JANUARY 1ST & 2ND 2024
Much needed break for Pete and I (but mostly Pete)!
Long New Years Eve flights to Barcelona to board a Celebrity cruise ship bound for the Canary Islands, Casablanca and Seville. Pete started a new and challenging job last March. He’s taken on a lot of new responsibilities, so this is a much needed break. In fact thats exactly why we chose to cruise. Usually we enjoy independent travel, but the work of figuring out a schedule, reservations and schlepping luggage for 2 weeks just didn’t appeal as we were tired already, coming off of work and the Holidays.
We arrived in Barcelona a day early so as to have some extra time in case of flight delays or cancellations. We stayed in the excellent Hotel Acta City47 towards the waterfront and next to a leafy urban park with a large play area for children. We were sitting on a bench enjoying a little sun, kids and trees when I saw a flash of green racing through the sky. After doing a bit of internet snooping, I found out that the city has a fairly large population of wild parrots. With relatively mild weather, growing populations of these foreigners, hypothesized to have originally escaped from or been abandoned by their owners, have grown to an estimated 10,000 birds. The city has reintroduced the native Peregrine Falcon to help keep these invasive parrots in check. The three main types of parrot living in the city are the smaller varieties of Monk Parakeet (the most prolific), the Rose Ring Parakeet and Mitred Parakeet.
I’m pretty sure the parakeets we saw were the Monk Parakeets. They were hard to pinpoint as they were like green bullets racing through the trees. The Monks have the unfortunate habit of building their nests on top of nice warm electrical transformers causing power outages and fires.
We boarded the ship today (the 2nd) in the afternoon, had a glass of wine on our veranda while watching the harbour with its massive cranes, and working boats bustling around. We could see the famous Sagrada Familia Cathedral in distance
We have spent the afternoon unpacking and exploring. Everything looked very familiar including our cabin. With a little research we discovered the we had been on the same ship in 2012 with our friends Joe and Sheryll for a wine cruise around Spain, France and Portugal. The ship is due to be refurbished this year.
I get chills in this grand dining room…seems like something out of opulent times early in the previous century.
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