Adventures in Pais Vasco: Euskera-tastic!

Warning: This blog contains a large amount of architecture geekery.  Not for small children.

This past weekend was the IES-sponsored trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian, cities in the País Vasco region of Spain.  A little background about this place: País Vasco, or Basque Country, has been trying to become its own country for some time, due to its own rich culture and distinct language.  The Basque language, Euskera, is completely unlike any other language in the world and its origins are a mystery.  I say it’s aliens.  The language is heavy with X’s and Z’s and is insanely fun to try to pronounce.

I was extremely excited to find out IES was doing a trip to Bilbao, mostly because of the Guggenheim museum there which was designed by my favorite architect, Frank Gehry, who also designed the amphitheater in Millenium Park in Chicago, among other things.  I had no idea how much more there was to Bilbao.

The bus ride there was about four and a half hours long, the first two of which were quite uncomfortable as the girl in front of me decided to lean her seat back all the way so she could nap comfortably.  Thanks.  It didn’t help that when she stretched her arms she almost punched me in the face.  The bus stopped in a town called Lerma and we ate a delicious, ham-filled breakfast at a hotel/castle.

Gaelle showing off her awesome breakfast

A few hours later our bus arrived in Bilbao.  I could immediately tell it was different from the other Spanish cities I had visited.  I’m not really sure what it was, but I liked it.  A little while after we checked into our hotel, we split up into tour groups and walked around the whole city.  We passed under an impressive bridge designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava on the way to the Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa (Euskera for “Museum”).  I freaked out quite a bit and took too many pictures.  I kept having to run to catch up with the tour group.

Bridge designed by Calatrava

AAAAAHHH!!! The Guggenheim is being attacked by a giant spider!!

Me and my best friend, the Bilbao Guggenheim

We walked around the rest of the city, parts of which were much older than the modern Guggenheim.  In fact, the buildings from the 19^th century made it feel as if we had been transported to the World Showcase pavilion at EPCOT.  There was a building that looked German, another Italian, one French, one Spanish, and so on.  We even came across a Chinese-style house.  Our walk held some other surprises, such as a fountain on the side of a building that you could drink from.

Refreshing.

Once our tour was over we walked around a bit, mostly down a street looking for dinner.  However, we forgot how late people eat dinner and were told by a few places that they didn’t open their kitchen until 7:30.  We opted instead to satisfy our pressing need for helado.  It was necessary and delicious.  A lot of people in our program went out to the clubs that night, but I wasn’t really in the mood.  One girl said she was instead going to walk over to the Guggenheim and take some nighttime pictures of it, and I was eager to join her.  Honestly, I would much rather take photos of a beautiful building at 1 am than pay too much money to dance to too-loud music in a sweaty club.  But that’s just me.  Besides, we had to be up early for San Sebastian the next day.

Helado. Si.

Calatrava bridge by night. Have I mentioned how much I love my camera?

Sometimes Weather.com lies.  Pais Vasco was supposed to be sunny and warm all weekend, but of course the day we go to the beach city of San Sebastian it was cold and rainy.  I hadn’t brought my umbrella, so I ended up using my scarf as a babushka.  Despite the gloomy weather, San Sebastian was a very cool city, a sort of New England-meets-Europe port.  We did another walking tour, past a few cathedrals and up on the harbor, to the top of a cliff with a beautiful view of the ocean and a little island in the middle of the bay with a little house on the top.

Yeah, just keep going straight and you'll hit France. Can't miss it.

IES fed us lunch at a local restaurant.  We had seafood tortilla (YUM) and steak (OH SO GOOD) and SIDRA!! Sidra is hard cider, essentially apple wine.  Most people didn’t like it, but I drank two glasses like it was juice.  I had it once before in Madrid at Casa Mingo, but I haven’t blogged about that place yet (it deserves its own blog, surely).  After lunch we had some free time and I couldn’t resist buying a big cookie in a pastry shop.  I was expecting it to be just a big sugar cookie, but when I tasted it I was met with the strong flavor of black licorice.  It was like Good & Plenty in cookie form.  Luckily I like black licorice, but it was unexpected.

The bus ride from San Sebastian back to Bilbao was silent as everyone was asleep.  I don’t think I slept but I popped in my earbuds and shut out the world for an hour and a half.  We had planned to do some shopping and maybe go out when we got back, but it was all we could do to stay awake long enough to find something to eat.  We ended up in the old part of town eating pinchos (the Basque version of tapas) at a bar that was playing Mecano, a Spanish pop band from the 80s.  They’re pretty good, and we were all relieved that finally we were at a place that was playing Spanish music and not American (honestly, it’s all I hear here).

Mecano, "Hijo de la luna"

We got dessert at a cool coffee shop that I would probably hang out at if I lived nearby.  Abby and Rachel got cake and I got churros y chocolate, but the chocolate was far less than delicious so I just ate the churros.  I knew I should have ordered the Bailey’s frappuccino.  Oh well.  We made it back to the hotel and crashed after watching some MTV.  It played a Kylie Minogue video, which my Contemporary Spanish Theater professor Emilio would have appreciated.  I must remember to blog about him later.  It seems I am quite behind.  He probably deserves his own blog, actually.

I’m glad we went to bed early, because I was wide awake the next day for what I had been looking forward to for years: visiting the Guggenheim Bilbao!  Okay, admittedly I had no idea what was inside.  All I knew was that the building was awesome.  The exhibits inside actually were very cool.  The featured one there was called “Haunted” and mostly consisted of creepy photographs, paintings, and videos.  My favorite exhibit was a collection of very tall wooden swirly things.  Honestly I can’t remember the name of it or the artist.  But you could walk through the spirals.  Pictures weren’t allowed but I ignored the signs and took pictures without the flash when the docents weren’t looking.  I know, I’m a badass.

Abby and Rachel being my accomplices

I also took a zillion pictures outside.  Far too many.  Here are a few:

After we had walked through the museum we hit the gift shop.  I bought a lot but spent less money than I expected.  For about 20€ I bought a poster of the museum (I may get it framed), two postcards, a cool notebook, and a magnet.  I considered buying some interesting rings but didn’t feel like paying the 15€.  When it was finally time to leave we met up with the rest of the IES students at the giant dog-shaped topiary in front of the museum, or as our Spanish tour guide called it, “The Poopy.”  Oh Spanish accent, you so funny.

I was sad to leave Bilbao behind, but to be honest I was looking forward to the long bus ride as I was exhausted.  We stopped again in Lerma, for lunch, at a restaurant that was far too small for our whole group.  I ordered a bocadillo de tortilla and received it only a few minutes before we had to leave.  I think IES overestimated the capacity of the place.  Our second leg of the journey, after lunch, consisted of the front half of our bus singing Disney and 90s boy band songs, as well as a Spanish song taught to us by chaperone Mario:

Sale el sol por la mañana, sí (The sun comes out in the morning, yes)

Por la mañana sale el sol (The sun comes out in the morning)

Sale el sol por la mañana, sí (The sun comes out in the morning, yes)

Y por la noche salgo yo (And I go out at night)

Y mis amigos! (And my friends!)

Clearly we were on the right bus.  I was also pleased when everyone sang “Mr. Brightside” as per my suggestion.  Our hungover compañeros probably didn’t appreciate our lovely music, but it sure was fun.  A great end to a fantastic trip.  I hope to go back to Bilbao someday and maybe pick up some more Euskera, a language that will clearly be useful to me in life. Zxxzxzzz!

Oh, and here's a little gem I found there:

It's an English-language school called "Don't."  I think they should rethink their name/marketing strategy.