Barcelona & Madrid trip report
Our trip to Spain at the end of May was great. We flew to Madrid for Sunday and Monday and then we went on to Barcelona for the rest of the week. Well in Madrid we walked around a lot and tried tapas and various restaurants.
On Saturday we had a bit of a scare when our flight from DC to NYC was delayed by 2 hours because of runway work at JFK. Initially Delta online offered an option flying via some other cities that would take much longer, however as we thought about it and tried to talk to an agent that option went away. The agent seemed unprepared to help and told us that she could get us on a flight the next day. We went to the side and began to try to figure out other options. We were flying on an AirFrance ticket on Delta so I decided to call AirFrance, but well waiting on hold Delta emailed us new flights.
Here I was VERY happy with whomever rerouted us, I don't know if it was Delta or AirFrance. They kept us on our delayed flight and sent us to Lisbon, then on to Madrid on Iberia. That surprised me because Iberia is a OneWorld airline not SkyTeam like Delta and AirFrance. (Not to mention Iberia's partner BA had a major meltdown at that time.) We arrived at 4 PM instead of 9:30 AM but got there on the original day which is much appreciated especially on a busy Memorial Day weekend.
Once in Madrid our favorite place for tapas ended up being Sidrería El Tigre because they were "free," simple, and bountiful. Basically you buy a beer for 2.5€ and you get a giant plate with fried potatoes, some of the traditional potato and egg pancakes and bread with cheese or ham. If you ordered more drinks you would get more food but one round was enough for us. We also had a nice meal of the day for lunch at a local place with wine and some nice entries.
On Monday we did a "free" walking tour around Madrid with one of the smaller companies and had a good tour with a group of six people. I always feel fortunate to be an english speaker when you see people from other countries, in this case Austria and Poland, and they end up doing tours in english. We are almost always guaranteed to find a tour in our language wherever we go.
Scheduling of dialysis for this trip was the usual rush and tossing the dart at the map to try to figure what was the best center. For the late May trip I reached out to the Davita travel coordinator on April 12th. She worked to schedule me at the center I choose, or another alternatie suggested by me. We got all the requested lab work done right at the end of April and knew that I'd receive treatment at the Fresenius center CENTRO DE DIÁLISIS BARCELONA - DIAGONAL.
As it seems to happen too often, two weeks before my departure I receive a voice mail from Spain asking me to call. They didn't leave a number but luckily the number on the caller ID worked. Using some free international calling I have via the FreedomPop phone service I returned the call and was asked to provide my email address because they need more recent lab work. So two weeks out I'm told that the lab work from the last week of April doesn't work it has to be within 30 days of the treatment. Also they now want the MRSA test which is always a bit hard to get. So then the mad rush begins to get lab orders from my nephrologist (who I can not call, only see in the dialysis center randomly), and get lab work filled. So long story short I have the lab work done and sent on four days before we leave, and I finally receive my dialysis shift times.
Up to that point (four days before we leave) I've not booked flights from Madrid to Barcelona because I didn't know when my dialysis shift was on Tuesday (the day to fly from Madrid) and on Saturday (day to return to Madrid). We have our international flight to Madrid and all hotels expect the final night. I expect we will spend the last night in Madrid but don't know until i have my dialysis shifts.
With my sifts in hand I'm was now albe to book a not so early 9:30 am flight on Vueling to Barcelona. It seems most in Spain flights were using the low cost structure requiring paying for baggage. One advantage of booking so late and paying abit more is it included checked bags and seat selection.
The timing looked be tight to get to dialysis at Noon but it should work. We planned on taking the airport bus and a local bus to get to our B&B and then I might need to take a cab to rush to dialysis.
As expected when in a rush our flight late but only by about 30 minutes or so. Given the short time I decided we should take a cab to the B&B, except on exiting we she signs about a taxi strike. It turns out that that day the entire country's taxi system was striking to protest ridesharing like Uber.
So off we went to the the huge line at the Airport bus stop. Here they were setup quite well. The busses were arriving, filling, leaving and then the next bus showed up. There was no pause between busses so they were moving people quite well. I emailed the Barcelona dialysis coordinator to let her know I'd be about an hour late, and she even responded saying thats fine. Soon we were on our way to the B&B, did the bus transfer and then arrived at the B&B.
At that point I escorted Susan up to the checkin and headed out to Diagonal road for the bus ride to dialysis. Its always a bit hard to pick a center, the center I picked was on Diagonal Road but about 40 or so minutes down it. Looking back there may have been another center closer. But at least this one has some reviews and seemed to deal with transient patients.
Once I arrived all was good. I paid my 900€, signed some paperwork and got hooked up. The nurse Christine was nice and a good english speaker. Its always good to encounter a good quality english speaker so you don't need to just go by trust that they know what they are doing. Additionally when traveling my weight is always low as I skip meals and don't drink as much as I do when I'm at work. She looked at my fistula and didn't like how we always put the need in around my large aneurysm, if I was going to stay longer she would have started working a new area of the vien.
The clinic layout was medical beds, with more moderen fresenius machines. After I was hooked up I had a good sleep. Treatment was un eventful and afterwards Christine told me to ask next time if I'd like coffee and biscuits. Its always nice to get a snack at dialysis but that first I was wiped out from getting to Barcelona and just needed a break. She also came with the WiFi information after I was hooked up but I'd seen the signs when I arrived and was already hooked up.
The Thursday and Saturday treatments went well and I enjoyed the coffee and biscuits. On Thursday Christine checked with other nurses and arranged for me to come in first shift at 7:15 am so I would not be rushed for our flight back to Madrid. Getting to that shift was intersting because when I left at 6 am lots of people were walking home on the street from the clubs and then down by the dialysis center was the beach with a music festival so huge number of people were departing the area as I arrived to dialysis. Obviously the music festival wrapped up at sunrise.
Barcelona was nice with very appealing architecture throughout. The Goudi architecture is cool but the entire city has very nice low-rise historic buildings. It was a bit hard to figure out what to eat at dinner because when we were out and about locals were only drinking beer.
Of Friday we did an excursion by train an hour out to Montserrat, Spain which is a picturesque rocky mountain with a monastery up near the top. You take a cable car up to the monastery and then can take funiculars up and down the mouton to various hikes. The Montserrat monastery has the famous black madona and baby, luckily were got in line just in time to get in the door before it closed for a few hours at 10:30 am. It was an enjoyable afternoon hiking around and picnicking with our ham, cheese and bread. This excursion was a highlight of the trip and is highly recommended.
Saturday after my final dialysis session we had lunch and then headed back to Madrid where we overnighted at the Airport Marriott using a voucher from the Marriott hotel. That was a very good use of the voucher, which was nice since its hard to find 1-5 level Marriott hotels in the US. As Marriott gold we were upgraded to the executive floor so we had evening snacks and breakfast in the lounge. On Sunday the flight home was un eventful, which was nice as we worried about additional JFK delays.