Big oops on the horizon. . .

. . .but more on that in a moment. Today was exploring Bilbao. The hostel is just out of town on the western edge, I think. I´m not really sure because the street doesn´t show up on the map city map supplied by the info desk at the hostel which isn´t exactly a hostel. I´m staying in my first pension which is basically a really inexpensive motel room. It´s about on par with a Motel 6. It´s more than a hostel but that´s because I opted for a single private room rather than the mixed dorm situation that I avoid after my experience in London. But, alas, no breakfast included *sigh* I´d gotten kind of used to that little continental meal. Today I was on my own for desayuno and decided I was going to try to find a real restaurant and maybe get as close to an American cardio vascular delight as I could find. Lots of places with Bar in their name were open at 8 AM. I peered in to some of them but they only seemed to be serving croissants and wee small cups of coffee/expresso. After a while, I was even hoping to spot some golden arches. I´ve been seeing a very specific ad for that place ever since Biarritz-a small billboard with a freckled face lass smiling out and there are the arches quietly placed in the upper corner. That´s it. That´s the entire campaign. I have yet to see an actual McD´s since I first saw the billboard. Probable better off. Anyway, I didn´t find my pseudo-American breakfast but ducked into a little cafe/bar place across from the museum I was going to go to once it opened. I had half an hour. I order what I thought was just a plain croissant (I say 'ordered' but I usually just point at something and say 'Uno, por favor'). Turned out is was a funny little sandwich. Ham, with a slice of hardboiled egg and what I think was a bit of tuna on top of the egg. That and a cup of hot tea was just perfect to sit with and watch the rain. Before the museum opened, though more folks started crowding in so I thought I´d best leave and make room for other paying customers. I would up skipping the museum and spent the next bit trying to track down the free walking tour people. I had the phone number but only about 1 in four public phones work. I would up taking my own version of a walking tour just looking for a phone. I finally found one and it turns out that the tours are still happening except only in Spanish or Basque (remember how the signs in Wales are in Welsh and English? Everything here is in Spanish and Basque). So I just continued exploring on my own never knowing exactly what I was looking at. Tomorrow, I'm going back to the museum I skipped today and will also visit the branch of the Guggenheim that´s here. I probably won´t know what I´m looking at there either even if it´s in English!

OK, now the Oops! I´ve been looking over what´s coming up on my itinerary and all through Spain and Portugal, I´m only hitting the big cities. I don't really like the big cities and wanted to see something of the smaller places so I did some rerouting. Checking to see what hostels are in what towns and seeing what trains might get me there. I was cross referencing this internet site with this guide book and seeing if that info matched the map that came with the railpass and somewhere in all an Oops! occurred. Instead of going from here (Bilbao) to Madrid and staying there for 3 days, I booked three different hostels along the train route to Lisbon. Turns out I need reservations on the train for each leg of that route AND they're already booked! Between my museum tours tomorrow, I´m going to go to the train station to see if I can Spanlish my way through my alternatives. Either way, the adventrue will begin on Saturday.

Hasta la bye-bye for now.