We have arrived in Bilbao, Spain. It took us 24 hours, door to door and we are pretty tired.

Customs and immigration in Madrid was fully automated, but still a bit challenging. Those machines never can read my old fingerprints and I had to try multiple times, but finally it worked.

I enjoyed watching this guy in a “deli” slicing the jamon iberico during our long layover in the Madrid airport:

The flight from there to Bilbao was just one hour and we took a short taxi ride to our new digs in the “old town” area. The place is not perfect but it will do for 5 nights.

First goal was to go to a grocery store to get some essentials–for me, yogurt and fruit and for Ken cereal and lactose free milk. It took us forever looking for the milk because we didn’t realize the supermarket had a second floor but mission accomplished.

I have no idea what this church is that we walked by on the way, but I loved the dappled light on the exterior and grabbed a quick shot:

Dinner: We found a very nearby place called Rio-Oja in the “book” by the apartment owner and headed there. I really wanted some hot food and we had a lovely meal. Here are the croquettes–ham and spinach. Very different from the Cuban kind, they were filled with, what seemed like, a bechamel sauce; we ordered them in honor of Mavis and Juna:

We also had a couple of glasses of “hit the spot” fruity red Rioja wine, small red peppers filled with meat and some mussels in a smoky, spicy tomato sauce.

Our goal, to stay up until 9:00 local time, accomplished, and we fell into our comfy bed. Our brain function is pretty slow this morning as evidenced by the writing, but our excitement for our first day is full tilt.