Cruise Day 20 - Barcelona

Day 79 Friday 5 December - “Cruise Day 20 – Barcelona”

The Jade docked at 5 am and we didn't even notice. It had been suggested that we vacate the ship as they went through the process of sterilising the cabins and public areas. So we stepped ashore to have another look at Barcelona – there's a stiff breeze and the temperature hasn't made it to double figures.
We s
trolled up La Rambla which was much more subdued at 9:30 on a Friday and had a proper look at the Market. There is an amazing variety of produce available and it all looks extremely fresh and apparently inexpensive. Many of the items being sold are unrecognisable, one looked like the skinned head of a lamb or goat, what you would do with it I have no idea. Much of the fresh fish also defies my ability to recognise. It appears that just about anything you can drag out of the sea is for sale.

We'd picked up some post-cards and wanted to mail them. So we had to find the Post Office. After asking three different people we finished up in a bank which was almost next to the Post Office. From the outside it is indistinguishable from a bank and inside it is strictly postal business and money transfers only. I didn't even see postage packaging or pre-paid envelopes. You take a number from a machine and hope you make the correct choice. Then you sit and wait until your number comes up above one of the tellers, quite civilised once you get the hang of it.

Found a McDonald’s and bought a small packet of fries so that we could use the toilets. This one has three floors with quite a few tables occupied by people using the WiFi Internet. Wandered back to the dock-side and used the Port-Bus to get back to the ship. The only queue we had to line up for was the security scan. It felt pretty good to know where we were going when the majority of the people were obviously somewhat confused.

We were 'welcomed' aboard again, had some lunch and retired to the cabin to read and snooze and keep out of the way of all the new passengers. Looks like there's a lot of German and Dutch people on board. There's also a significant number of Americans. One advantage of being in the same cabin again is that we didn't have to attend the 'boat drill'.

Figured we could do without the welcome show tonight so we were back in 5574 by about 7 pm. We cast off about 7:30 pm heading for Casablanca, 720 nautical miles away, where we are due to arrive at 8 am the day after tomorrow. As we're heading East, our clocks are to be put back an hour. That means adjusting time on my watch, the camera and the computer. We've done that so often it is becoming quite routine.