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Then she came back and took us half way down the rest of the tube and showed me a bus through the window. I was to see that her flight boarded THAT bus and not the one still at the bottom of the tube. So off we went.
I had to negotiate with the first bus driver who was absolutely determined that we would get on his bus. I thought he was going to pull a gun on us to get us aboard. But I managed to convince him that we were departures and his people were arrivals and he looked very worried and flapped his hands about as though trying to stop us from getting on his bus (which we hadn't been trying to do).

The taxi driver from Barcelona airport had never heard of our hotel. He had to study the piece of paper with the address on, then consult his street guide (for which he had to put on his reading glasses), then he radioed base, then eventually he rang the hotel on his mobile phone and asked them where they were. And all this while whizzing through the streets of Barcelona.
We had similar problems the whole week. We asked the hotel for a map, which they produced. Could they point out to us where the hotel was? Yes, certainly, it's about here - pointing at mid-air 2 inches to the right of the map. We got to the conference and got a map from there. Could they show us on the map where the conference was - yes, it's about here - pointing at mid-air 2 inches to the left of the map.
It seems to me that quite a bit of Spain (Catelonia, anyway) is completely uncharted. Anyway, it was all very nice and very cheap. The conference was good on the whole.
We saw quite a bit of Barcelona on Saturday - Tricky forced us to go on a route march and we walked for about 12 hours. My feet are just recovering.
In the end we got back and so did my luggage.
When we arrived in Barcelona, my suitcase came bumping round the carousel with a massive rip in the side. I thought for one awful moment that all my clothes would have fallen out but luckily the lining had remained intact. I got it checked and filled in the forms and so on but then didn't give it another thought until I realised that I would have to use it for going back again and it would be asking for trouble to have its side flapping open.
By the time I'd thought all this out, it was Sunday morning and most of the shops were shut (we were staying in quite an out of the way place). I tried, using mime and semaphore, to get the hotel staff to tell me the words for string and Selotape. Then I went to the nearby garage and tried to buy some ("One Dutch flag and a small Christmas tree please"). No luck. I found some elastoplast in the end and someone gave me half a ball of garden twine.
When I got back I bought another suitcase, which British Airways wrecked on its first outing (to Grenoble for a research meeting) but that's another story.