San Sebastian

(Sun. Oct. 11th)

Sunday morning of our Bilbao weekend we got up, ate free breakfast at the hotel again, stole more bread meat and cheese to make sandwiches for lunch, which was strictly prohibited, and got on a bus to San Sebastian- a coastal town 45 minutes from France, that has lots of gloomy days and rain, but also apparently has the best tapas in Spain, and thus by default the best in the world.

We went there just for half of one day, by the time the bus there and bus back to airport happens. Went to see a museum of sorts, a giant rolling lawn filled with the sculptures of a Spanish architect Eduardo Chilleda. Large, rusted steel (Corten steel, which is treated so it rusts on purpose, which seals the steel from further weathering, and looks cool). Interesting stuff but pretty abstract. He also had some sculptures in a cool barn thing that were alabaster and marble and such. It was raining and chilly.

The entrance looked very modern.

It was raining on and off, kind of somber, especially since the artist died recently and this was like the last thing he did with his life. Seemed like a sort of graveyard of artwork!

Here's one of the giant sculptures up close...so I guess there were outdoor sculptures in stone as well as rusted steel.

Many of them, as you can see, were as tall as or taller than people!

In the barn thing, this archway was a great frame for a picture. And I like pictures of other people taking pictures.

The inside of the barn again, where his works of art were exhibited- love the huge wooden beams holding the whole thing up.

Dave and John like taking pictures- I like taking pictures of them taking pictures.

These were tiny mockups of the much larger sculptures- these were small enough to hold in your hand, generally.

Outside again, you can see the giant hand kinda sculpture.

Nice clean new Audis make me want one. And I was still thinking about birthday presents, so I couldn't help myself :)

From there we went to the city. Much larger place than I expected, right on the ocean, with an island out in the water. Still rainy and wet, randomly poured once after I decided to leave my umbrella in the bus. We walked out to the water to see more Chilleda sculptures, which were cool.

This island looked cool in the misty distance.

This was the hillside. Amazing vertical layers of rock!! How did they get like this? That's quite a fault to shove rock up into this position. It looked fake. Chilleda decided it was a perfect area for his sculptures...

Here's the opposite side of the rock, with the steel sculptures in the distance, right where the surf crashes up on the rocks. Pretty cool place, even in the rain. I'm wearing my trusty 60s Polaroid camera case, which was my man-purse for the semester. I feel a little naked without it now.

Then we got about an hour to run free real quick and get some of the worlds best tapas. Dave and I, Nate and John, found a place with great stuff that I can still taste. And lunch wad only 6 euros (9 dollars) so for tapas in San Sebastian I can live with it. Most were sandwiches or things on toasts, like a giant slice of salmon on top of crab salad o toast. Or a bunch of baby eels, which I did not eat. Chris wouldn't like all the seafood over here in Spain :)

Nate and Steve are still a bit wet, enjoying their sandwiches in the mirror. Hi Nate.

Here's what the little bar looked like, with tapas spread all the way down- grab what you want, throw it on your plate, pay for it all.

Here's my little egg bacon lettuce toast sandwich, with the egg yolk peeking through- a nice touch. And a tasty sandwich. The quiche (I like pronouncing that how its spelled) was good too.

After tasty treats we went to see a theater by a Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, who in retrospect I should have known of. He won the Pritzker Prize at some point (the Nobel equivalent, of architecture, given by the Pritzker family who resides in Chicago and who's house was built by my professor).

The theater was an opaque glass box with a solid wooden box inside. A few windows punched out to give views of the sea. Theater space was huge, with the undersides of the seats covered with wood and fabric such that if the seats are folded up (because they're empty) they still have the same acoustic reflection and absorption as a person- so the theater always sounds the same. Ingenious!

Here's the exterior of the theaters, but still interior of the building- circulation space.

You can see the inside of the ribbed opaque glass box well. Cool staircases rising up...

One of the few windows to the outside, a framed view of the breakwater and beach.

After a short guided tour we were free again. To go bouldering on the breakwater :). It took most of our time to ramble out there and back on the rocks. Really fun. Bummer part was the rain starting, which kinda killed 30% of the surfaces for climbing, since all the smooth ones got really slippery. The button of my umbrella suffered a casualty.

Me following Nathan out...in the distance somewhere is John and Dave.

Shawna following me. See how big the rocks are! It was a blast. But if you fell you could end up down between the stones...way down.

John is posing for the picture. That's before he doffed his shirt.

Looking back gives you an idea of the cube of the theater, with the few windows looking out of the building, and the beach in front of it.

Sooooo, we got kinda hot from our bouldering- and I decided it was worth a picture. I mean why not. Nathan's kinda red though :)

And then suddenly it was time to get on a bus to the airport and head back to Barcelona. It's funny because we started actually being bummed about going to BARCELONA because we associate it with school and because we don't do ad many touristy things there, we just live in our quiet industrial neighborhood and do school.

Here's a little I-forget-what-they're-called-right-now that was cool looking. Pergola? No that's not the world. Brain freeze.

And a view of the cityscape of San Sebastian in general. Wish we'd had time to explore more. Every place has something to offer to a architect interested in learning.