Bilbao

Now for some contemporaneous reporting, my trip to Bilbao turns out to mean spending a large part of the day on a very slow train. At one point, a guy on a bicycle actually passed us. In fairness to the train, it happened during one of our inexplicable slow downs in the middle of nowhere that seem to take place randomly just before we start to speed up again for no reason I can discern. If you think this is boring to read, try living it sometime.

The British guy across the aisle from me on the train is limping around a lot and I heard him refer to a “bicycle accident” when he was talking to his friend. I don’t know more and I don’t want to know more.

In other news, no one has yet complimented my beard although I think it’s coming in nicely. It’s currently somewhere between terrorista and English professor at a small New England liberal arts college. But looking on the bright side, I also got no comments when I spilled most of a cup of coffee all over myself on the train, so maybe it’s a net positive that people mostly mind their own business around here.






And finalmente, the Bilbao station. I only spent two days here one other time in my life, but somehow I feel nostalgic walking around, feeling like it was just yesterday.












Hasta luego to the shrimp-shaped metro stations and the cherry-red Bilbobuses.

Adios to the attractive crowds at the tapas bars.

I have some riding to do.

Zaragoza Day 2

Here’s what you get when you combine me and blackout drapes. I went to sleep at around 10:30 after some tapas and two glasses of wine (technically three glasses because the guy at the bar gave me a free one when he had trouble getting my credit card to work. But I didn’t ask for it or pay for it, so I’m not counting it). Then there was a lot of  noise in my hallway, which annoyed me given that this is a nice hotel. I decided to check my phone so that I could tell the management what time there were people out there and discovered that it was after noon the next day.




After my 14-hour sleep, I went for a “morning” run, illustrated here. And then it was time for siesta and dinner.







Zaragoza has grown on me, and generally I think it compares favorably to Cleveland. If you’re checking off the boxes for places to visit, they’re on the water (Lake Erie and Ebro River), they have tourist destinations (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Plaza de Pilar), they have restaurants, night life delightful pedestrian malls and hipsters. But they’re both a little beat up and out of the way. So, if you have a night to kill and you’re in the vicinity, come and stay the night. But if you have a week to visit the country, I’d recommend New York and Barcelona instead.




However, I did eat great tapas in a bar that was almost worth coming here for. It came recommended and was very worth it. Almost all tapas places I’ve been to are 90% the same, but this one was very creative, tasty and almost impossible to find.



















And this fountain is pretty cool.
















While I'm not one for old churches, the Pilar church that every hotel around here is named for is pretty impressive.







Tomorrow I will awaken in the Spanish morning rather than the US morning and catch a train to Bilbao to begin my bike ride.

Zaragoza Day 1

My first day in Zaragoza is pretty much this – after navigating an overnight flight, two bus rides and two train rides, I made it to Zaragoza with the operating part of my brain limping along and reluctantly doing the minimum amount of work necessary to get me through the day.

A few early observations about Zaragoza:

1. Pilar is a very popular name. When

I began to decide where to go to get to my hotel, I remembered that the name was the “Pilar” something or other so that’s where I went. When they couldn’t find my reservation, I eventually realized that “Our Lady of Pilar” is the massive main church in town, so about half of the hotels, bars, grocery stores, dogs and streets within a half mile of that church have
“Pilar” in their name. The conversation with the clerk in the wrong Pilar hotel in which I figured this out either (1) went surprisingly well or (2) my Spanish was so alarming that she just decided that the quickest way to get me to leave was to politely nod.

2. It’s so hot and dry here that when I washed my stinky t-shirt in the “invigorating body cleanser” that the hotel left in my bathroom and hung it out on my balcony, it completely dried in about 45 minutes. Bonus here was that when I was headed back after a walk around town, I was actually able to identify my hotel because it had a t-shirt hanging from the balcony of one of its rooms. This is something every 4-star hotel would probably love to be known for.

3. They sell something called “meat chips” here. These are things that I both want to know more about and do not want to know more about.

My goal for today is to stay conscious long enough so that I can go get some tapas and wine and then crawl back to my hotel and pass out. Setting the bar for success so low that all I have to do is go to a bar and eat is basically where I’m at right now.

España, Chapter Tres

From my vantage point in this $120-extra-for-two-extra-inches premium seat, I am at least two inches extra optimistic about this year’s trip. Why?

1. Spanish history. The trending history of Spain, from the perspective of my past trips, bodes well.

Fall, 2016 – the government is in constitutional crisis because of its inability to agree on who should be president. There has actually been no president of Spain for over a year (yet somehow everyone could agree on continuing to shut the entire country down between 2 pm and 6 pm every day).

Fall 2017 – a terrorist drives a van down a crowded pedestrian plaza, killing many people. The elected leader of Catalonia, advocating for regional independence, flees to Belgium to avoid being jailed. Members of his cabinet are arrested and incarcerated prior to what turned out to be a violent independence vote in late September.

Fall 2018 – Spain is considering changing the time zone it is in.

2. Lessons learned. I learned last year that one very crappy way to start a vacation is to drink a lot of wine on the plane and then stay up all night watching a movie about a guy with multiple-personality disorder who wants to blow up a city and then at the end shoots himself in the face to kill the other personality (don’t worry, he was just bloody and wounded, not dead) while he watches the city blow up  . . . just as the pilot says “Welcome to Barcelona.” So this year I’m being much smarter about my movie choice. Nothing with “dead,” “rampage,” ”sniper” or “blood” in the title (all of which are offered on this flight). Yet not “Dennis the Menace,” or “101 Dalmatians” either. No final decision on this just yet.

3.  Personal Hygiene. I will be introducing Spain to my new beard, and I’m just so sure Spain will love it.

Trip Goals

I didn’t really have one until last week when two high-profile studies were released. The first found that drinking any amount of alcohol (such as wine) was detrimental to health. The second found that dairy products (such as cheese) reduce health risks. I’m planning to do a little testing during these next few weeks.

So, two hours of sleep, then straight to the train station to go to Zaragoza, which I know nothing about but want to visit because it sounds like the name of an Antonio Banderas movie.