Back to B-Town!

Don’t really need an occasion to visit Barcelona, but we have one: The 50th anniversary of the wedding of Leah’s parents. We went west from the UAE and they came east from Los Angeles …

And it involved one major surprise:

The arrival, as well, of the niece and husband of Leah’s parents, and the four of them are very close and have traveled together before.

This was planned more than six months ago, and the niece and husband — let’s call them Steve and Joan — had to keep from blurting out the surprise for half a year. (Which was tricky, considering they went on a cruise with them a couple of months ago.)

The process involved an elaborate back story, some tongue-biting, some fast verbal footwork after the mention that “oh, we will be on vacation then … but in a metaphorical sense!” And perhaps a fake beard and a dead drop in a Barcelona phone booth.

Steve and Joan flew from SoCal the day before, so they would be on site ahead of time. To case the joint. They stayed Thursday night in the same hotel/converted B&B, but in a different room.

Today, we arrived from Abu Dhabi via Istanbul and Turkish Airways (which is beginning to evoke “Turkish prison” inside my head) and Leah’s parents came in from LAX.

We got to the apartment sooner, and met up with our co-conspirators and mapped our the final execution of the plan, while wondering if Leah’s parents had figured this out and were just humoring us.

So, when we had confirmation their plane had landed, we figured they would be here in an hour, and Steve and Joan went to the roof of the building, here near Sagrada Familia, with an ice bucket and champagne and wine.

Meanwhile, we waited in the apartment. (Multiple bedrooms, three baths, a century old; a wonderful place) We waited for the knock at the door. And waited.

After perhaps an hour, Leah went up to the roof, and Steve said he had been near the railing and was nearly sure he had seen Leah’s father get out of a cab. But that had been 10 minutes ago, and we had no sign of them inside the building. Hmm.

I volunteered to see if they were wandering the street. Perhaps looking at the wrong address. I went out the front door, and there they were, having enormous bowls of ice cream, al fresco, at the shop next door. They were quite content. They had never been given the code to open the main door off the street. So they got ice cream and waited for us to show up. I asked them about their trip (on the new ultra-jumbo A380; they liked the plane), and they finished their mound of ice cream, and meanwhile the co-conspirators waited.

We then went up to the apartment, and Leah showed them around. Please note that Steve and Joan had, by then, moved into the same apartment, and so as not to ruin the surprise at the last minute, all traces of them already in the apartment had been hidden. Including luggage under beds and a big suitcase wrestled upstairs to one of the little bedrooms.

After welcoming her parents, Leah suggested they come to the roof right this minute and see the view! She was supposed to text Steve and Joan to let them know Leah’s parents were on their way up, but she always had one or the other of them near her, and couldn’t text … so the four of us just showed up, on the roof.

They went over to the side and admired the view of the Sagrada Familia Towers, and Steve and Joan sidled from around the corner with an ice bucket and some chilled champagne … and it was a surprise after all. No shouting. Just a hearty, “Surprise!”

Various and sundry declarations of “isn’t this wonderful!” and everyone was quite pleased, and then and there we soaked up about four bottles and all sorts of canapes purchased a few hours earlier. (Peppers stuffed with cheese or tuna; sausages, pistachios …)

Tales were told of the “deep cover” Steve and Joan had been using (each would be at an out-of-town business meeting), and Leah regaled her parents with the 10 instances when she nearly blurted out the secret … and that made for fun telling, too.

We could call it: “The Surprise Anniversary in Barcelona Caper”. It involved that much planning, though without the Chinese acrobat. I think George Clooney should play me. Brad Pitt could play Steve, and I haven’t figured out the rest yet.

So, here we are, and the weather is beautiful, early autumn, highs in the mid 70s and lows around 60, a good time to be out of the heat of the UAE, and we look forward to a great couple of weeks in northern Spain and southern France.