Today was a very long travel day. I woke up in my nice warm bed at 5 o’clock in the morning the morning. My good friend Martin took me to the airport and I was on my way to Spain shortly after 9 AM. The 1st stop was Seattle where I had to quickly transfer to a much larger plane to take me to Paris, France. This this was over a 9 hour flight and I was not looking forward to it. However, I found it was not that bad.
As soon as we left Seattle I started to read a travel narrative on The Camino del Norte -“The Camino Norte: An August Adventure” by Len Stregles – a very good book and I and I enjoyed reading it. I plan to refer to it each day each day to make sure I don’t miss anything of interest.
The Flight into Charles de Gaulle airport went well but walking through Charles de Gaulle airport was an adventure. I climbed stairs, I took escalator’s, I took moving walkways, I took a train, I took a bus, and when I finally got to the gate, I had to walk out onto the tarmac and up the stairs to the plane. Yes, and adventure.
The flight to Bilbao was short and I tried to get some sleep but could not. The Bilbao airport is smaller than most airports I have been in lately and people were very helpful as to how I should get to a Irun. At the luggage area I saw a Tourist Booth and the nice English person to check at the Pesa Bus booth just down the way. There a nice English speaking lady told that a bus to San Sebastian will be outside the baggage area and in 10 short minutes. From there I can take a regional train to my Irun. Arriving in Irun, I decided to walk to my hotel as was only a couple kilometers. Yes, I got lost or more accurately I got off route. But folks were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction and soon I was standing in front of my hotel.
Now about the hotel room. It is small. The card key to the door is also needed to turn on the lights in the room. There is a slider for the card and once inserted you can turn on the lights. If. If you remove the card, the lights turn off. Which, is a great way to save electricity when you leave the room. In addition, the act of a small. It is not full size but about half the length of what the bathrooms back home are. It’s more of a shower stall than a bathtub. But you can fill it and take a bath with your knees in your face.
Tomorrow will be a preparation day before I begin walking the Camino. I am really looking forward to this and I’m sure it will be a fun adventure. In addition, I hope to learn a lot.