October 7
Last night. I did nothing today other than wander around and think about how much I have done in three weeks and how much these three weeks have done for me. Below are some leftover shots from the many I've captured. Martha (best wife ever) told me today that because of how easy it was to maintain the house by herself and how happy I've sounded for the last three weeks, I should absolutely feel free to do this sort of thing anytime. I am so in.

My first week here, there was a food-truck festival in Parque de Cituadella called "Van Van" where all the food trucks had to be vintage American trailers. I was able to get a veggie burger here, and the guy selling them gave me some fries for free because his name was also Daniel.

If you really, really hate paying property taxes, called "IBI" in Spain, you can do something like this. But you still have to pay your taxes.

Some people in Barcelona have the job of blowing really big bubbles. My guess is that it doesn't pay very much, but it's a job.

So many dogs, everywhere. You got your lab mixes and shepherds, but also some breeds that just aren't, I don't know, "American" looking. Like what is this?

A "small" assortment of local, quirky cheeses, all made within a few miles of the restaurant. Were they good? Yes. Did I feel slightly nauseous after eating all this cheese? You bet.











And finally, I have heard so much music everywhere, good bad and ugly, I can't even remember all of it. Here is a tiny sampling:

October 6
OK, back in Barcelona and winding down. Here are just a few of many random shots from this trip.

My friend John mentioned that Barcelona has the best graffiti of any city. He might be right.

The beginning of dinner in a bar somewhere, but I don't remember exactly where.

The beginning of dinner in San Sebastian. 

                    Breakfast in San Sebastian. 

I was not expecting to see a car pass me here. There is a several hundred foot drop straight down off the right side of the "road" here. I was walking. 

October 5
Today I said hasta luego to the last real destination of my trip, Fuente De, the place at the end of the road. I have begun the trip back home, which will still take a couple of days.

It is really fortunate that I didn't plan my mountain hike for this morning. Today I could barely even see the mountain.

                           

After a slight departure delay, I headed out of town and drove to San Sebastian, from where I'll get an early morning train back to Barcelona.

October 4
Today was a day of hiking on a "trail" in the mountains. At the recommendation of the park ranger, I skipped the walking up the mountain part and rode the cable car up to start hiking from there.

The mountain beckoned this morning and I did not resist the call.

                           

I don't think there is a word in English for this. We were packed so tightly in the cable car that it was claustrophobic, but the clear glass walls of the car were the only thing that separated us from thousands of feet of open air in every direction.

The skinny line in the middle of the picture is the beginning of the trail, before it starts to ascend.

This layer of rocks and gravel that we all followed is why I put quotes around the word "trail." It's more like a moonscape than any trail I have experienced before. You can see some people ahead of me in the picture.

From the trail, we could all see beautiful mountains that are probably more fun to walk in.

There were signs everywhere warning about fog. In the evening the fog rolled in and I could see why. The whole trail experience would have been quite different in conditions like this.

Monday October 3
Today I am literally (and I don't use "literally" to mean "figuratively" as many people do. I actually mean "literally") at the end of the road. Or more accurately at the end of a road. Specifically the road to Fuente De in Picos de Europa National Park. The road pretty much ends at a sheer wall of mountain (shown below). This is my blast of total solitude before heading back into civilization on Wednesday.

                                      

This is the view from my room in Fuente De. I'm pretty high up. For the first time since sometime in March, I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

                                            

This is my hotel. I don't know the dog's name because the people who own and run the hotel aren't very friendly and I don't want to anger them. The dog is pretty friendly and doesn't care that I don't know his/her name.

                                            

From what I can tell, this is who pretty much lives here - sheep and horses. They seem to have a nice life.

                                            

If you look carefully around the middle of this picture, you'll see a red dot. That dot is the cable car that I'm going to take up to the top of the mountain tomorrow so that I can hike around and enjoy the view.

October 2
Fueled by a borderline toxic combination of sugar and caffeine, I powered through Bilbao today with the confidence of someone who knows how to get his car going in reverse. That and my almost flawless Spanish, which hit a tiny snag this evening when the bartender asked me if I would be eating my tapas outside (which costs slightly more) and I thought he was asking me what kind of wine I wanted. The conversation went something like this:

Him: "Will you be eating these outside or inside?"
Me: "It doesn't matter to me, whichever one you like the best."

But we eventually sorted things out, resulting in his decision not to have me thrown out of the place.

Anyway, Bilbao is a city that seems, for every single municipal project, to think "well, we're going to have to design something anyway, let's just get an artsy designer to do it for us." As a result, the walk/don't walk signs have animations of stick figures walking, the bridges are more complicated then they have to be, colorful and beautiful, the buses are bright red and are called "Bilbobus," and so on.

But the crown jewel of all this artsiness is of course the Guggenheim, which is astounding. First of all, how much money does Peggy Guggenheim have? This museum is literally built out of materials that didn't exist until Frank Gehry decided that they had to be invented to give physical shape to his dream. But putting aside the banalities of how this thing got built, it is really amazing. I recommend a visit someday.

                                            

Who thinks up a building like this? Frank says that he traveled out here to look at the site and then started drawing on a piece of paper (of course not thinking consciously of design, per se, but rather just letting his emotions guide the pen) and came up with this.

The largest room in the museum (and possibly the largest room ever, period) has an installation of a sculpture that you can get lost in. This is a scale model.

This is the real thing.

You say "Why a thirty-foot dog made out of flowers?" Bilbao says "Why not a thirty-foot dog made out of flowers?"

Tomorrow, I say "Arrivederci" to Balboa and head out to the mountains for the last separately-identifiable adventure of this trip.

One last thing. Do you have any idea how expensive toothpaste is here? If you choose to visit, I recommend you bring an extra tube.