October 1
Quick stop in San Sebastian to mingle with the hipsters and then off to Bilbao.

These are some pictures from where I ran this morning along with dozens of other runners who were also trying to maintain the fit, youthful look of which we have all become so fond.

Anyway, funny story. I rented a car (a Renault, in case you are ever making a list of cars never to buy) in San Sebastian. I left there headed for Bilbao. The drive was incredibly beautiful, and those who love me will be pleased to know that I neither took pictures nor shot video while I was driving over and through the mountains at 80 mph.

I kind of had an idea where I was, but not entirely, because all the signs are in Catalan, a language that uses a lot of "k"s, "x"s and "z"s, which pretty much makes the whole thing indecipherable unless you are a member of the club. Here's an example. If you can figure out what this says, please let me know.





I thought I would stop at a rest area in the mountains to figure out exactly how to get to my hotel in Bilbao and discovered that I didn't have the paper with the hotel name on it and that I couldn't connect to anything on my phone because I was in the mountains. 

This wasn't the problem. The problem was that when I decided just to head into Bilbao and improvise, I realized that I couldn't get my car into reverse. The shift knob definitely had a reverse on it, but every time I tried to get the car into that gear and lifted my foot off the clutch, it went forward. I had about 12 inches to test with before I would hit a wall and have to push the car backward so that I could keep testing. I tried pushing the knob, pulling the knob, twisting the knob, looking for levers or switches. I'm going to make a very long story short here by summarizing:
1. I swallowed my pride and actually called Avis customer service to ask them how to get the car into reverse, but I got voice mail because they were at their siesta for several more hours (ironically, a topic I wrote about yesterday)
2. I found the owner's manual, but it unfortunately went on for 200 pages in several languages about how to use the sound system, but nothing more.
3. I couldn't search on Google because I had no connectivity
4. I called Martha to ask her to do a search, but she was out doing a 5K

After a half hour of messing with the car, I finally lucked out into discovering that if you pull up on the boot covering the shift stick, you can shift into reverse. Why, why would anyone ever design a car that way without giving any indication of how to make it work?

Anyway, I was off to Bilbao, where I realized that just going into town and winging it was kind of like going into Manhattan and winging it. I helplessly went with the flow of whatever traffic I happened to find myself in, crossed the river several times, went around many traffic circles, and eventually parked illegally at a bus stop, pulled out my laptop, turned on my phone hotspot and opened the email that identified the name and address of my hotel. I also realized how incredibly fortunate I was to have my car struggle on the top of a mountain instead of in downtown Bilbao. And, last thing, I will never make fun of Google maps again. They saved me.