On the move again

A leisurely pack and checkout, and we were off to the airport. We got there with plenty of time to spare so Brian decided this was a good opportunity to look for a replacement camera. While so many people are happy to use their phones for taking holiday snaps Brian isn't. There is insufficient control over the camera settings and, more importantly, it is very hard to see the screen in bright sunlight.

Barcelona Terminal 1 is huge and very modern, and once we'd passed through all the immigration and security checks we were confronted with a large array of shops selling all sorts of luxury goods. In that regard it was similar to any number of large international airports. Up till now we hadn't spotted any camera stores, but surely this would be the place to get a camera - or so we thought.

After walking for what seemed like many kilometres in the departures hall all we were able to spot were two smallish shops, both part of the same group, which had a handful of camera models for sale, but were mostly concentrating on other electronic devices. In fact they had a total of five camera models in stock, all of them from Canon. So, without any chance for product or price research we bought a Canon. When we commented to the salesperson that there was such a poor selection of models his comment was that this was the first camera he'd sold there in over a year. Amazing! Unfortunately, as we were flying within the European Union we couldn't even claim the gst.

The Vuelling flight was uneventful, though typically for a bare-bones airline they even slugged us for a bit of warmish orange juice. On arrival, after lining up with lots of other people in the wet weather for our hotel's courtesy bus it finally arrived, though it required about an hour's wait. (Every other hotel's buses seem to have been and gone a couple of times during our wait).

The 17 story hotel turned out to be extremely busy, but our room was generously large and very comfortable. It's one of those ultra-trendy ultra-chic places where everything is brilliant except for the lighting which puts important areas such as the wardrobe in almost complete darkness. We had a late night beautiful overpriced ($27) hamburger each, unpacked then hit the sack. At this stage all we'd seen of Amsterdam was rain and darkness, so we were looking forward to exploring the city the next day.Read more