Barcelona - Aneela's Hens Weekend
OK, so I'd never been on a hen's WEEKEND before, I hadn't been to Barcelona before and I actually hadn't even seen Aneela for about 2 years so needless to say, I was really looking forward to the whole trip!
First stop was friday afternoon at Gatwick Aiport where we checked in - all 15 of us! I knew that it was gonna be a pretty fun weekend when we were each issued with red glitter cowboy hats - to be worn at all times!
At this point I should digress and tell you about our EasyJet flight! I've watched an episode or two of 'Airport' in my time but had never flown EasyJet before so I was interested to see what it was going to be like... Well it turned out to be memorable to say the least!
The flight was scheduled to take off at 19:10 but we knew were going to be delayed when we only told the gate number at 19:00. (And what’s the deal with delayed flights today??? Excuse the rant, but it seems to be particulary en vogue for airlines today - even the big ones! What's up with that!?!) Anyway we board the plane at about 19:30 and are soon locked, loaded and ready to grab the next available take off slot.
However after waiting a while, the captain comes on and says that the engineer noticed a small 'problem' on his final check which needs to be fixed, and will unfortunately delay us a bit further. Now obviously our group was in a good mood so although the delay was a bit of a pain, we were really too busy chatting away etc to worry about it, unlike some of the other passengers who were pretty vocal in their complaining! Gotta hand it to the English when it comes to whinging ;)
So then at about 20:30 the pilot comes on and says the problem is all fixed now but "unfortunately we have an administrative problem that will soon be sorted out, as you will shortly see!" We were very intrigued by this statement and you can imagine pretty damn surprised to see, half an hour later, two police officers board the plane, march down to the back of the plane and escort two passengers off the plane!!! We'll never know for sure why they were taken off the plane, but some of our girls, sitting in front of them reckon it's because they were swearing. Pretty harsh considering they didnt actually swear at the staff - more at the general situation, just in front of the staff. Anyway high drama, with no less than 4 paddy wagons parked beside the plane!!!
By this time it's about 21:30 and the captain comes on again and says “well now that this people have left the plane, we need to locate and unload their luggage!" This gets done, and it's now about 22:00, more than 2 hours after we were meant to take off!
But wait there's more!
After the luggage is taken off the captain comes on again and tells us that because the engines had been started and shut down twice, we'd used up too much fuel and so need to be refuelled before we could leave for Barcelona! So, we wait, again, and eventually we are all refuelled...
But wait, there's STILL more!
The captain now comes on the air and tells us that because of all the delays we've experienced, the crew have now been working for longer than airline regulations permit and so we need to get a new crew to fly to Barcelona! They did eventually arrive and we did eventually make it to Barcelona, taking off at 23:30, more than 4 hours after the scheduled take off time of 19:10!!!
The 2 hour flight, the 1 hr time difference and the ridiculously long wait at Barcelona airport for taxis, meant that we acutally only got into our apartments at 4am on saturday morning!
But even though we didn’t get much sleep on Friday night, Saturday turned out to be a fabulous day - we did a bit of a scavenger hunt in the morning, lounged on the beach in the afternoon and hit the town on Saturday night! What a great weekend, I'd mention more, but you know what they say - what goes on tour stays on tour! It will suffice to say that a great time was had by all! :)
Here are some photos of the weekend...
Taken very early on (it's still light outside!)
Aneela with her hat and 'L' plate :)
The Batman Team (for the scavenger hunt)
The Superman Team
The Spiderman Team (blatantly the best - it had Me & Aneela in it!)
The Hen and her gang, before heading into town on Saturday night. (No more photos from Sat sorry!)
GAUDI
So because the weekend was actually a hen's weekend, we didn't do a huge amount of sightseeing, but we did check out a few spots on sunday. I wanted to look at some Antonio Gaudi architecture - below are a few snaps
Casa Batlló
Park Guëll
The entrance to Park Guëll
First stop was friday afternoon at Gatwick Aiport where we checked in - all 15 of us! I knew that it was gonna be a pretty fun weekend when we were each issued with red glitter cowboy hats - to be worn at all times!
At this point I should digress and tell you about our EasyJet flight! I've watched an episode or two of 'Airport' in my time but had never flown EasyJet before so I was interested to see what it was going to be like... Well it turned out to be memorable to say the least!
The flight was scheduled to take off at 19:10 but we knew were going to be delayed when we only told the gate number at 19:00. (And what’s the deal with delayed flights today??? Excuse the rant, but it seems to be particulary en vogue for airlines today - even the big ones! What's up with that!?!) Anyway we board the plane at about 19:30 and are soon locked, loaded and ready to grab the next available take off slot.
However after waiting a while, the captain comes on and says that the engineer noticed a small 'problem' on his final check which needs to be fixed, and will unfortunately delay us a bit further. Now obviously our group was in a good mood so although the delay was a bit of a pain, we were really too busy chatting away etc to worry about it, unlike some of the other passengers who were pretty vocal in their complaining! Gotta hand it to the English when it comes to whinging ;)
So then at about 20:30 the pilot comes on and says the problem is all fixed now but "unfortunately we have an administrative problem that will soon be sorted out, as you will shortly see!" We were very intrigued by this statement and you can imagine pretty damn surprised to see, half an hour later, two police officers board the plane, march down to the back of the plane and escort two passengers off the plane!!! We'll never know for sure why they were taken off the plane, but some of our girls, sitting in front of them reckon it's because they were swearing. Pretty harsh considering they didnt actually swear at the staff - more at the general situation, just in front of the staff. Anyway high drama, with no less than 4 paddy wagons parked beside the plane!!!
By this time it's about 21:30 and the captain comes on again and says “well now that this people have left the plane, we need to locate and unload their luggage!" This gets done, and it's now about 22:00, more than 2 hours after we were meant to take off!
But wait there's more!
After the luggage is taken off the captain comes on again and tells us that because the engines had been started and shut down twice, we'd used up too much fuel and so need to be refuelled before we could leave for Barcelona! So, we wait, again, and eventually we are all refuelled...
But wait, there's STILL more!
The captain now comes on the air and tells us that because of all the delays we've experienced, the crew have now been working for longer than airline regulations permit and so we need to get a new crew to fly to Barcelona! They did eventually arrive and we did eventually make it to Barcelona, taking off at 23:30, more than 4 hours after the scheduled take off time of 19:10!!!
The 2 hour flight, the 1 hr time difference and the ridiculously long wait at Barcelona airport for taxis, meant that we acutally only got into our apartments at 4am on saturday morning!
But even though we didn’t get much sleep on Friday night, Saturday turned out to be a fabulous day - we did a bit of a scavenger hunt in the morning, lounged on the beach in the afternoon and hit the town on Saturday night! What a great weekend, I'd mention more, but you know what they say - what goes on tour stays on tour! It will suffice to say that a great time was had by all! :)
Here are some photos of the weekend...
Taken very early on (it's still light outside!)
Aneela with her hat and 'L' plate :)
The Batman Team (for the scavenger hunt)
The Superman Team
The Spiderman Team (blatantly the best - it had Me & Aneela in it!)
The Hen and her gang, before heading into town on Saturday night. (No more photos from Sat sorry!)GAUDI
So because the weekend was actually a hen's weekend, we didn't do a huge amount of sightseeing, but we did check out a few spots on sunday. I wanted to look at some Antonio Gaudi architecture - below are a few snaps
Casa Batlló
Park Guëll
The entrance to Park GuëllTo all the girls who organised the weekend, Thank you & fantastic job! And Aneela, I loved being able to share this weekend with you - all the very best for the wedding and married life with Palkesh :)
posted by Nivi at
10:00 pm
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