On the move!

Three cities in two days. A bit much, even for me.

We woke up yesterday in Bilbao, spent the morning packing up the rest of our stuff and having breakfast with Maite. As we were saying goodbye to her, I was overwhelmed again by just how generous she was to us with both her time and her home, so willingly opening it up to us as if it was our own. She rearranged her teaching schedule and spent 4 solid days with us, showing us her country and taking us to amazing places. It really made me wonder if I would be as selfless and generous with both my resources and my time if someone were to come to my hometown to visit. I'm continuing to mull one that over...

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We then headed about an hour west to Santander, another city on the beach. Getting there was easy (the highway system here is SO much easier than in the US!); finding our hostel, not so much. We finally managed and proceeded to spend the afternoon doing "administrative" things like working on future reservations, sorting out our finances back home and so on. Bo-oring. But a necessary evil and something we just have to build in every now and then.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Sara and Celia, more students from Maite's group that I worked with this summer. I expected to meet up with them for a short while, chat a bit and that would pretty much be it. I underestimated them. They took us all around the town, showing us things and giving us explanations, getting on and off the bus taking us from one side of the town to the other. It was a total turn of events, like suddenly they were the experts and *I* was the tourist, following them around from place to place. They took us to the waterfront, through the city, to the beach, to a small zoo.... they were even going to take us to a palace but unfortunately we ran out of time. They were totally into the whole tour guide thing... it was so nice of them, and I felt bad to have to cut it short. Such sweet girls!

But we had other plans to meet another friend of mine in Santander, Blanca. We had dinner at a really cool new restaurant downtown and spent some time catching up. I met Blanca years ago in Lancaster when she brought a group of students to the area. Since then I have visited her one other time in Santander and she has been back to Lancaster several times. Definitely one of those friends that you can go a long time without seeing or hearing from, but the moment one or the other is in town, you're excited to see each other and spend some time reconnecting. Very cool.

Today was a wash, one of those inevitable days that get lost in traveling. I'm sure there will be many more like it. We left Santander a little after lunchtime, got into Madrid in the early evening, spent far too much time driving around looking for our hostel so we could drop off our bags, gave up and went to return the car, then schlepped our bags from there with us (uphill!) to the hostel. Until we got checked in, it was 8:30 or so. And that was our whole day. At the very least, it was grey and chilly all day anyhow so, really, if you have to lose a day to travel, this was the one to lose.

On the upside, our hostel is in SUCH a cool area of Madrid, one of my favorites, near the Prado Musuem and tucked into a little neighborhood full of tiny, intersecting streets, quaint pubs, plazas full of tables for outdoor dining, galleries, shops and so on. When you're in it, it feels so small and cozy and familiar that you almost forget you're in the middle of such a huge city. I also love the way it fills up at night, with hoardes of locals. When we got here around 8:30, the streets were mostly deserted; when we went out for coffee around 9:30, it was filling up; by the time we came back around 11, the streets were teeming with people, dining outdoors and talking and laughing and visiting with friends. I'll be sorry to leave here tomorrow.