Thursday...for Sure!

We are far from fully adjusted to the time difference, but today has approached normalcy as we had only the smallest of travel issues.  The exit from Bilbao was not without a couple of wrong turns and subsequent u-turns, but all-in-all, we found our way to Vitoria-Gastiez in less than an hour, 4 had our hotel pegged to the right street, and the hotel has on site parking to boot!

This hotel carries the Marriott brand in it's sub-heading, and it definitely has the modern, Western feel in the facility.  The underground parking requires the opening of an entry door from the street, but the access is wide enough that there is no problem getting to the parking like 2 and I had in Verona.  I'll post a pic at a later time.  The parking is included in the room fee, unlike the Internet access that runs 12.5 euros a day.  What a rip!  Then again, we are in a Marriott.  (The Bilbao hotel had free Internet, but charge 15 euros a day for parking.)

We found a wine shop just down the street, and the proprietor up-sold us to a 2008 bottle of Rioja red for 25 euros.  It's ok, but probably not quite top-shelf quality.  4 agrees.  We'll experiment with a lower cost bottle tomorrow to compare.  We had bought a cheap bottle of Rioja for under 10 euros yesterday, and it was just fine.  Not sure if the Rioja grape produces as dry of a wine as I prefer.

Housing for the local population is predominately 6-8 story high rises that are located from one side of the city to the other.  Some are older than others, but on our bike ride earlier today, we got out to the outskirts of town, and the newly developed areas are laid out with more green space, but the housing is the same...new 6-8 story buildings.  And there wouldn't seem to be that many cars with each building; certainly not the parking-lots-full that you see at the apartment complexes back in Iowa.  Either there is a huge amount of underground parking (not likely), or people take the bus or the tram (quite likely).

Hope 1 and 1.1 enjoy The Big Apple!  I'll be curious to hear how @srh4 gets along with 1.01 full time for the weekend.

4 and I have both noticed that public places here that play recorded music (bars, cafe's, etc.) most often use American artists.  (Although not a lot of Brad Paisley..!)  And the Spanish TV stations broadcast a lot of US programming with Spanish voice-overs.  BBC Worldwide is one of the few English-speaking channels, and while much of their programming is repeated during the day, the ticker at the bottom of the screen is in current time.

I owe my pal Bill big-time for running cover for me at the office during this trip.  He has a nice weekend get-away on me in his future.  If he can figure out the market successfully, I might spend more time off the grid.

I see where Tiger was able to card a nice little 77 in the PGA golf tourney this AM.  Hmmm.  I think that he has the possibility of never coming back to his old form.  Another 77 tomorrow and he misses the cut, meaning that he doesn't play the weekend.  It used to be that the bookies would offer bets of Tiger versus The Field (all others) in the big tournaments.  I'm not sure if those days will ever return.  I don't lose much sleep over this issue.

And what's with this rioting business in England?  It sounds like there were opportunists who used a smaller controversy to ignite an outbreak of thuggery.  The roll of social media on the Internet in the riots will be looked at to determine if sites like Twitter and Facebook need to be shut down in certain instances.  (Pretty sure that 4000 Days is safe.)

The plan for tomorrow is more of today.  We'll get our ride done in the morning and then spend time exploring Vitoria after lunch.  There's an art museum of some note here, and we'll give 2 some props as we check it out.

Looks like it is time for 4 and I to head out for dinner.  I may jump back on here later.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT