Wednesday...I think

OK.  So we are ensconsed in our hotel in Bilbao.

Let's get this settled up front.  4 is Daughter of the Day.  And likely so for the next several days!

The trip over was certainly an adventure.  Makes you wonder why you do months of planning only to have the airlines make it like a new deal when you show up for takeoff.  I had received probably four revisions to my itenerary by email notification from the time that I made the original reservations in early Spring.  And I had checked just last week to make sure that we were copying the right one for our travel files.  I had received a short courtesy notice last weekend to remind me of the trip.

When I tried to check-in online on Sunday, I wasn't allowed to do so, and I figured that it was because of international travel.  On Monday at airport check-in, the kiosk wouldn't work for me, and a decent agent in the Priority Club line saw that a revised departure time for out homebound flight to Moline next week from Detroit was before our arrival from Paris.  So she had to rebook that leg before we could even get boarding passes for the departure from Moline.

I'm not going to bore you with the details from the stop-and-go aspects of finally getting here to Bilbao.  It just wasn't a lot of fun.  The seats in the trans-Atlantic flight were very tight for me.  Sardine-ish.  We were in the middle section that had three seats toward the rear of the plane (with there being two seats each on the other side of the aisles that bordered our middle section).  French crew.  I don't think that either of us slept much, if at all, on any of the flights.

We missed our Paris connection to Bilbao by 10-15 minutes.  Which gave us an extra four hours to contemplate life in the distant terminal that Air France used to service regional destinations.  It would have been highly unlikely if our bags would have caught up with us for that flight.

We coud tell from the air as we were approaching the airport that Bilbao is hilly.  Temperate climate.  Plenty of trees and green grass.  The streets are European-narrow and the lay-out is hardly straight.  We were really lost last night trying to get back to the hotel from an evening excursion.  It seems a little easier in the daylight today.

We are driving a little Hyundai four-door wagon from Hertz that is serviceable.  The rental process was very easy.  The hotel is fairly modern,  and our room is fine.  We both slept hard last night when we finally hit the hay.

We are seven hours ahead of Central Time.  That's nine for you folks on the Left Coast!

The Guggenheim was interesting.  Actually, the building itself is probably the most intriguing thing to me.  They had some very modern exhibits going that stretch the term "art".  I liked the two Pollack's that were in the abstract galleries the best.  I'm going to try and post a couple pics here that we took at the museum before I sign off.

The plan from here is to go pick up our bikes, do dinner, and find some wine!  We check-out  in the AM and head South for about an hour to the town of Vitoria for four nights.

We're dong fine in Espana.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT...in the New World.