Todd and Melissa see Bilbao and San Sebastián, Spain

The planning for our trip was somewhat spontaneous- it was early Spring 2023 and I was at a work dinner and someone asked about our vacation plans for the summer— I blurted out that we were going to San Sebastián. My boss Robert Lee was at the dinner and he and his family had traveled to San Sebastián the year before and were planning to go again that summer and I think I just got carried away in the moment. But by the time I got home, Robert’s wife had already messaged Melissa that we were going to Spain! So there was no backing out at that point.

I immediately began looking into our options and selected mid-July as the target timeframe, which just so happened to overlap with when Robert’s wife and daughter would be there as well (Robert was with them for the first part of their trip but had to leave for the States earlier than the rest of his family). So we penciled in a date to meet up with Sera while we were there.

We selected an international travel agency, kimkim, to assist us with planning an 11 day trip. Our contact at the agency was Beatriz Diaz and she consulted with us to figure out what we were looking to get out of the trip- namely, food, wine, historic buildings like churches, and museums. She came back to us with an initial plan, we gave our input as to our preferences for the agenda, and she iterated on a final plan that we approved. Simultaneously we were securing airline tickets, we splurged for Business Class, and initiated the process of renewing my passport and obtaining Melissa’s first ever passport. This was the first trip for Melissa outside of North America and to say she was excited would be an understatement. Our flight plans had us departing Elmira to Detroit to Charles de Gaulle to Bilbao, about an hour away from San Sebastián but still within the northern area of Spain referred to as Basque country.

The passports turned out to be a bit of a snag as we did not have time for standard processing and so had to hire an external firm, CIBT, to expedite the process for us (at a pretty steep price!). We received my passport with a few days to spare and received Melissa’s the day before our trip. We were on pins and needles waiting for them to show up!

We decided to carry-on our luggage and so bought Melissa a carry-on sized piece to match the one I already had although it was a different color. We bought some new clothes and shoes for the trip and managed to stuff everything into our luggage with absolutely no room to spare. The decision to carry on our luggage turned out to be a wise move as you will see later in this story.

As the date of our departure grew closer, Todd dove into researching restaurants to visit to maximize our food experience. San Sebastián has the highest per capita Michelin star restaurants so there were plenty of good options within Old San Sebastián, near where we would be staying. One unique food experience with respect to Basque country is that of “pintxos”, small plates roughly similar to the tapas found in other parts of Spain, although the Basque population would bristle at the comparison of pintxos to tapas. Basically pintxos are single bite servings of food served across Basque country in pintxos bars seemingly in every neighborhood we passed through.

On the day of our departure we packed the car, said goodbye to Benjamin who had the task of watching Echo, our goldendoodle, while we were gone, and also said goodbye to Rebecca. We flew to Detroit and then boarded our plane for the overseas flight to CDG. While settling into our seats, we enjoyed a glass of champagne and looked over the in-flight menu. However, we soon realized there was an issue with the plain as it was easily 80F if not hotter. The flight attendants announced that they were trying to get the plane cooled down but eventually (after ~45 minutes) made the unfortunate announcement that we needed to de-plane in order for them to cool the plane down to a reasonable temperature. We reluctantly retrieved our luggage and retreated to the terminal. Over the next 5-6 hours, there would be announcements every 30 minutes or so that the plane was cooling down and they hoped to re-board soon. Finally at 11:45PM they cancelled the flight. Todd went and waited in line to get re-booked for the next day and to get a hotel voucher. The new flight path was Detroit to Atlanta to The Netherlands and finally to Bilbao. We made our way to the hotel (scratch that- motel) and got into bed around 1:30AM. The next morning we headed back to the DET airport where we waited in the Delta lounge for 6 hours before the flight to ATL departed. Unfortunately with the delay, we lost one day of our trip, but Beatriz from kimkim was able to make the proper arrangements for our late arrival- she was a life saver!

This was Melissa’s first experience with Business Class travel and she was thoroughly impressed with the quality of service and attention to detail, down to having a gluten free meal prepared for her. The food was pretty good and the flight was smooth-sailing this time.