20060428 - Barcelona, Spain (How I got lost and found)

Since the Century was going to dry dock after our cruise for a major refit, the ship was anxious to get the passengers off. We had disembarked from the ship by 9:00am and were in a long line waiting for a taxi. We took the Taxi to our Hotel arriving around 12:00pm (the taxi line took 2 hours). We decided to spend the afternoon on the Tourist Bus. The Tourist Bus is a double decker bus where you buy a ticket and then can get on and off the buses at will. We walked to the train station and then walked around until we found the buses and bought our tickets and boarded the bus.
I got lost. No ID, no money, no food, no bus ticket, no address for hotel, no full name of hotel, wrong language, and most important of all, no Richard. Here’s what happened.
The bus was pretty full so we got separated. I was in a seat at the front of the bus while Rich was stuck in the back. At the first stop, people got off the top deck so I scurried up there so I could take photos. Rich saw me go and started moving toward the front of the bus so he too could move to the top deck. At the second stop, it seemed to me that it was a place that Rich might want to get off the bus, so I went down to the lower part of the bus. Not knowing that Rich had moved forward, I looked and when I did not see him I thought he had seen me and had gotten off the bus, so I got off the bus. First big mistake.
I got off the bus, it left, and I looked around and no Rich! I was at the Plaza España by myself (with a million other tourists). My first thought was that Rich would find me, so I better stay put. So I moved to an area where I was by myself and could be seen from pretty much anywhere in the plaza. I stayed there for some time. The buses run every 5 to 15 minutes apart, and the schedule said that the full ride lasted 2 hours. After several buses I thought I would help Rich find me so I went to the next bus and asked the guide to use their radio to call their main office and ask them to find Rich and tell him where I was. They said they would. I waited for several more buses and then asked the next bus if they had heard an announcement about me. They had not. In addition, they did not believe that Rich could be still on a bus, so they gave me a map with the bus route so I could walk back to the train station (where we boarded the bus). Next big mistake.
I began to walk back to the train station. I saw several more buses go by and tried to stand alone as they went by so if Rich was there he would see me. Eventually, I arrived at the train station. Unfortunately, I did not remember how to get to the hotel from the station, so I tried to find the Tourist Information, but they were closed. Instead I found a youth hostel worker who spoke English and thought he knew where the hotel was. He gave directions but to the wrong hotel. After I walked to that hotel, they gave me the direction to my hotel. Finally…. I arrived at the hotel.
When I spoke to the desk clerk he told me that Rich had been there but was now at the train station reporting to the police. We decided that I should not return to the train station as Rich and I would likely pass each other again but should instead wait at the hotel. The Hotel had free internet access in their lobby so I sat down, logged on, and took care of our overfull email inbox.

In the meantime:
Rich finally made it up to the top floor of the bus (several stops later) and looked around, but no Sue. He spoke to the guide and she told him that I had gotten off the bus at the Plaza España. He decided to stay on the bus until it came around to the Plaza again. He got off the bus 2 hours later and began to search the Plaza for me. He was very worried since we had had an early breakfast and no lunch and he was concerned about me having a low sugar attack. After thoroughly searching the plaza, he took a taxi to the hotel. I was not there. Since I was not there, he walked back to the train station and spoke to the police. Then he took a taxi back to the plaza and searched it again. Then he walked back to the train station, spoke again to the police, and filled out a missing person report on me. Then he walked back to the hotel and found me.
By this time we were both so tired we we had the clerk cancel the missing person report, went upstairs, and collapsed.

The next day
We boarded the bus again but this time Rich had me on a very short leash. Every time he left me alone his last comment was ‘don’t wander’. We rode the bus completely around the route and then took a taxi to the airport for our flight to Florence. Barcelona is a big city with a lot of beautiful buildings and many, many tourists.