Spain- Day 1, Bilbao

For those of you that may not know, I served a mission for the LDS church in northern Spain. I've longed to go back & visit the areas where I served my mission. It's been about ten years (man, where has the time gone!?).

We had a vacation coming up & I brought up Spain again like usual, but this time it was different.  We both realized it was now or never (or at least another 5-10 years). Chances are the next opportunities we get to go, I'll either be pregnant or have morning sickness (if things go according to plan). So with those things in mind, we began the planning (& I must give a HUGE thank you to my former mission comp Katharine Ahnder (now Beus). Serious, I don't know what I would've done without her info/tips. So helpful! Thank you!!)

We left Thursday night & got there Friday afternoon.  Here's day one of our vacation in Spain.

View from our airplane.

Oh, how I remember these mountains! I remember the first time I flew into Bilbao. I thought the landscape looked like pictures I'd seen of Ireland.  Beautiful.
We stayed at a hotel that was called Abando. We really liked it. It was a great location. Easy walking distance to shopping, the Guggenheim museum, & Casco Veijo (pictures of those to come!).
After dropping off our luggage in our room, we went for a little "paseo". We saw a chucheria (spanish candy store).  I beamed like a little kid & tugged on Chad's sleeve begging to go buy candy. And of coarse, once inside I had to take pictures. Oh chucherias, how I have missed you! And thank you/curse you Ashley (Chad's sister- who happened to be my 2nd mission companion) for getting me hooked!