Arriving in the city we have to slum it and do everything ourselves. Like hail a cab. And check in. We are not used to self-service vacations! Our boys have spoiled us hard!
Our home for the next two nights is the Hotel Miro, which is conveniently located right across the street from the Guggenheim. The location obviously can't be beat and we suppose the European chic decor and full on complimentary breakfast will be adequate enough for our newly honed Maria Cristina luxury palates. Our first goal upon check in is to get a map as we'll actually need one here.
After a bit of downtime and freshening up, we take to the streets (well, the street) and hit the Guggenheim (The Goog). Our plan for tonight is simple: take copious amounts of photos of The Goog outdoors, eat something, drink a little and head to a concert.
The outer facade of The Goog is an iconic image of architectural wizardry. You look at it in photos and wonder how it's possible. I stared at it up close and wondered the same thing. Steel curved so delicately, without a brick to be seen, it takes conventions of traditional building and turns them topsy turvy. The museum is set back from the street in perfect proportion (unlike our own ROM) so we are able to take it in from afar in perspective, slowly walking closer to gain full appreciation of the intricacies of this gorgeous building.
We wet our appetites just enough literally and figuratively but can only look after one at the moment - food! The inside of The Goog will have to wait until tomorrow. After a quick pit stop of (by this point boringly delicious) beer and pintxos we're off again for our evening's main event.
I find it's always a treat to see a known performer in a foreign city. It somehow makes the world a little smaller knowing that people are humming and singing the same tune miles and oceans away from you, and here you are, with them, humming and singing together. Through the all knowing power of the Internet, we learned Glen Hansard was performing in Bilbao while we were there - a perfect must do. For those not familiar, Glen Hansard is an Irish songwriter who gained notoriety in the early 2000's for the movie Once. He, along with his songwriting partner, Marketa Irglova, wrote much of the music for the movie and also starred in it. The hallmark song from the film, "Falling Slowly", won the duo an Academy Award and the film has now been staged on Broadway to high praise and many Tonys. In truth, I think Glen's a bit of a dick. He didn't have many positive things to say about the Broadway adaptation until it was a critical and box office smash and in the ultimate dick-move of all time, he cut off poor Marketa during their Oscar acceptance speech before she had a chance to say anything. Are you kidding me?! Can you even imagine?! I would have clocked the guy with my Oscar right then and there OR said nothing and sulked about it very passive - aggressively for eons afterwards. (What do you think? Probably B, right?). It all turned out okay for Marketa, though, because Jon Stewart, hosting that year, felt so badly for her that HE CALLED HER BACK ONSTAGE AFTER THE COMMERCIAL BREAK, allowing her to say a few words of thanks! Do you love that? This is unheard of! Marketa & Glen aren't together anymore (surprise!) and Jon Stewart has taken his rightful place in my heart as love of my life. Anyway, Glen's playing in Bilbao at the Cafe Antzokia, a small room within a larger cultural complex, full of character and old world charm which means that if it wasn't in a European city it would be a little dumpy. That said, it's a very small, intimate venue perfectly suited for a guy and his guitar.
For all my thoughts of dick-Glen, I will say he's a raw performer. The concert was simply amazing - Glen killed it for 3 hours, introducing each song with Irish flair and humour. He even came right into the crowd and balcony with his guitar, cheering us all on in sing-a-long. It was clear he was having just as much fun as we all were. I have been known to hold a grudge and that Oscar faux-pas will not be forgotten by me, but I will put this one down in the books as one of the best shows I've ever seen. I'm fair like that.
It's late now, concert over - our eyes are teary and hearts full. My feet, however, have had it. I made a really stupid shoe selection when getting ready and after a city walk plus 5 hours of concert standing, I am officially raising the white flag. Even though we could get back to the hotel within 20 minutes by foot, I can't do it - we need a cab. In most large metropolitan centres this isn't much of a challenge, but for some reason at this time of night (morning) in Bilbao we are having a really hard time. I'm almost ready to walk home in my socks but Andrea saves the day, flags one down and off we go, but not without an adventure of another sort. We get in the cab, shut the doors and our cab driver begins to yell at us. We can't figure out why - because he's yelling in Spanish - but slowly manage to figure out that he's yelling because he feels we shut the doors too hard. This, of course, is hysterical - dude, look at us: Do you really think we can break your car?! We spent the next 10 minutes laughing and thinking of ways not to anger him further upon drop off - do we leave the doors open? ask our concierge for cotton batting to protect the delicate frame of this precious automobile? In the end, we were as gentle as possible and laughed all the way upstairs, Amazon women that we are. This was the best Valentine's Day I've had in years.
Friday morning came a little too quickly, and it wasn't necessarily welcome. It seems the weather has finally gotten the best of us - Andrea hasn't slept, I'm feeling out of sorts. We decide to partake in the hotel's breakfast spread, Andrea will come back to sleep, I'll meander and we'll regroup later for The Goog. After breakfast, we come back to the room, me for only a pit stop which turned into a two hour nap. I finally wake and manage to get myself all the way to the hotel bar for loads of tea and book reading. After a few more hours, we make it to The Goog. Aren't vacations grand?
Admittedly I'm not much of an art connoisseur. I suppose I like what I like but I'm not really sure what that is - I like sketches and watercolours and sculpture and photography but I don't really get the 'modern' stuff. Installations of rocks? Damien Hirst? Jackson Pollack? I just don't know - it seems a bit too self congratulatory for me, like 'look at how deep and intellectual I am that I can see meaning and symbolism in a red dot'. Take me to the Monets please! Because of this, the inside of The Goog didn't really do it for me which is totally fine because when the building that houses your art is art itself, you take care of art-neophytes like myself. Thank you, Goog!
As we're wandering around trying to make sense of it all we see a sign. No, no - an actual sign. The sign details information of something called 'Guggenheim After Dark', an after hours party held at The Goog with real 'put the needle on the record' DJs and drinks and dancing. It's happening tonight. What are the chances? We're in! This is a perfect happy accident situation that can only happen on vacation maybe once a decade (Two years ago, U2 was playing a concert in Athens the day my ship was literally sailing to Turkey. Is it still missing the boat when you didn't want to be on that boat? In any event, I know from bad vacation luck.) It also helped that we had nothing on the agenda aside from 'let's eat and listen to live music' (note to self: it's okay not to plan everything! bad things won't happen!).
Armed with the prospect of yet another fantastic night, we venture off to our most favourite thing: the funicular! Two cities, two funiculars, two wild and crazy girls ready for adventure and photo ops. Love, Love, Love. At 0.95 euros a piece the Bilbao funicular is the deal of the trip - the breathtaking views of city were expected, the roller figure skating practice, was not.
High atop the Artxanda Mountain, we gained a lovely perspective of the city. Bilbao is rather small in comparison to other European cities of its stature, and in fact is actually the 10th largest city in Spain with a population of 360,000. I suppose the notoriety of The Goog had vaulted it in my own mind to something larger which is often the case when you read, talk, imagine something. The new and old part of the city is separated by the Nervion River and a full walk along this path (which we will do in short order) only takes about 20 minutes. It's on the mountain that I become fully amazed at the power of my new camera's zoom - I'm certain I could have taken these photos of The Goog from Portugal, the zoom is that amazing!
The roller figure skating practice, in our opinion, lacked flair and requisite jumping. With a language barrier to deal with, we decide to let the fellas figure it out for themselves - and hopefully before it's too late! - and we walk back to the hotel on the shoreline path and then the Gran Via, aka The Main Drag. We poke into some shops and stop for some delicious hot cocoa before tucking in for a much needed nap.
Our evening at The Goog was one of those nights we'll never forget. At least we better not considering I deleted all our photos. You see, there are a few things you should NEVER do when getting home very, very late after drinking many, many drinks. Tops on that list for me is anything to do with technology. You can get into all sorts of trouble this way. We may not be able to look nostalgically at how awesome we looked that night (very), or how nutty we were sneaking photos in non-photo areas (Very) or how completely cool the whole thing was (VERY) but if we make a vow to talk about it as much as possible we will never forget it! Sadly, the Goog After Dark, will have to actually be that way.
We did learn definitively that night that no one makes a mixed cocktail like the Spaniards. Wine and beer is extremely inexpensive in Spain (much like most of Europe) but spirits are not. And they are not because one solitary vodka con limone is actually half a bottle of vodka with some lemon pop and two ice cubes. How efficient! I tried to replicate this when back home and almost gave Andrea alcohol poisoning. Oh well, some things are just better on vacation. Armed with the fortitude that only this amount of vodka can provide, Andrea struck up a conversation with a lonely lovely- looking fellow who turned out to be a self-possessed jerk. Some things don't change on vacation ( This is a story best saved for in person as it involves accents and attitude. Please remind me to tell you!). We danced and laughed and people watched and stumbled back to the hotel, conveniently located ACROSS THE STREET.
With respect to Dinos After Dark, or whatever the ROM is calling their similar event (which, ironically, I could also stumble home from), you are no Goog. Maybe because Toronto is no Bilbao, or because no one in Spain has an attitude. I'm actually coming to think that the attitude of which I speak doesn't exist anywhere else but Toronto. Everyone seems too cool for school at home - there is a seriousness to fun in Toronto which is absurd. It smacks of effort. Not caring to the point of overwrought indifference is, ironically, caring too much. In Spain, where we met the coolest guys in the world who unapologetically rock out to Debbie Gibson, we saw first hand what it's like to just do what makes you happy and take whoever wants to go along for the ride. I am always ready for that ride, my friends.
After deleting the photos (I feel less bad about it if I say it matter of factly, but seriously, I am a moron when left unattended and I DO feel really, really terrible about it) we need to hit the sack, for tomorrow ... we venture to Belgium!
