25/09/2024
We are in Spain and living the Dream!
The flights over, however, were tedious: Reno to Seattle; Seattle to Frankfurt; and then Frankfurt to Bilbao.
Seeing the volcanoes up the Cascades was neat. No more free local beer/wine on Alaska Airlines though :(
We took Condor to Frankfurt… meh. It’s affiliated with Lufthansa but a step down. Food was blah. No free drinks. But we got our tickets last-minute so we were just happy to cross the Atlantic.
Frankfurt airport… what a dump! Friends say you have to watch your pretzel (if you get one) or the rats will get it! However, Customs-wise it was still way better than Lisbon last year: in Lisboa they had 2 agents for almost 1000 people. We missed our flight out. Frankfurt, with impeccable teutonic efficiency had 6 agents for just our planeload, and the EU passengers had their own automated lines. Took 5 minutes…
We took a smaller Lufthansa plane to Bilbao, but one of our bags was lost somewhere between Nevada and Spain… Cheryl’s largest one . After fumbling around on the Uber app, we finally arrived in Castro Urdiales… our new hometown.
Our AirBnB is a small one bedroom, right next to a sea cave with a tiny beach called El Pedregal. At night we can hear the waves crashing through it. The washer isn’t working, so our laundry is piling up, but that’s pretty much the end of the not-so-good-news.
Castro Urdiales is gorgeous. There are two main beaches bisected by a working small-boat fishing harbor, commanded by a 12th century castle topped with a more modern lighthouse, and a 13th century cathedral and medieval bridge. Roman ruins have been excavated in the Casco Viejo (old town) and prehistoric cave drawings abound in the surrounding hills.
Bars & restaurants abound- making eating out a fun and affordable experience. Pintxos (“peen-chos”),the Basque version of tapas, are offered almost everywhere and the variety is amazing. Seafood abounds but other meats and vegetables are also available as well. Depending on which Pintxo you order, it may be $1-3 and then you order a drink. They don’t tolerate bad wine here, and the average price for a glass seems to be $1.80 while a medium draft beer is about $2.
Fresh bakeries also are numerous. You can’t blink without seeing someone headed home with a baguette or two tucked under their arm. You’ll pay $1-2 for a loaf but the supermarkets have them for as low as .55…
For some reason hair salons are almost as numerous as bars. Maybe because of the short working hours here…
Remember how your Spanish teachers told you about the olden days of Spain? When people would stop work after lunch, head home for a snooze, and then re-open in the evening? Well welcome to the 21st Century and the Siesta is still going strong here!
Almost everything closes up about 2pm or so. The restaurants lock up, not that they’ve been open very long anyway. The phone store we visited to get Spanish cell service hustled us out after we were done at 1pm today and closed up. The yarn store etc. Everyone heads home and people don’t start getting back to business-mode until 4pm or later. The bars and restaurants really don’t get fully ramped back up until 8pm though some open as early as 7pm. Then it seems everyone is out strolling the alleys, the promenade, and the squares, some in their Sunday Best, some in shorts and striped Basque shirts. Whole families, elderly couples, young people in interesting fashions- everyone is either walking the town or working back at their phone store or restaurant enticing the promenaders inside their businesses. It is a great time- spending $4 on a couple of drinks on a waterside or alleyway bar and watching the endless parade of people (and their dogs) go by.
There is a Mexican place in town and we met the owner the other day. It opens at 8pm and we’d like to try it. But we have been hungry and impatient and have culled the area at 7pm and settled for whatever is open instead of waiting until 8. We will get over the early-dining-syndrome, I assure you, but it will take some time.
If you happen to want to eat out during Siesta, your choices are McDonalds, Burger King or an assortment of Doner Kabob places sprinkled around town. Nothing else stays open. Don’t get me wrong- we are totally enjoying the fare here, but we are still working on the timing…
We lucked into a great apartment to rent. That has been our biggest worry- that we’d be stuck in an AirBnB for an extended period of time. Plus to move on in Spanish Visa Permanency World we need to have a rental contract within 30 days of arrival. When we scouted out CU in the Spring, we met up with a couple of expat American couples who gave us advice on the move, the area, and countless details of life here in Spain. Deb and Michael own a 2br/2ba flat in the exact heart of town. It’s full furnished, comfortable and homey but they are returning to Croatia (where they were previously) for a year or so. “Would we like to rent their apartment?”
Heck yeah! It’s kind of perfect for us- and an extra bedroom for visitors- but we’ll miss their friendliness and expat wisdom which we are very grateful for. We’ll move in next month.
And hey! Cheryl's suitcase showed up, intact and complete! She is happy to have her clothes again.
Stuck our feet in the Bay of Biscay today. Cool but not Tahoe cold. Swimmable. The weather has been perfect but there is a small storm coming through now. This weekend though looks like swim weather :)
Hope all is well wherever you are! Go Padres!
