Thursday, July 27, 2006
Part I
I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics, as a participant and not a spectator. That dream ended many years ago but the chance to go to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona came and I jumped at it.
My group of friends had been talking about going to the Olympics for a while. The seeds were planted on a Caribbean cruise that Tony and Shepherd and I went on in 1991 (that’s a whole other entry to come in the blog) when we met a bunch of couples from Spain that happened to be staying across the hall from us. I still spoke some Spanish from my visit in 1988 and fueled by some cocktails conversed a lot with the Spaniards who spoke zero English. We got to know each other fairly well in that difficult environment and came to find out that the women owned some hotels outside Barcelona. Bingo. Uno, dos, tres, viente cervezas later and we had the contact information and were set to go.
I corresponded with Montse over the next few months and found out their city was probably too far from Barcelona for us to stay. But she had friends and this led to that and I ended up booking a room in Malgrat de Mar, about 50 miles outside Barcelona but right on the ocean and a train ride away. Now we just needed tickets.
You may know that I went to Spain and took my final college class necessary to graduate in Madrid. The Director of the George Washington University program I went on became a friend and I talked to her frequently after the trip. She ended up representing a Spanish company in the U.S. and had access to Olympic tickets. I didn’t know what events we would get but now I had a room and tickets and felt pretty good about it.
Getting six guys together to go on a 16 day vacation is not easy. And this was in the days before email. But thanks to a great travel agent in Massillon, we ended up getting our airfare so now we had everything we needed. Geo and Tony would be flying from Columbus, me and Shep from Akron-Canton, Horner from Indianapolis and BG from Rockford, IL. We would all meet in New York City and get on the same plane to London. From there, we just needed to get down to Barcelona in time for whatever we were going to see.
Showtime. Shep and I took off on a stormy day and got into La Guardia much later than we were supposed to. Maybe one of the worst flights ever and compounded with our drinking on the plane and having to get up every 20 minutes to use the bathroom. Flying in, we passed over a plane that had burned to the ground the previous day. That's always comforting.
It appeared as if no one else was going to make it to the airport in time for our flight to London and we barely made it on the plane. They told us that everyone else would miss our flight and we felt lucky to make it. We didn’t have a backup plan; I didn’t even think about the possibility of people not joining up in NYC. So, we had some drinks, grabbed some sleep and figured everything would work itself out.
When we landed, who came running up to us at Heathrow but BG. He had somehow gotten on a flight a half hour before ours and was happy to see us. Geo, Horns and Tony did not make the flight and we had no idea when we would see them. Nevermind, it was time to get into London and get a cheap hotel and do what we do best. Have a cold one.
We may have taken a short nap when we got to our hotel. Who can remember after 14 years? But I remember the rest of the day pretty well. We did end up at a pub and drank some ale and had some fish and chips. Hey, when in London. After our spirits were lifted a few degrees, we went walking to visit some more pubs. On the way, we went into a convenience store and bought a tall boy to drink on the way to our next stop. Because, even in jolly old London, you don’t want to get dehydrated. So we thought it would be fun to sit out on the curb and drink the beer and talk to the people walking by. But everyone was rude to us. We would say hello to everyone, “how are you?”, etc. and everyone scurried by without acknowledging us. Finally, someone told us that we appeared to be street urchins and that people just thought that we were local drunks. Oh. We were just trying something that we couldn’t do back in the States. On our later travels, we would meet some actual street bums and get our photos with them.
The day/night continued in the SoHo District, a happening district. In no special order, we ended up crashing a private party in a bar and Shepherd was thrown down the steps by a bouncer, we found some underground bar and probably should have been killed, met some girls and their mom and bought them some drinks, took a wild cab ride past some of the London sites and visited most of the cool places in SoHo. And we had no idea where the other three guys were and how to get a hold of them. At some point, I drew the short straw and the plan was that I would get up in the morning and go out to the airport and wait for Tony, Geo and Horner. After a day and a night of drinking however, I woke up and that hour ride out to the airport was not happening. So I did the only thing my body would allow and got on the phone to the airport. By some act of God, it eventually was announced over the loudspeaker there that I was looking for the above group and next thing I knew, Geo was on the phone. They had gotten stuck in NYC and ended up sleeping at the airport and couldn’t get out until the next day. I think they went to a Yankees game, I’m not sure but I was glad to tell them where to meet us. I went back to bed and the adventure continued when they knocked on the door, announcing their arrival.
I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics, as a participant and not a spectator. That dream ended many years ago but the chance to go to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona came and I jumped at it.
My group of friends had been talking about going to the Olympics for a while. The seeds were planted on a Caribbean cruise that Tony and Shepherd and I went on in 1991 (that’s a whole other entry to come in the blog) when we met a bunch of couples from Spain that happened to be staying across the hall from us. I still spoke some Spanish from my visit in 1988 and fueled by some cocktails conversed a lot with the Spaniards who spoke zero English. We got to know each other fairly well in that difficult environment and came to find out that the women owned some hotels outside Barcelona. Bingo. Uno, dos, tres, viente cervezas later and we had the contact information and were set to go.
I corresponded with Montse over the next few months and found out their city was probably too far from Barcelona for us to stay. But she had friends and this led to that and I ended up booking a room in Malgrat de Mar, about 50 miles outside Barcelona but right on the ocean and a train ride away. Now we just needed tickets.
You may know that I went to Spain and took my final college class necessary to graduate in Madrid. The Director of the George Washington University program I went on became a friend and I talked to her frequently after the trip. She ended up representing a Spanish company in the U.S. and had access to Olympic tickets. I didn’t know what events we would get but now I had a room and tickets and felt pretty good about it.
Getting six guys together to go on a 16 day vacation is not easy. And this was in the days before email. But thanks to a great travel agent in Massillon, we ended up getting our airfare so now we had everything we needed. Geo and Tony would be flying from Columbus, me and Shep from Akron-Canton, Horner from Indianapolis and BG from Rockford, IL. We would all meet in New York City and get on the same plane to London. From there, we just needed to get down to Barcelona in time for whatever we were going to see.
Showtime. Shep and I took off on a stormy day and got into La Guardia much later than we were supposed to. Maybe one of the worst flights ever and compounded with our drinking on the plane and having to get up every 20 minutes to use the bathroom. Flying in, we passed over a plane that had burned to the ground the previous day. That's always comforting.
It appeared as if no one else was going to make it to the airport in time for our flight to London and we barely made it on the plane. They told us that everyone else would miss our flight and we felt lucky to make it. We didn’t have a backup plan; I didn’t even think about the possibility of people not joining up in NYC. So, we had some drinks, grabbed some sleep and figured everything would work itself out.
When we landed, who came running up to us at Heathrow but BG. He had somehow gotten on a flight a half hour before ours and was happy to see us. Geo, Horns and Tony did not make the flight and we had no idea when we would see them. Nevermind, it was time to get into London and get a cheap hotel and do what we do best. Have a cold one.
We may have taken a short nap when we got to our hotel. Who can remember after 14 years? But I remember the rest of the day pretty well. We did end up at a pub and drank some ale and had some fish and chips. Hey, when in London. After our spirits were lifted a few degrees, we went walking to visit some more pubs. On the way, we went into a convenience store and bought a tall boy to drink on the way to our next stop. Because, even in jolly old London, you don’t want to get dehydrated. So we thought it would be fun to sit out on the curb and drink the beer and talk to the people walking by. But everyone was rude to us. We would say hello to everyone, “how are you?”, etc. and everyone scurried by without acknowledging us. Finally, someone told us that we appeared to be street urchins and that people just thought that we were local drunks. Oh. We were just trying something that we couldn’t do back in the States. On our later travels, we would meet some actual street bums and get our photos with them.
The day/night continued in the SoHo District, a happening district. In no special order, we ended up crashing a private party in a bar and Shepherd was thrown down the steps by a bouncer, we found some underground bar and probably should have been killed, met some girls and their mom and bought them some drinks, took a wild cab ride past some of the London sites and visited most of the cool places in SoHo. And we had no idea where the other three guys were and how to get a hold of them. At some point, I drew the short straw and the plan was that I would get up in the morning and go out to the airport and wait for Tony, Geo and Horner. After a day and a night of drinking however, I woke up and that hour ride out to the airport was not happening. So I did the only thing my body would allow and got on the phone to the airport. By some act of God, it eventually was announced over the loudspeaker there that I was looking for the above group and next thing I knew, Geo was on the phone. They had gotten stuck in NYC and ended up sleeping at the airport and couldn’t get out until the next day. I think they went to a Yankees game, I’m not sure but I was glad to tell them where to meet us. I went back to bed and the adventure continued when they knocked on the door, announcing their arrival.
