A Bear in Córdoba: 12.08

23.12.08

Pre-Christmas in Paris

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt underdressed? As in that sinking feeling that oh god, everyone else here is dressed several zeroes more expensively than me and that person just gave me the once-over and I'm definitely coming up short and I'm going to be stuck in this place for a while with no means of escape and oh god, so. awkward. ...? Imagine, if you will, rolling out of your first bed in 48 hours (not counting bumpy overnight buses and benches in museums), pulling on the clothes that you've already been traveling in for several days, doing --something-- to your hair without a mirror in sight, and then heading out to door to see what you can of Paris at Christmastime.

You wander over to the center part of town, gawk at the Opera house and smile at the throngs of children crowded around the moving window displays. You stop to pet a homeless guy's dog, and maybe even buy a dozen chestnuts or so. You feel rather at peace with the world and suffused with the Christmas spirit (whatever that means), and wander into the large and sparkly department store to see what all the touristy fuss is about. You wait in line to have your bag inspected, next to the impatient children and the women already digging out their Christmas gift lists. You head to the elevator to check out the view from the top floor, which you've heard is pretty spectacular on a clear day. The elevator opens ... and you realize that every impeccably coifed and styled person in it has turned to stare at your distinctly plain clothes.

You suddenly feel very, very much like an impoverished country mouse.

At least the view from the top was pretty damn fantastic.

(I'm dropping off the internet for ten days or so, to spend the holidays with family on a ranch somewhere in Brittany. Expect updates to resume after the 2nd, and in the meantime - happy whatever-holiday-you-celebrate, and have a wonderful, safe, and warm 2009!)

21.12.08

Rest in peace, Double Tenth.

You were the best puppy a little girl could ask for.

20.12.08

Adventures off the bottom of the map

Today's post title is stolen from M, fellow traveler extraordinaire who won my everlasting admiration for trekking through northern Spain with me while pulling her own weight and battling a nasty head cold. We parted ways at Madrid's Atocha train station on the 22nd, she to Malaga and I to Paris.

Oh, god, Bilbao was so much walking. Entirely too much walking and standing still and walking some more. The youth hostel is in the suburbs on the southwestern end of town, and the Guggenheim is on the northwestern end. So. Much. Walking and getting lost and walking some more ... and it didn't help that we started out on the southern edge of the map, then took a wrong turn (damn highway construction!) and fell off the map for a while. Whoops.

We did eventually make it to the Guggenheim though, and seriously, this place is mind-bogglingly (or bloggingly? heh) awesome. We spent a total of about six hours wandering in and around the museum, taking in all the installation pieces and admiring Frank Gehry´s architectural genius. Although the building is mostly made of limestone, titanium, and glass, inside I felt lightness and movement rather than heavy industrial building materials.

There was a special exhibit on Cy Twombly and his work at various stages of his life, which showed the influence of different artistic trends on his style. I really liked his latest Pop Art-inspired pieces, big red flowers on a bright yellow field. There was also a selection of items from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, organized by Portraits, Landscapes, Coins/Medals, the Nude, etc. I can't wait to visit the KHM itself, later this trip!

Lunch was sitting outside on the museum terrace and dodging bemused waiter´s glances. Baguette, carrots, chorizo, clementines, and taking pictures for other tourists. A group of children on a field trip stopped by the terrace to get out of the rain while their chaperones negotiated tickets downstairs.

The festival the next day was delicious, and so much fun! There were far more people than I thought lived in Bilbao, and the women and children all dressed up in traditional clothes. Of course, this being Spain there were also living statues performing, including this cowboy who was spray-painted silver all over. He had a really good act going on and interacted with his audience using whirrs and clicks and whistles, and had candy for the children who were brave enough to go near and give him money.

The smells of grilled meat and roasted chestnuts was pervasive, and oh so enticing. Lamb in tortilla is seriously tasty, and I really want to try murcillo (blood sausage) someday. We sat on a bench in the middle of the fair to eat lunch, and all around us were people eating, chatting, and (in typical Spanish fashion) boozing it up at 2pm. (The food stalls cut a channel into the corks of the wine bottles to making pouring easier for their customers.) We happened to be next to a foursome of loud and tipsy women, who liked the fair so much they started singing and dancing sevillanas. This was only slightly hampered by the half-eaten tortillas in their hands, which they ended up waving around like fans ... I love Spain.

We spent most of the day at the fair, poking around the craft booths hosted by local artisans and sampling award-winning cheeses. There's a turrón shop in the old part of town that's been in existence since the 1800's, that sells excellent turrón and marzipan candies - their marzipan puppies are almost too cute to eat! I also tried pastel vasco for the first time, and good lord it is tasty. It has a cookie-like outer covering, and the inside tastes kind of like vanilla pudding but the texture is a bit firmer. Delicious!

This is Basque country though, and the festival was a celebration of entirely un-Spanish identity. So considering the steadily rising BAC of the general populace, perhaps it wasn't surprising that the fair went BOOM periodically. We never could figure out where it came from, but my guess was that readily available alcohol + (also readily available) cigarette lighters = charred and gently smoking garbage bins.

The next day we headed to Portugalete and Getxo, two small, lovely towns separated by the Nervión River in the suburbs of Bilbao. Their main claim on the guidebooks is the Vizcaya commuter bridge, which was the first of its kind at the end of the 19th century and costs five euros to walk across but 0.30 cents to ride the ferry (wtf?!). The architect was a disciple of Gustav Eiffel, and you can really see the influence of the Tower on the bridge. While looking for the tourist information booth, we stumbled onto the Sunday afternoon promenade crowd along the beach, with grannies and prams in tow. The Spanish (or is it European?) penchant for dressing their offspring in identical outfits is ridiculously cute, and gave an early 20th century air to the whole afternoon.

My host mother in Cordoba had likened going to Bilbao to visiting a different country, and after those three too-short days I have to agree. The architecture of the old town is more reminiscent of Swiss townhouses than the traditional Spanish houses with central patios, and the feeling of the city is different from any other Spanish city I've been in. Also, the near-constant rain coats everything in GREEN, the only other place I've seen that much green is in Ireland. We were lucky though - in our three days we caught the first two days of sunshine they'd had in two months!

19.12.08

Arrival in Bilbao

Woke up this morning before the sun, in an enormous bed in a hotel in Madrid. After taking the bus to the airport with the rest of the program, M and I took the subway from the airport back into the city. And then we walked around Madrid for *hours* trying to find the damn bus station that ran buses to the north of Spain. We ended up at the bus station on the entirely wrong end of town, and nearly ended up going to Valencia (of the tasty oranges) rather than Bilbao (of the Guggenheim museum).

So a five hour bus ride later, we've gotten to Bilbao and settled into the hostel. M and I have a quite nice six-person room to the two of us, since it's definitely off-season for this part of the country. I jumped at the chance to wash all my clothes so there's a little tent city going on in the room right now.

I'm very glad M's on this leg of the trip with me, since she's an extra pair of eyes to look for signs and other important things, and keeps me from having to sit next to sketchy people on buses and such. She also saves food money the same way I do, by buying from a supermarket rather than a restaurant. For dinner we bought 6.10 euros worth of food for the two of us and that was more than enough. She also introduced me to chorizo, which is this kind of long, skinny sausage-ish tube of pepperoni-like cured ham. It is salty and fatty and deliciousness incarnate (no pun intended ;)

However, the hostel being nice and clean doesn't mean that the clientele isn't slightly sketchy. I *think* I got hit on earlier tonight while I was writing postcards, but I'm still not entirely sure. I was writing on a table in the empty dining room, and a guy came over from a birthday party in the other room. He sat down and introduced himself as Luis from Chile, hospitality student here to study as a chef. We talked a bit about Spain and where we each came from, then he asked me what floor I was staying on. I didn't want to tell him where I was sleeping, so I picked a random floor and said the fifth. Turns out that's his floor and he immediately asked me which room I was in ... awwwwkward. >_>;;;;; Later he came back and complimented me on my smile and asked me if I liked to dance ... *sigh* if it hadn't been 2:30 in the morning and I hadn't been ready to keel over from exhaustion, I might actually have taken him up on that. Maybe.

Tomorrow we're going to the Guggenheim museum, and probably doing somemore wandering around the city. The 20th there's a big traditional celebration of some sort, historically it was the day the tenant peasants would pay their landlords. These days it's more of a gathering of food, beer and artisan crafty things. And then we're taking the midnight bus back to Madrid to save on a night of board ... 13ish euros a night is fairly cheap, but it still adds up!

The End of the Beginning

Classes ended on the 11th, and finals started immediately after. These past few weeks have been a whirlwind of final exams, projects, presentations, and packing. I'm most proud of my photography project and presentation, but I really enjoyed all four of my classes this semester. Roman history especially gave me a very solid base from which to learn about Cordoba, Spain, and Europe in general, and Archaeology taught me to appreciate the material culture of the past.

While the material is still fresh in my mind, this January I'm going to travel around southwestern Europe and use my photography skilllz on whatever Roman ruins I come across. Between now and February 17th (beginning of next semester's classes), I'm planning on visiting five countries and about 20 cities:

December:
17 Madrid
18 Bilbao
22 Paris (France)
24 Brittany

January:
01 Paris
07 Rome (Italy)
10 Florence
14 Milan
15 Vienna (Austria)
18 Salzburg
20 Zurich (Switzerland)
24 Malaga (Spain)
...
Wandering around southern Spain for several weeks ...
...

February:
15 Cordoba

While I'm wandering though, internet is probably going to be spotty at best and updates might not have many pictures. I can promise lots of good stories though!

Also, if any of you have any suggestions as to what to do in any of these cities, please comment or email them to: abearincordoba "at" gmail "dot" com. Thanks! :D

18.12.08

Medina Al-Zahra

Two Fridays ago our program organized a small excursion to Medina Al-Zahra, the 12th-century (?) palace and political/economic center of Al-Andaluz (Andalusia today). Again, apologies for the links!

The palace was built into the side of the hill, for defence and cooling reasons.
http://photos-h.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684207_9455.jpg

Another view out into the fields - you can see the early morning mist hasn't dissipated yet.
http://photos-b.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684201_7488.jpg

Restoration work of the Salón de Ricos, thought to be a reception hall for foreign dignitaries and other Important People.
http://photos-e.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684204_8469.jpg

Restoration in progress
http://photos-f.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684205_8795.jpg
http://photos-g.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684206_9120.jpg

One last look...
http://photos-d.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v1794/32/14/2104379/n2104379_31684203_8140.jpg

Sevilla, Milano, and Torino

A Bear in Córdoba