After months of planning, the team met at the Lynchburg airport to begin this adventure in Europe for the next four weeks. At 2:23pm yesterday, we boarded our US Airways flight to Charlotte. At 5:25pm, we boarded our Lufthansa flight to Munich and continued on to Bilbao, Spain. We arrived slightly after noon into this beautiful city in the Basque region of Northern Spain.
It is quite beautiful here – the terrain is mountainous, lush, green, and still rather warm for November. After collecting our luggage, we were met by our host, Josune, with smiles and kisses. I have been emailing with her for so long it is great to finally meet her! She made arrangements to get all of us to the hotel in the Bilbao City Center. This four-star hotel is very nice and close to everything. This will be our home for the next 12 days before moving on to Italy.
Once we settled into the hotel, several of us decided to explore the surroundings of the hotel on foot. The city is installing Christmas decorations and the giant tree is going up in the central square. There are perhaps hundreds of restaurants, coffee shops, pastry shops, and delis all around us. Still finding good became a bit of a challenge…until I settled on ham and cheese croissants. As we walked around town, posters for the show are everywhere!
I have my first press conference tomorrow afternoon at Teatro Arriaga, the theatre where we will have our first show. The good news is ticket sales have been very strong and the show is almost sold out. I’ll be posting as often as I can…