Bilbao Day One

(Friday Oct. 9th)

So I have a lot to tell. Once that the trips started, I was in trouble. I spent a weekend in Bilbao and San Sebastian during my birthday, the following weekend in Seville AND Granada, a brief chewing out in Studio because we weren't getting enough done (directed at the whole class not just me) and then a weekend in Madrid, Casablanca, Switzerland, Paris... Lemme start with Bilbao.

Bilbao had been the only other for sure thing I knew I would do this semester aside from actually going to Barcelona, because it's a planned mid-term trip each year. And by mid-term I mean six weeks in :).

My favorite ad I saw a million times in Barcelona Terminal 1- a cellphone as a suitcase.

So the exciting thing about midterms was, after getting around five hours of sleep each night for five days, give or take, we were informed, AT our midterm, that our flight the next morning was at 8..."something". Great, good to know 13 hours in advance. So I went home and finished watching Public Enemies, filmed in Chicago, and packed and went to bed. Too late.

Bilbao started off with landing at a Calatrava airport. He was the guy who built all the crazy stuff in Valencia that we saw. It was an older building of his but cool, all white of course, soaring roof and cantilevers.

We also saw a sculpture that we didn't know until later was by a local famous artist whose work we saw in San Sebastian.

We hopped on a bus to downtown. Drove right past the Guggenheim Museum, what we came to see, arguable the most important (positively and negatively both) piece of architecture in the last couple decades. Oh man, it was crazy getting glimpses of it out the window of the bus.

We got to our hotel, south of downtown along the river. I stayed with Dave. We had a tiny little balcony overlooking the river- not a bad little view! We uh, pushed those beds apart :)

We headed back to the city, up these stairs and across this bridge, over the river. There was a sweet roaring lion on top of a building over there. Ha. Roar.

Some big building across the river: the city has been in a process of revitalization for some years, turning from industrial to cultural and artsy.

Some awning/light/overhang thing outside of the concert hall situated right next to the big bridge, a focal point across the river.

A random sculpture outside of it.

Saw a badass Harley Davidson

Saw the Guggenheim again, down the street, tantalizing us...

A cool plaza where we'd rendevous later- some abstract looking church and a circular overhang that apparently invited my friends to climb on top of it that evening...

We got let out on our own for a couple hours, and found a hideous green building, across the street from a cool glassy building that looked like the crags of a mountain, and was a great place to take pictures of our reflections...

Another cool glassy building with an installation in front of it that steams

We went to get some lunch (I packed my lunch) and what sounded really good on the menu turned out be hot dogs and french fries for way too much money :)

We discovered a little portico on the street, next to random shops, and it was just a nook where they had vending machines. But THEN Dave discovered that it was jammed with food that had fallen and gotten stuck...it looked like people bought MORE food to try and make it fall on top of the other food, but it didn't budge. We thought, we need a STICK! And there was already a stick on the ground in front of it already :)

So Dave got his hand in there, with the stick, and after lots of bending and working the stick around (video forthcoming)...

He liberated all the food! And you can see how excited he was :)

On our way to meet back up with our class we stopped by some city hall kinda building that was hiding a brand new library behind it. A library where the public couldn't access the books.

Oh and there was a sculpture of some guy, or at least half of him...

The library had a pool of water in front of it, and the water ran over glass, and if you went inside and downstairs...

...then you can stand underneath the water running over the glass.

A random building that was distinctive.

A nice opportunity for a group photo when we all met up...

Dave thought he could do a few push ups in the water fountain. John I'm sure was encouraging him. (Okay, so was I, I need good pictures!)

All train stations look relatively the same, but I still like them all- the exposed steel spanning vast distances, long tunnel opening to the sky.

But this station had a pretty nice stained glass scene inside! We were headed out of the city center to a smaller adjoining town...

Next t0 the tracks was one of my favorite construction...things- a "gabion wall": crushed up concrete rubble contained inside a steel cage- great for building a wall out of used construction waste, and also they're pretty good for absorbing sound and vibration.

Interesting thing about this one was the supports...

This was a small park. And very small kids trying to climb the ramp.

Door to an apartment complex, in the reflection you can see the soccer stadium across the street, with a tower sticking up.

The soccer stadium. I think we counted it had like 6 or 7,000 seats.

The facade by the entries

Me in the stadium with the tower housing the lights in the back. The seats in the stadium were multicolored so that the stadium looks full even when its empty :)

Oh and we found a mini forest of little trees. Kinda nice except the ground was covered with gravel that my little running shoes with all the gaps in the soles liked to eat up.

Dave liked climbing the trees, cause Dave likes climbing EVERYTHING.

Dunno what's going on with this bridge but I liked it. For some reason no one else seemed to care. I even asked to go see it cause we weren't even gonna walk by it!

We also went to see a cool very contemporary Catholic Church. Stark and white inside and out, very square, very simple, but then with fantastic stained glass windows inside.

And a low slot in one wall

And classrooms in the basement with perforated panels in the walls.

The is the same facade where the stained glass windows peak into the church- you can't even see the colors from the outside, quite surprising.

We also saw some very German looking housing buildings up on a hill.

Shawna and I are in the reflection of the window in the train. I like pictures of myself in reflections. Its the only time you can see who's taking the picture and get behind the camera!

Back in Bilbao, we saw the opera house with an expansion on top of it. I guess they had the choice of matching the architecture or contrasting it...

See the red ribbon building weaving out? Cool.

Night by this time, we crossed the river in search of a place to hang out for a bit.

The people, the bridge, the river, the hills.

We found a place to have a beer. Some people went out for many more than one beer. I went back home and I think went to bed early-ish. After all, I had a big birthday ahead of me!