Bilbao 2016, Part 1

Bilbao, 2016.  Part 1.

June 1-15, 2016.

June 1.

I'm not going to say "by popular demand" because no one has requested it.  But I've been thinking about it, and figured I might as well.  This trip was a huge deal for me and was a long time coming, as before I started "catching up" on my travels, the second-to-last post I made was me sharing that I was going back after six years.  If you've followed this blog (and me) since the beginning, you know what I mean.

I grew up in this city.  Well, kind of.  I actually spent two-and-a-half years more or less in Leioa/Getxo (lived in Leioa, went to school in Getxo, and my friends lived in Getxo) which is a municipality northeast of Bilbao along the river.  It marked my childhood and my life in countless ways, not least of all because I met my longtime best friend here, who's still managed to be a part of my life despite so much time away.

After going through some dismal experiences in my life that I won't go into (some self-inflicted due to poor decision making and others slightly less so), I really, really needed this trip.  I was working at Toys R Us at the time (R.I.P.) and had two weeks vacation, and booked this trip before I even knew that our department was closing.  And when I found out, in made me even happier to be going.  That train ride to JFK after pulling a half-day at work was one of the most exciting experiences I'd had in recent years, and I'm one of those people who loves the lead-up and travel to the airport in general (I guess I'm weird, but whatever).

So anyway, I got to JFK, albeit a bit early, and sat, and waited for the plane to arrive, board, and take off.

June 2.

My layover in Madrid was also incredibly exciting because I got to hear Castilian being spoken again.  I love speaking Spanish in general, with whomever it may be, but Castilian...the Castilian accent just sends me to a happy place.

And once the plane landed in Loiu and I saw the sign for Bilbao, it felt so real.  So, so real.  I was finally back home.  It didn't matter that most of my life hasn't been spent in the Basque Country, it didn't matter that my parents didn't even spend most of their time in the Basque Country.  This part of the world is home to me in a way that I may never fully understand.  The people, the culture, the history, all of it is so much a part of me.  I was a teenager here, I met some lovely people here, I learned to stop being bitter at my parents for moving me to Europe and learned to appreciate things I never thought I'd ever even understand here.  I learned to love seafood and fish here.

So I bought a coffee at the airport to make enough change to get me to the bus station at San Mamés where I'd be meeting my best friend, who was just getting off of work.  She was (and is) a professor of mechanical engineering at the Universidad del País Vasco at the San Mamés campus (and gives me a severe inferiority complex, so the fact that she is still my best friend and I am still hers is so incredibly encouraging).  I gave her the biggest hug I possibly could, and we hopped on the Bilbao Metro to head back to her house, where she still lived with her parents.  I will always cherish the moments when she opens the door to her parents' house and says "Look who I found!" and her parents give me enormous bear hugs and say things like "Hi, stranger!"  I love them so much it's painful.

You know you're in the Basque Country where you have to go pretty low to get out of the clouds.

After getting settled in, the two of us walked down to the port in Algorta in the old section, which used to be a tiny fishing village before it was developed in the late 1800's during the industrial period in the Bilbao area.  We had Basque wine, and olives, and sat overlooking the port with the hills in view, and I couldn't get over how amazing it felt to be home.  That was where she announced that she was engaged to her boyfriend of four years, and had already set a date but wanted a few very special people to know first, so if I could please refrain from letting everyone know.  Not like I would have told anyone but my parents, but she wanted to pre-empt a Facebook post.  I'm not the kind of person to do that, but it didn't matter either way.

I actually got to hear Euskera (Basque) spoken again, too!

None of this will ever, ever get old.

June 3.

One of my best friend's co-workers was having her "bachelorette lunch" today, so after getting some sleep, I met my best friend in Bilbao to go with some of her co-workers and friends to the restaurant.  Spanish/Basque bachelor/bachelorette parties only exist here because of Hollywood influence, but even this one was tame by local standards, as it was just a really nice lunch in the Casco Viejo of Bilbao.  If the Basque Country is the best place to eat on the globe, outside of Donosti/San Sebastián, the Casco Viejo of Bilbao is the center of that.  Food did not disappoint, and even though it's a tad awkward when you're surrounded by people you don't know and only have one person in common, the lack of language barrier and being a very close friend of that one person, as well as being pretty good at carrying a conversation helped.

After lunch, a few of us headed to a café along the river and had some coffee, and my best friend had to leave early to go to a choir rehearsal, so after picking up a SIM card so I could have data and a working cellphone, I stayed and wandered around the Casco Viejo, heading up the hill near to the Basílica de Begoña, and walked around town while heading a bit closer to the subway line.

In the middle of the Casco Viejo, or Zazpi Kaleak/Siete Calles.

View of some of the East side of the Nervión river, heading down from the Parque Etxeberria.

The Nervión river, the artery of Bilbao.

June 5.

It was a Saturday, and my best friend and her family took a drive out to the restaurant and venue where she was planning on having her wedding the following year.  I can't remember how she came across it, but it's basically three locations: the main restaurant, which has 3 Michelin stars (I believe the chef is one of the youngest people to ever earn the 3-star ranking, if not the youngest); a vineyard that produces its own txakoli, or Basque semi-sparkling white wine; and a venue for weddings and receptions.  The vineyard was the planned setting for the ceremony itself, and the reception would be held in the reception hall.  If there was bad weather (because it is the Basque Country, and rain is always predictable), the entire wedding would be held in the reception hall.

The place was booked, and soon after we left my best friend and I headed off to Beasain, a small town in Gipuzkoa, another Basque province (Bilbao is in Bizkaia, Vizcaya, or Biscay) because she had dance practice.  She's so involved in like, everything, doing choir for an internationally-ranked ensemble choir as well as ballroom dancing, doing competitions.  Not to mention at the time she was also working on finishing up her doctorate.  Because I'm not enough of a slacker.

Anyway, while my best friend was at her ballroom dancing class/lesson, I walked around Beasain, and booked myself a job for the summer as an au pair for a family in Castellón, which my mom had directed me to via a Facebook post from a friend of hers, who mentioned that a friend was looking for a bilingual person to be an au pair for their two children.  Score.

Beasain is a typical cute little Basque town, where people still speak Basque on the street and you hear it being spoken to their kids.  I can only understand bits and pieces since I've forgotten most of what I learned as a kid, but it's a beautiful language and I still have resources and schoolbooks to look over to help with learning it.

I met up with my best friend again and we drove up to San Sebastián (Donosti for locals, which is what I've always called it and still call it, and you won't ever be able to make me stop calling it that) for the evening.

First we made a pit stop in Ordizia, a village nestled in the Basque hills.

Donosti is very popular, and definitely the most visited (and touristy) places in the Basque Country.  The Spanish royal family had a summer home there until they were forced into exile during the Civil War and the subsequent dicatorship, and donostiarras have never forgotten that.  The city is absolutely beautiful, and is very well known for its shell-shaped beach (known as La Concha, or "The Shell") and its art nouveau architecture from the late 1800's and early 20th century.

It was around 9:30 PM when we parked the car, and around 10 we were getting hungry, so we stopped in a small restaurant in the old section (where all the good restaurants are), and of course we got pintxos.

All gone.

We left, walked around some, stopped for some tea and coffee (because any good Spaniard needs coffee or tea or something every few hours), and headed back to Bilbao.