Northern Spain

In an attempt to take advantage of all my time off at Christmas, and since my plans to go to other "more exciting" (as it were) places in Europe weren't working out, I decided to go up to País Vasco and Navarro, two provinces in the north of Spain. I traveled with Adam Kotanko, another ACA student here in Spain. There's a possibility that Jenne or Jacque might know Adam since he's a senior at Andrews (journalism major, if you're curious). And before anyone starts wondering or making suggestions about our level of friendship, that's exactly what we were and what we are now, friends and nothing more.

We left Sunday by train and headed for Zaragoza, where we had a two-hour layover before hopping aboard a train for Bilbao. I had heard that Bilbao was little more than a big, cold industrial city in País Vasco, and I was told right. The first night we got in late and did nothing more than find our hostel and watch some spanish TV. Monday dawned grey, cold, and dreary but that didn't stop us from heading our to "see" the town.

The old-part of Bilbao is pretty cool with its cobbled streets and old churches, but it would have been better without the misty rain and without the lesson that churches close for visiting hours during the afternoon.

So we did a lot of walking, saw the OUTSIDE of a lot of buildings, and decided that it was a sin that a city as big and as centralized as Bilbao did not have the Starbucks that we both developed a craving for while walking around in the cold. Another thing that bothered me was the old cemetery that we walked past was locked up and I couldn't go wander through the old gravestones.

Tuesday was a much better day. Better weather and better agenda. We got relatively early to go to the bus station before starting our sightseeing so that we could buy a bus ticket to San Sebastian for that night. After that, we headed to the Guggenheim Museum, a contemporary and modern art museum that's housed in a stellar building made of titanium.

I really liked the outside, and in spite of some misgivings about people's ideas of modern "art," enjoyed most of the exhibits as well. One of the cool things about the Guggenheim was that while we were there, all the temporary exhibits were filled with American contemporary/modern art because they were hosting a 200+ years of American art exhibit that I forget the name of now.

I definitely encountered those exhibits of one square placed upon another and labeled art, but there were also pieces of art that while I might not have grasped the entire meaning of the work, at least looked like something that required talent and couldn't have been done by one of Mom's preschoolers. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of most of my favorite pieces since photography was prohibited in this museum, but I do have a couple pictures that I was able to take surreptiously from unseen corners. There's the modern representation of Venus de Milo (thumbs up);

the digital pillars with spanish and english poetry scrolling by on the front and basque poetry scrolling on the back, representing the oppression and brief outlawing of the basque language (thumbs up);

the big huge wavy and spirally walls of iron (not sure about this one),

the flower puppy outside (thumbs up),

the big spider outside (thumbs up even though creepy),

the metallic tulips [?] outside (thumbs up),

and hanging light bulbs with pile of licorice candy that I really wanted to steal (thumbs down).

After the Guggenheim, we grabbed some Subway for lunch, and then wandered some more and saw some cool bridges before heading for the bus station.

At the bus station, I was reminded of Jacque's Greyhound experience as our bus arrived an HOUR late. Besides having to wait, it was frustrating to constantly be worrying if somehow we had missed our bus and were waiting in vain. While waiting and complaining, we met an elderly couple from Philadelphia who come to Spain every winter. They offered to help us find our way to the hostel in San Sebastian and in spite of a few disagreements on their part about when to get off the public bus in San Sebastian and which way to go on a street, we made it safely to our hostel and enjoyed some tips about what to do in San Sebastian.

On Wednesday, we made a full tour of San Sebastian, seeing the cathedral (which had an oyster holy water container, how cool is that),

another smaller church with a really cool ceiling where we actually got to listen to an organist practicing on the pipe organ,

the two beaches famous for surfing in the summer (with absolutely NO waves in the winter),

climbed to the top of a mountain where we had a view of San Sebastian

and were able to go through a free museum on the history of San Sebastian and get a closeup of the big Jesus statue,

visited the wind combs (more pieces of modern "art" I don't understand but are famous),

see the summer home of the Spanish royalty,

and curse the lack of kebab restaurants in San Sebastian. I did, though, have my best-so-far Spanish tortilla sandwich in a San Sebastian bar. For those who have never had the fortune of eating a Spanish tortilla, it's basically a big plate-sized fried patty of egg, potatoe, and onion that kind of resembles an omelet but not really. They slice it up and put it between baguette-type bread and it's quite scrumptious, especially when they also put tomatoe and garlic in the sandwich. Another bit of Spanish and also European trivia, bars frequently serve lunch items as well as function like American bars in the evening/night.

Friday morning started WAY too early as we left the hostel at 6 to walk about a mile to our bus stop to leave at 7am for Pamplona, Navarra. Pamplona is home to the world-famous running of the bulls on July 7. The most recognized corrido de toros in Spain, it celebrates the festival of San Fermín and if you want to attend, you have to reserve your hotels about a year in advance. Crazy huh? So we decided to go the cheaper way and visit it on our way back to Sagunto.

There's pretty much nothing in Pamplona except for the famous plaza de toros so we went there,

took some pictures, walked through the artisan's fair inside, walked the street where they run the bulls,

and went to the train station. On the train on the way back to Sagunto, I slept and knitted on a scarf for my roommate and reflected on the trip.

I decided that I like the north of Spain but mainly the countryside version and I would love to go back to San Sebastian in the summer.