….

Tags: Barcelona, BlogSherpa, cathedral, city tour, cruise, hop on hop off bus, hotels, public transportation

Las Vegas Baby!

               “What the heck are we doing here? It’s nothing but sand” was my first impression as the pilot announced final approach into Las Vegas this past fourth of July.  Then suddenly there she was, rising out of the heat waves like a miniature Egypt…no, Paris…no, Italy…no, Camelot.  The hotels should give passport stamps to go with their wonderfully tacky souvenirs.  As a Vegas beginner, the city comes at you like an adult Disneyland, all bright and flashy and promising to make dreams come true.

We were staying at the Excalibur, and were lucky enough to get one of the newly renovated rooms (read: tasteful décor and a massive flatscreen TV – that we never figured out how to operate, but it wasn’t like we were in the room long enough anyhow).  Already we had learned the first rule of Vegas: everyone’s looking to get rich, including all the taxi drivers who delight in taking the “fast way” which happens to cost double.

                 For two Canadian girls, the heat hit us like a blanket you can’t shrug off. Mid-afternoon we prayed for the wind to stop as it was hotter than the ambient air temp, and the sun setting didn’t provide much relief, because then the baked pavement released it’s stored heat, turning the whole Strip into a shoe-softening hot plate. On the 6th we were lucky enough to get the hottest day of the year, a blistering 125 degrees (according to our Gondolier at the Venetian) that would have been unbearable had there been any humidity.

            And the hotels lived up to their reputations.  Our favorite was the spectacular Venetian and the Paris flowed close behind, both in terms of great themes and overall photogenic-ness.  The Bellagio and Cesar’s Palace are beautifully over the top, and the Luxor’s playful Egyptian carnival was a lot of fun.   We managed to talk our way up the inclinators (diagonal elevators) ascending the walls of the giant pyramid and get memorable views over the casino and mock ancient city below. 

            If you’re not lucky enough to win the jackpot (as we were), you learn rule #2: Vegas is expensive.  Between the $4 bottles of water, $10 average fast food meal and souvenirs, our money went faster than if a slot machine had eaten it.  But there is hope, as the free dancing fountains at the Bellagio were spectacular, the volcano eruption at the Mirage was cool and the cheesy Pussycat Dolls-meets-Chippendales Sirens of TI show was fun to laugh at.  At both the Showcase Mall and Hawaiian Marketplace there were also half price ticket booths where you could snag great same-day tickets to many of the big-name shows for a steal.

            All told, Vegas wasn’t the “adult playground” I’d expected, much more tongue-in-cheek, a city that seemed to go out of it’s way to make fun of itself.  No matter how much you see, you will always leave with a list of things you missed or, as I like to put it, “saved for the next trip”.

- As originally published in the Vancouver Province

Tags: BlogSherpa, hot, hotels, Las Vegas, money, public transportation, published, sun