October 11th, 2008 -- We are in Spain!

We are waiting to take our bus to Madrid after almost 3 days in Bilbao. Our journey to Bilbao, while long, wasn’t too bad as the longest flight of the trip had lots of empty room, which allowed us to stretch out and get some much needed shut eye. This meant we were actually functional upon our arrival in the afternoon of the 9^th in Bilbao. So functional, that we were able to take a walk around town and survive a Spanish dinner (these affairs only begin after 9pm) the very first night after arriving!

As far as we can tell, the Basque country is beautiful, and Bilbao appears to be well planned and organized. Public transportation appears seamless, and the broadwalk along the river is wonderful. The main part of Bilbao is actually a rather small (~ 6 miles all around) and lies in the valley surrounded by mountains. Since we hadn’t done much research/reading up on the place prior to the trip, we were surprised by how hilly the city and its environs were. The architecture is the other thing that certainly grabs you about Bilbao. It is rather schizophrenic, with a mix of Baroque, Soviet/utilitarian, and Modern styles all together. But somehow this all works here, once you accept this about the city, and it is actually rather special. Marc & I were initially puzzled, but by the second day, began to appreciate this city’s quirky personality.

Of course, the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry is a sight to behold. We spent much of Saturday exploring the interior & exterior of the building, as well as its exhibits. It astounds us how he came up with the design as there are curves everywhere, often on more than one dimension at a time. The building is made up of titanium panels that are paper thin and pliable, limestone bricks, and glass panels, none of which are very straight (they had to get robots to cut the limestone since the shapes were all different and could not be automated any other way). As for the exhibits, we particularly liked one of the permanent installations by Richard Serra that uses steel sheets to create huge structures that curve every which way, creating optical illusions that leave one a little discombobulated as one walks through them.

The Spaniards have a bizarre schedule, with lunch typically starting around 2pm and dinner at 9:30/10pm. As a result, things do no really get going in the mornings until 9am. And because the gaps between the meals are somewhat spaced out, folks often have tapas/raciones/pintxos in the mid-morning and around 6pm. So far, these appear to be mostly hors d’oeuvres like little sandwiches with smoked meats, cheeses, and seafood spreads, which has been rather different from our experience with tapas in the US – perhaps this is a regional thing, or maybe dinner-time tapas are different from lunch & snack type tapas – our lack of Spanish has prevented us to figuring all of this out! Our slight jetlag allowed us to adjust to this schedule somewhat, though Marc can’t get over the fact that he got up at 8:30am (what a travesty!) the morning after we arrived.

Talking about food, the seafood here is abundant and good. In particular, rape (monkfish), barcalao (cod) and squid are very good. We checked out the Mercato de Riberia on Saturday and were amazed that seafood in general is not expensive at all (definitely cheaper than in the US). The fish soups in the Basque region are supposed to be very good, but sadly we did not have a chance to try them. We did have a good meal with the folks from the climate change research institute the evening we arrived (more on that another time), and a classy lunch at the Guggenheim restaurant. The menu at the former place was organized by temperature of the dish, which was a new one for us.

The other aspect of our visit was that we did a great deal of walking, exploring the old town and its many churches and narrow pedestrian alleyways lined by multi-story apartment buildings with attractive flower-covered balconies, going up to the hills in elevators, funiculars, or via long flights of stairs (some of these ways of getting from one layer of a town to another were also new to us). These high vantage points provide terrific panoramas of the schizophrenic city below. We also checked out some of the city’s numerous parks and marveled at our good luck with the weather.

Oh, and for those of you wondering about how Marc did in the Twin Cities Marathon a week ago, he had a tough race and came in 31^st overall. Here’s an excerpt from an email he sent out to his running club last week:

“I am alive and well, although I must admit the end of my race was not pretty today. All I can say is that I did what I could. The race started under overcast skies; temperature was pretty good too. This made for a good opening 5-6 miles; I felt loose and controlled going through 10k in 32:35 (right around my goal pace for a 2:17:30 finish or so).

At the half I was on 2:17:45 pace, so the time was fine too, but I knew I was in trouble. I had let the lead pack go and was running alone into some high winds, and the rain (which we had hoped would be light) was coming down big time. It was a veritable monsoon out there, there were puddles all over the place, and my right foot felt every step pound the ground in my water logged shoes. I've run marathons alone before (in Boston for instance), but in that kind of wind, it's not a good thing. By 30k (1:39:13), I had slowed to 2:19:30 pace and that was when I really started to fall apart.

Though I could take the pain in my foot (it wasn't that bad), my right calf obviously was not happy about it, and started to cramp up big time. I struggled to the finish from that point on. It was pretty disappointing to finish that way, but that's the way these things go...oh well.”