Sunday, June 22, 2008

the belated arrival and $9 sandwiches


Bilbao, Spain --
Wow, today has been a fiasco.  After missing our Paris to Bilbao flight b/c the booking hadn´t allowed us enough time to transfer planes, we were switched to the next plane to Bilbao (which would come in 4 more hours) and were supposed to be awarded with food vouchers to make up for the mistake of the airlines, so that we might be spared the ungodly cost of noshing at the airport du Paris, where the bad US dollar exchange rate combined with outrageous airport prices made for a meal most dear (dear as in caro, not dear as in querido).  We when realized that we hadn´t been given the promised vouchers, we went back to the Air France ticket desk, and from there were sent to the Delta ticket desk because supposedly since it was Delta´s fault, only they could award them.  Delta sent us back to Air France, etc. etc. long story short, I ended up spending the equivalent of 9 US dollars on a very small sandwich.
That would not have been a big deal, except for that we were carrying fairly heavy daypacks, it was about 80 degrees (F) with 80% humidity in the airport (which later enabled my body´s production of ¨eau du dirty European,¨ that olfactory experience we all know and love), we felt like walking zombies, and had the sneaking suspicion that non of these people knew what they were talking about and just wanted to get rid of us.
Anyway, we´re in the hostel Don Claudio in what might be considered the Garden City quarter of Bilbao.  Even Mireya, who picked us up at the airport, didn´t know where it was and had to look it up on GPS to take us there.  I have internet, though, that tenuous lifeline through which I have always been able to ward off all homesickness.

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