Bilbao

Photo © Aitor Agirregabiria

It feels so weird after the fact, knowing that I spend 2 1/2 years living a 40-minute subway ride from this area (plus a 20-minute walk if I'm going to the Guggenheim), the Guggenheim being such a mecca for modern art and even just an architectural icon in and of itself.

It feels so weird to me.  To me, it was always just "home", it was where I lived, where I'd occasionally go on weekends, occasionally going a couple months without ever going into Bilbao and spending all of our time in the suburbs.  It was a special occasion when we had to run some errands in Bilbao and made the 30-minute drive in.  But not because it was Bilbao, but because it was the city.

And now, with how big it's gotten, how modernized it's become (it didn't lookhalf as nice when we were living there 11 years ago; all that was notable was the Guggenheim and Calatrava's Zubi Zuri, and maybe the Teatro Arriaga), and the amount of languages other than Spanish that can now be heard, including Basque, it's weird.  I almost felt like a foreigner going back last summer.

It is funny though, I saw my first Andy Warhol (the Marilyn Monroe piece, as well as some of the Campbell's Soup ones) pieces when we visited in November 1997, a month after the museum opened and probably a few weeks after we moved in.  I think that was my first taste of "real" art.