Art After Dark and a Painted Forest

November 16, 2009

This past weekend, Christina left for a trip to Paris and Carolyn went back to the U.S. (wish I could do the same...I get homesick every now and then!) So, Kendall and I had the house to ourselves. Friday night we went to Art after Dark at the Guggenheim! It's a party inside the museum at night. They had a d.j. who played good music and you could browse some of the exhibits as well! After this, we went to a discoteca called Fever. This is a huge club just outside of town in an industrial area. The ticket to the museum included free admission to Fever. I enjoyed going here...they played a lot of techno/house music...but they also had a hip-hop room featuring songs by Jay-Z, Snoop-Dogg, etc. It was a nice change from the usual techno music that can be heard in most clubs here (but don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy dancing to techno music). Everyone that we were with was ready to leave the club around 430 or 5 (yes in the a.m.!), so we all walked back to the metro. However, the metro did not open until 6! Some people decided to walk back, but Kendall and I stayed and waited for the metro with two other language assistants (they did not want to walk because their feet were hurting from the shoes they were wearing). By the time the metro opened, people (who came from the club) were pushing and shoving to get into the platform...disaster! In the end, we made it home safely and I was sooo ready to crawl into bed!

On Sunday, one of my students from my English class (Xabier who lives in Basauri) took Kendall and I exploring! We went to Bakio, Bermeo, and Guernica. Bakio and Bermeo are both on the coast and Guernica is very close to the coast. We went to an island that had stairs leading to it from the mainland. There is a beautiful hermitage at the top of the island dedicated to San Juan (John the Baptist). The name of the island is Gaztelugatxe.......http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/San_Juan_de_Gaztelugatxe



Bermeo is a cute little fishing town right on the coast. To our surprise, there was a food market/festival going on. There were award-winning sausage chefs there and we tried marcilla....a really yummy type of sausage. We tried various cheeses, wine and cider! I bought some Basque honey too!

After Bermeo, we traveled to the Painted Forest of Ibarolla (the painter's name). This is a beautiful forest where the artist painted designs on the trees. When you stand in different designated places, the designs fit together to make a larger piece of work. Very cool!

We then went to Guernica and saw the Assembly Hall where the government of Vizcaya meets. We got to go inside and take a tour. While we were touring the hall, we met a very interesting Irish family. The woman and her two children were Irish, but the man of the family was Spanish. Through talking with them, we figured out that the man was the Spanish lover! The girls were talking about their dad being back in Ireland! Scandalous! After we left the Assembly Hall, we were walking in the park, briefly commenting on the Spanish lover and my Spanish student said, 'we make good lovers.' haha!

We stopped and saw the mural of Picasso's painting (Guernica) depicting the bombing of Guernica which happened in 1937. I love, love art and it was so amazing to get to see this mural. The actual painting is located in a museum in Madrid. After this, we went to an Irish pub for coffee. By this time, it was getting dark and we were tired, so we headed back to Bilbao.
I am so appreciative to Xabier (one of my students) for taking us on this trip!!!!