I have an interesting observation about the old ladies in the north of Spain. I like to call them "The Fur Coat Ladies" or "The Fur Coat Clones". They're all the same, one right after another in a sourpuss brigade of fluff scuttling down the streets all day. And they all have the same expression of general disdain for someone who might otherwise be enjoying life. So I've developed a new game - to try to get them to smile. They all have the same old lady scowl, and if you smile at them their face turns even more into a lemon pucker. But every once in awhile I win when one of them flickers an unconscious smile back.
It's been a great few days, and I've discovered that the world (at least in science) is very small indeed. I've known for a few weeks that a woman from a lab in London was coming to give a seminar and get recruited for a position at a new institute here in Santander. I felt like her name was familiar, but couldn't place her until we got to the airport (me and Marian) to pick her up. Marian was digging through her bag and not paying attention when Federica passed through the doors from baggage claim, and so I saw her first. Yep, I know her. And she didn't see Marian but saw me. And wasn't expecting someone she met once in Wood Hole a year ago to show up out of nowhere in an airport in Spain when she's here for an interview. It was quite a priceless look on her face. So fortunately for me, I have a travel buddy for a few days. She's staying through Sunday evening to see some of the area, so we traveled together today to Bilbao and are going to Santona tomorrow for Carnival. Sinfully glutinous fun.
Bilbao was great but mostly because of the Guggenheim. The building is a Frank Gehry work of abstract steel curvature, and the galleries inside are all off of a main cathedral-vaulted central entrance. There are two major installations. One of Murakami - a Japanese artist who does ridiculously brightly colored anime-style paintings and sculptures and another by Richard Serra - an America "sculptor", of sorts, who creates 12 foot tall steel structures that are meant to sort of bend your perception of space and time. They gave me the feeling of what I would imagine walking inside of a rosebud to feel like - you enter in one place and walk around and round to the center of the sculpture. But sometimes the big steel plates curve inward or outward with respect to each other and psychologically force your body to tilt in that direction even though there is plenty of room to walk perfectly upright. And sometimes the steel echos your footsteps, voice, and giggle so that it sounds like there are duplicates of you wandering between the giant plates. But my favorite was an installation by someone whose name I didn't even catch that was a series of 10 digital light boards about 6 inches wide that reached from floor to ceiling in the central entryway. They ticker-scrolled words up and down and backwards that were essentially the description of an obsessive relationship that goes badly. They're very short sentences "I see you. I breathe you. I tickle you." and then it goes badly "I need you. I follow you." and then worse "I bury my head. I bury your head. I cry." and then there's brief reconnection and a final end. For some reason the way it was presented in the flow of short text was very emotionally dramatic.
So from the Guggenheim we wandered through the city to the old part of Bilbao and into a cafe on the central square after watching the kids wander the streets in their carnival costumes. 6 glasses of wine, two glasses of Pacharan, and 10 pinchos later it was time to catch our bus back to Santander. The last bus was at 11:30. We left the bar at 10:20 and started following the compass in my head that rarely fails me in getting from point A to point B. Except there was an enormous hill between those two points, and the Lonely Planet fails to make their maps topographical. Add to that the fact that alcohol diminishes my sense of distance, and we were in a rough state. So after asking a few very helpful locals, we managed to find the metro and get on a sensible train back around to the bus station with time to spare to pass out on the last bus leaving for the night.
And the food. The pinchos in the bar were delightful and deserve a description. We had a wafer thin pastry cone that was crispy fried and filled with chorizo, mushrooms, and grilled vegetables topped with snowflake-finely grated cheese (asiago, perhaps?). Then rounds of delicately tender beef cooked rare and wrapped around bacon and cheese on grilled leeks on top of a slice of baguette. And finally a soft white fish battered and lightly fried with thin slices of jamon and a single tiny sage leaf on top. All spectacular and unique. And I'm already hungry for them again...
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