Barcelon Shmarcelona

Okay, I am writing this while it is still fresh and raw and bleeding and sizzling and...Okay, this is one of those posts that is embarrassing to admit. One that shows how what looks good on paper doesn't always happen. One that shows that having a checklist might be a good idea. One that...okay, I'm stalling. We missed our flight to Barcelona. Cringe. There, I said it. Typed it. Ugh. It happened. Just a few hours ago. But I knew if I didn't share it now, it would get watered down later. Or I might chicken out and just send some postcards saying Hola, we are having a bueno time herein Barthelona (accent and all). So here goes.

Here's how it went. And then I shall follow with what we learned. And then...okay, stalling again. We woke up at 3 am for our 6:40 flight. The gate check-in closes at 6:10, so we have to get there before that. Are you kidding me, we have PLENTY of time. We have extra time, in fact. The airport (and I use that term loosely) is a 1 hour drive from Trier. So we got on the road around 3:45.

Well, here comes the royal screw up. Yuck. We got about 30 minutes into the drive (picture it"s 4 am now, cold, dark, narrow roads, chatty non-sleeping children. got it?) In my mind I am reviewing our boarding passes that I have efficiently printed out from our home in San Mateo before we left (patting of the back. good job Mandy, you savvy traveler). And what we packed and "OH MY GOSH WE LEFT OUR PASSPORTS BACK AT HOME." Gulp. Dread. Crap. Turn the car around. Do the mental calculations of how much time to drive home and back+turn around and re-drive shitty roads+20 ?'s from 5 year old+not knowing this airport and everything is in a different language=yeah, probably not going to make our flight.

We drive in silence for a bit. Both knowing that Spain might as well be Timbuktu. We ain't gettin' there. No way, no how. Absolutely no way...wait a minute. We can do this. Right? If we drive quickly (thanks Autobahn) we can be back at the airport by 5:45. The gate says it doesn't close until 6:10. Just have to park and walk in and check in. That doesn't take that long, right?

Well, it does. And it did. And we didn't. Sigh. We got there about 5:40. Well, to the entrance to the airport. Our hopes soared (okay, ever the optimist, mine did. Mark probably knew the whole time that there wasn't a snowball's chance in...well, you know the rest). And really, we would have made it if there was any signage, in ANY language, that would have been helpful.

But there wasn't. And I cried. Just a bit. Mark looked deflated. Casey was optimist number 2 "Ahhh, we didn't want to go to Barcelona anyway. Really. Right Mommy?' Oh how I love that girl.

We were directed to the RYANAIR ticket counter where there was still one last glimmer of hope to fly into Doofenshmirtz and connect in Dingleberry and take a train to Gimmeeafrigginbreak. But these would of course all cost $100 gajillion whatevers and with the exchange rate we could have bought ourselves a country slightly smaller than Lichtenstein.

So we trapsed back through the airport, dodging drunken Russian teens whooping it up and probably on their way to Minsk. Getting looks from folks waiting on imaginary flights that they wouldn't possible make, no matter how much they tried.

So how will we celebrate Mark's birthday tomorr0w you ask? Hmmm,,,there's always the train!