Basque Country: Part I, Bilbao

I finally left Salamanca this weekend! Reid, a guy Tyler from Occidental on our trip, and I went to Basque Country for the weekend. We left Salamanca right after we got out of our Grammar class on Thurday at 2:45 and got into Bilbao at 8:45, which is the capital of the Basque Country, one of the 19 autonomous communities in Spain. The bus ride and three nights in a hostel cost 100 euros each which seems like a pretty good deal. The first night we went to get pinchos, or pintxos as you spell it in Basque, and then walked around Bilbao for like almost three hours, which was nice, but exhausting. Everything is definitely more expensive there though, not like poor old Salamanca.

Friday we spent the day at museums in Bilbao, mostly in the Guggenheim. The actual Guggenheim museum itself is an incredible building. Out in front there is an unnervingly large sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier that blooms with flowers during most of the year. Our guidebook said that it was supposed to be a welcoming and friendly entrance peice, but I just found it kind of terrifying. I have a feeling it has to do with a certain highly overprotective Westie that I am quite familiar with.


We were in the museum for about 3 hours or so, the first exhibits, like this LED panel by Jenny Holzer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrNVgRu5UWk, were definitely the best in my opinion. I tried for a while to find the words that were being shown on the screens but it seems like that's a lost cause. The whole second floor was work done by this one artist Cy Twombly whose work was interesting to say the least. A lot of crayons and random numbers on canvas, such as this, but more crayon and less order http://www.artchive.com/artchive/t/twombly/twombly_wheeler_dtl.jpg. I liked a couple of his works, but not the blocks of wood painted white and then called a boat sculpture.We bought Subway for lunch, which tasted exactly like the ones in America, just $13 for a meal instead of the 6 or 7 it is normally. We then played on this aweome playground. It was awesome. It would never exist in the U.S. as you are more likely than not to be seriously injured while playing on it which is why it was so awesome. That was definitely a theme in Basque Country, as in a general lack of railings and protective construction.
One last comment on the 30 foot spider in this picture. It was terrifying. But then we listened to an audio commentary on it and apparently the sculptuist was inspired by her mother who she loved very much. Odd stuff.
Once again, beautiful building.