13 hours of travel!  RDU to JFK to Barcelona.  The flight to JFK was unremarkable, just a quick jump up to New York.  Upon arriving in New York, we settled in the Delta Crowne Room and waited for 3 hours for the flight to barcelona.  At the gate, a large crowd of people bustled around, until the captain got on the gate PA system declaring that the plane was ¨broken¨and that a new one from the hangar was on the way.  But whatever, we´re in no hurry.  An hour later, we´re on the plane, boarded, ready to go.  We were number 14 in line to take off, which took us about 40 minutes of waiting on the runway.  Behold, off to Spain!  On the runway, we´re accelerating faster and faster, until about 70 % of takeoff speed, until wait! slam on the brakes!  aborted takeoff!!

An indicator light on the cargo door came on, and the pilot had to make the call to abort the takeoff to ensure that all of our luggage wouldn´t spew out, and to make sure that the brakes and doors were okay.

I´ll cut the drama and tell you that everything was okay, we´re here, right?  However, in the drama, the JFK fire crew had to come inspect the plane on the runway to make sure the brakes weren´t on fire.  We were greeted by a half a dozen police cars, three giant yellow armored-looking firetrucks, and some other emergency vehicles.  Then of course, we had to go back to the gate, get everything inspected, do ´paperwork´, and get in the air.  Total time on the plane from JFK to Barcelona was about 11 hours.

Anyway, we get to Barcelona - it´s about 70 degrees here.  A 30 minute bus ride to the Plaza de Cataluna, and a 15 minute subway ride, and we´re at our hostel.  We scored a private double bed with a private shower.  By shower, I mean a 2-square foot x 7ft tall tube.  It´s awesome.  It looks clean and quiet. 

Gotta go, time is running out on my internet connection. Adios.