Day 1 - Munich Airport, Barcelona

The first official day of my vacation started somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, as I got fitful sleep during the 10 hour, 50 minute flight from LAX to Munich, Germany (or München, as it apparently is in German). Lufthansa served a full breakfast and the arrival in Germany (around 1pm local time) was without incident.

Was kind of tripping out on all the German speaking -- I couldn't understand a word of what people were saying. Ended up with a surprise first European country passport stamp when I had to switch gates for my connecting flight to Barcelona

Connected to my BCN-destined plane and an hour y 45 minutes later I had arrived. Ended up doing a taxi from airport to the 1-night hotel, and ended up w/ a whole earful of all things de Catalunya and the general political climate of Spain (all in Spanish) by way of Javier the taxi driver. He meant well and if anything, both him and the front desk guy at the hotel reconfirmed I have a fully functional understanding of Spanish (yes!). Even got complimented on how good my Spanish is!

Got into my room and de-#ratchet-ed myself from all that travel. Ended up walking all the way down Las Ramblas and back, and stopped a Mickey D's on the way back haha. I have to agree with the taxi cab guy -- Barcelona has more than a bit of a Manhattan feel. At least the parts I was walking through, at night. SO many people out, so much going on. And so much commerce, late into the night. People were truly out shopping at 9:45 at night like you never see in the US outside of... Well, NYC. I admit feeling a little homesick off the bat here... Mickey D's was an on-purpose choice for something familiar. Had something called a "CBO". However, I don't ever plan to have a CBO again. At least the fries were the same.

Anyway then the day fully, finally caught up with me and I was dead exhausted. Back to the room to try and get a clean full night's sleep. 

View of the 1st night's hotel (hotel is the lit up portion of building).