Day 15, Monday April 30, Return Home

It's been 2 weeks since I slept in a bed that wasn't moving. When I
went down to the lobby for coffee I found that yesterday's perfect
weather had turned to rain. Most of my junk was still in the big bag
but there still was some packing to be done. My taxi left the hotel
just before 7 and I was checked in at the airport about 7:30, walked
around some, and went through security and passport control just after
8. I was booked on a 10:45 USAirways flight to Philadelphia, and we
loaded pretty much on time. Barcelona airport seems quite large and
modern, but the wide open spaces are supplemented with little seating,
about 40 chairs in the gate area for a flight holding 260. A lot of
people were left standing around.

Things on the plane started out rather awkwardly. We had quite an
elderly lady at the far end of my row who the crew apparently decided
was too frail to fly, and a wheel chair came and took her quite
unwillingly off the aircraft. The process delayed our departure about
40 minutes, but we had good winds and reached Philadelphia pretty much
on time. That's not to say it was uneventful. We had 2 additional
medical situations and the doctors and nurses on board were rather busy.

I'm not usually a big reader, but I got a new kindle for Christmas with
a book now loaded. I left home at chapter 5, was too busy to touch it
on the train and on the ship, but resumed reading on the flight and am
now on chapter 22, more than half way through. I'll have to make some
changes since I usually only read when I'm flying, and hope to be
through for the year.

Philadelphia turned out to be something of a zoo. I had an hour and 40
minutes for my connection and needed nearly all of it. Between
Immigration (actually brief), baggage claim, customs, baggage recheck,
security (the worst I've seen in a long time), and transferring to
another terminal I was among the last to board my flight to Baltimore.
The second flight was a 50-passenger Dash 8 turboprop, quite a change
from the huge A330, but the flight was short and on time, arriving at
BWI about 4:15 and home 5:15.

My parting shot today will be a late Bon Voyage to one of my fellow
passengers, Claudia, who spent 1 night in Barcelona and is now on the
Voyager of the Seas bound for Dubai, the kind of crazy thing I often
do. As I write this it is actually almost 3AM Tuesday in Barcelona, so
my Bon Voyage is really quite late but Bon Voyage anyway.

Roy