All was well there and I had a good time and made a lot of progress work-wise. I also took a photo of a sculpture in front of town hall:

Apparently it’s made by Eduardo Chillida, a basque sculptor.

The trouble started on my way home when I was denied by an Iberia check-in assistant to check my luggage all the way to Stockholm (via Madrid). Apparently Iberia don’t allow checking your luggage over different flights if you haven’t booked them together (but Spanair could to Bilbao, so that’s bullsh*t).

I was a bit disturbed about this as I would only have one hour to move between terminals and gates in Madrid, but agreed and proceeded through security and so on. Actually had some extra time and bought some perfume for my wife Natasha.

When we landed in Madrid the luggage was slow and even though we took a speeding spanish cab (that’s like playing McRae rally games) we didn’t make it in time. This meant that we had to spend a night in Madrid and then take a flight to Stockholm (via Barcelona!) the next day. Hooray.. not.

Finding a hotel in Madrid was actually quite easy, and we had a good meal at a café / restaurant near to the hotel and then vent to sleep. Here’s a shot from my window:

The flight home the next day was without complications and it was with Spanair the whole way. Thank god for that.

Anyway… Besides putting me back almost 500€, I’m mad at Iberia for being idiots and not checking my luggage as any other company would have done. Hopefully I’ll get some compensation later on.