beset by travel woes

i´ll get to the travel woes later, but i thought it worthwhile to update on my trip since san sebastian. thursday we took a bus to bilbao, which for us held a) an airport, b) a Guggenheim, and c) some local spanish kids who were friends of keith´s parisian roommate. we stayed in the old town, again in a pension, and spent the afternoon wandering around. on top of parque exteberria, we watched a gang of old men play a peculiar game of ¨bolistico¨which has similarities to bowling. then thursday night we took the metro out of town toward the coast to meet up with hasier and tamara, as well as their friends aiynara and benni. keith was limited to english, but conversed with aiynara and hasier, and i spoke with tamara, mostly in spanish. they were really nice and made sure we had a good time. then for friday they suggested meeting up for lunch, which we did, and they took us to get the ¨best sandwiches in town¨to be eaten in a nearby park. again, going out of their way to show us a good time. after hanging out a little more, we said a somewhat sad goodbye and headed for the Guggenheim. if you have no idea what Bilbao´s guggenheim looks like, look here. very modern, and incredible from inside.

friday night we caught a late night flight to Barcelona, though it was delayed and with bus trip and all, we didnt sleep until 330. saturday morning we met up with keith´s friend chris who randomly hopped on a plane from L.A. and met us here. we spent the day mostly outside, going up a nearby mountain and lunching in Park Guell. keith was really into Gaudi, and his interest was rather contagious. so sunday, after a visit to the Miro museum and a paella lunch, we visited Casa Mila which had a great exhibit on his work, and the house itself. then last night, we took in a soccer match, my first in Europe, first professional match anywhere--barça/bilbao. bilbao was pretty bad, but it was nice to see the home team win. the city has been packed with brits this weekend, so i think there were not too few soccer hooligans at the game.

as for travel woes, this morning i missed my flight to lisbon and i´ve rescheduled for tonight at 7. nowhere did they mention what time check-in closed, not to mention they moved the flight time up 5 minutes. i was pretty upset, and after some difficult communication with the Clickair office by phone, got a seat aboard tonight´s flight. word to the wise, don´t fly Clickair. so i´ll be staying in lisbon with the portuguese assistant from school, an experience i hope will give me some local flavor. then it´s back to paris friday, which i´m excited for. it´ll be nice to stay put for a while as well as to focus my time on getting to know that inexhaustible city. and of course people i know and look forward to seeing.

i hope you´re all well, in your various corners of the world. hasta luego from Barcelona, soon to be Lisbon!