So I´m recapping the last couple of days of been here. Internet has been a bit of an issue but I think from now on I should be okay. Firewalls and my tablet just not connecting to routers seem to have been the the culprit in most cases. My host now has an extra laptop so...here I am! Anway, let us start from the beginning.
Friday July 4th my friend Kenny dropped me off at SFO (I am entrusting my friends to move my car for street sweeping while I´m gone. Here´s hoping there´s no parking tickets when I get back :P). My bag unfortunately didn´t follow Lufthansa´s policy for carry ons so I had to check it in. I had a smaller personal bag with my cameras and I didn´t realize I could have carried my tablet separately onto the plane. Needless to say I was paranoid of the its condition in the checked luggage.
My 11 hour flight to Munich wasn´t bad at all. Lufthansa was one of my better airline experiences. All the flight attendants were friendly and my dinner, breakfast, and snacks were actually pretty good. As far as airline food that is. Munich international is pretty nice and big. In the 2 hour layover there can´t really say I did much. Í found a computer hub with 20 minutes of free internet, but at least 5 of those minutes were me trying to figure out how to type on the keybaord. Letters were in different places and using certain symbols didn´t use Shift. It was a struggle.
Then I was on my way to Bilbao. The two things I was worried about when I got off the plane was ¨I hope my bag is here¨and ¨Hope my tablet isn´t f!!ked up.¨ Waiting for my bag was like.....I thought I was going to think of some witty comparison but I´m coming up blank. It just kind of sucked because I was paranoid. It´s been a few years since I´ve traveled far but I think it´s a concern for travelers in general. Not seeing it on the belt was nervewrecking but I saw this family I remember seeing on both flights go to another baggage claim so I followed. And BAM! There was my bag and I was way too excited. As excited as I was when I got my own gameboy color (<-trust me, I was ecstatic).
After the airport my first night and day in Bilbao were a bit rocky. I was staying at a hostel for the night and new what bus I had to take to get there. I unfortunately wasn´t paying attention and got off at the wrong stop. I got a bit lost and wandered for almost an hour with only a vague idea of where I was going. I was mainly follwing signs towards the Guggenheim since my hostel was near it and I´ve looked at enough maps before my trip to know some of the main streets. It wasn´t too bad because it was a Saturday night and there was plenty of people out and everything was well lighted outside. I walked around the streets near the Guggenheim for a while until I realized that I had passed the hostel several times. I remember them saying on their site that they were directly across from the musem and it didn´t occur to me that they meant across the bridge on the other side of the river. Wonderful. But I finally got there. It was really nice out so I dropped my stuff off and went on a night photography adventure which was pretty amazing.
Getting over jet lag was lame. I coldn´t really sleep that night at the hostel because my body was still on California time. I was up at 4am and was trying to force myself to sleep until 7am. Check out was 11am and I wasn´t meeting my Couchsurfing host until 3. My main bag has bagpack straps and carrying that thing for a few hours was a workout. Having my side sling camera bag and that on my right shoulder has gotten it pretty sore. I don´t have that much stuff in there and I can´t figure out why it´s so god damn heavy. I was waiting for a bus tour when it just started pouring and I had to find cover. I ended up eating lunch at a cafe. I´ve found that I get too nervous when I start to speak Spanish. If there´s one thing I know how to do, it´s order food. I knew what to say but when I went to say anything I stumbled on my words and ended up speaking English. Meh. The waitress was patient with me which was nice and most people I´ve met so far speak a little English. I´m hoping to kind of get over my fear on this trip and get a little better at my Spanish. I just need to start trying more. The rain stopped long enough for me to get to my host, Carlos´ place. Nice guy and has a lot of couchsurfing experience hosting. I settled in and took a freaking nap because I was tired. He took me out around some areas of Bilbao and he knows his city really well. Shared a lot of Basque history and we had a few drinks and really good pintxos (Basque tapas) at a couple of bars. We met up with other Bilbao hosts (they all know each other) and their surfers. It was a nice end to a pretty up and down day.
I finally got a good night´s sleep and I think I´m finally on Spain time. My body is ready. I´m going to do more sightseeing without the burden of my bag. The great thing about this city is that everything is within walking distance and other close by cities are within a close reach with the metro so I´m excited for a new day. After all this walking, which I´m sure I´ll do the rest of my trip, I´m going to halve great calves haha. And Carlos is hosting a dinner party today with friends and other couchsurfers so I´m excited. I´m going to make pancit and I hope it´s as good as my mom´s. I´ll try to update tomorrow.
Also Carlos´laptop keeps red underlining everything I type and I realized it´s because everything is in Spanish. But I´m sure my grammar and spelling is atrocius nonetheless :P
