Vamos!

I am happy to report that I managed to leave Frankfurt in time for Spain and arrived as planned. Needless to say I brought too much stuff with me (20.9 kg plus the backpack at check-in) but that's just the way it is, I might as well accept it ...

Anyway - let's start at the beginning. I kinda slept like 3 hours as I woke up at 5 and was totally awake. Having not prepared anything for the trip, I thought it a good idea to actually get out of bed and start packing. So I spent the next 4 hours more or less packing, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, playing with Arnie-The-Robot, basically a very efficient way of spending my last couple of hours before leaving my place for 3 weeks.

Alba took me to the airport - Thanks a million - I know who is getting some pintxos sponsored by Gaborno in San Sebastian once we are there!

Anyway - the flight to Madrid was pretty lame - nothing special happened - arrived in Madrid on time. Madrid Airport is VERY STYLISH. And the people!!! They are sooooo cool! I tend to forget that people can be quite stylish and fashionable after living in Germany for so long. Which is actually cool because I don't expect this any more and every time my eyes basically fall out when I travel abroad. And the funny thing was not only that I didn't know where to look because of so many cool people around, but I heard Maria all around the place. I don't know why Maria (maybe because most of my other spanish friends don't speak so much spanish when I am around?) but I had the feeling she was everywhere :-)

The flight to Bilbao was crazy. Turbulences all the time. I was dying. People were actually screaming at every drop. This time it paid off that Iberia is one of the bastard airlines not giving out any food for free, so there was no food & drinks flying around on board. After an hour of misery we arrived in Bilbao and it was raining!!!! And cold!!!! I could not believe that I left warm Germany for cold rainy Spain!!!! I felt a bit better after a couple of SMS-s from Frankfurt telling me that the weather turned bad there also (evil me - bru - ha - ha - ha).

There is a pretty good bus connection from Bilbao airport to the city. When you leave the terminal, just go down to the street straight away, turn right and there is a bus-a-stoppe in sight to the right (about 30 meters I would say). The bus leaves every 30 minutes and it costs €1.20. Needless to say I just missed it by 2 minutes so I waited for the next one patiently. It was raining after all, so no hurry...

The rain stopped once we got to the city. If you want to see the Guggenheim Museum from the bus, sit on the right side. The bus is crossing the big bridge next to the Museum. You can get off the bus at "Moyua" and you are in the middle of the city. I took the metro from here to the old town (Casco Viejo) because I was lazy and didn't feel like dragging my luggage all the way and after getting out of the metro I looked for the place I reserved, which was a story on its own...


I found this place in the Lonely Planet and it looked totally central and by far the cheapest. They have also a nice website (by the way, it is so funny how all the spanish places I checked on the internet use the .com ending and not the .es) - anyway I was very surprised when I called them to make a reservation (according to the website this is only possible via phone) and the following happened:

Man: Si?
Me: Hola, do you speak English?
Man: No Ingles or something similar
Me: Hmmm - I would like to reserve a room
Man: I just said I don't speak English - or something similar in spanish of course (this is purely hypothetical - did I mention I didn't speak spanish?)
Me: OK

This "conversation" took place about once per hour on Thursday as I hoped to get someone else on the phone - I was pretty sure that he would have to go to the toilet, shopping, whatever. No. there was no chance of getting anybody else. In the end I gave up and thought, I would just go there when I am in Bilbao. On Thursday evening at Albas I told her this story and wanted to show her that there was no chance and dialled the number - actually this time he said "Momentino" and called someone who could speak English. So I had my reservation (or so I thought).

So I arrive at the place, which was actually easy to find and ring the bell. Guess what - I am greated by that famous Si?-voice!!! I am about to meet the guy I had so much pleasure talking to! Of course I say in my best Spanish (basically in English) that I have a Reservacion (notice the c in the middle!) under Gabor and he asks me in. As I went for the cheaper option, I had to climb 4 floors to be greated by a nice old lady, who - surprise - did not speak any other language than Spanish. It was so funny - I went in and spent the next 10 minutes looking at a desperate couple from Germany trying to explain to her that they leave so early the next day that they had to leave the key somewhere for her to find. It was actually very funny - they used the back pages of the Lonely planet with the emergency dictionary and were successful in the end.

Then came my turn. Of course they did not find my reservation first and I got a bit scared they would turn me away. But then they did and were very puzzled that I was alone and my reservation was for a double room (they didn't have a single room any more so I went for a double room which was 5 Euros more expensive). This caused quite some confusion and she asked me a million questions - I didn't understand any of them of course. In the end she gave me a room for 3 people and I paid for a room for one. Of course I didn't object :-)

After checking in at the hotel I went around the city for the next couple of hours - bumped into a theatre show for little kids and later the Guggenheim Museum, enjoyed some of the rain and went to a local food chain selling bocadillos. Oh, and almost forgot to mention the two girls I saw vomiting into a small river (?) near the old town and then going back for more alcoholic drinks. What an experience!!!

Oh, almost forgot! I learned my first spanish sentence! Thanks, Mediamarkt!