Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao, cada dia te veo mas guapo

So as you've probably guessed, I'm here! I took the fancy bus, and let me tell you, it was fancy and worth every one of the extra 20 euros. And it had WiFi! So here I am on the fancy bus right before falling asleep during their onboard (onbus?) movie of "Twilight":



My arrival went pretty smoothly, as we were pulling in to the Termibus station I started to have the, "oh man, what am I doing?" feeling again, but I got in a taxi and started talking to the driver, and he was awesome. I told him about what I was doing over here and he was like "9 months, wow, by the end of that I bet you'll be an Athletic fan" and so then we talked about futbol for the rest of the drive. For the record, yes, I AM already "del Athletic", and yes, I do still have a tender spot for the train wreck that is Real Betis too.

Anyway, yesterday evening I took it easy, hung out, wandered around the city a little. My hotel is right on the river and you can find everything from the river so it was nice to be able to get around without a map! I'm couchsurfing with a couple tonight and probably tomorrow, which is going to be soooo nice compared to being alone (although my hotel is pretty sweet!).

Finally: I (re) learned yesterday that my favorite animal is "txakur" in Basque. And everyone was walking them last night!! It was so cute, I was eating a doner kebab on a park bench and this little doggy came up and started munching what I dropped and his child owner runs up and is like "come on, Balto!" cuuuuute.

Also (I guess the dog thing wasn't that final after all), the man at the desk informed me that the internet here goes in & out because sometimes anti-terrorism trucks come by and ruin the signal. whaaaaaaaaaat.