JMAC's Travel blog

Hammam

2010-04-09T16:03:00.002-04:00

I knew I couldn't leave Morocco without visiting a hammam, or public bath house. A tradition from the days when not everyone had running hot water at home, the neighbourhood hammam is where people would go to bathe, with a little socialiaing thrown in for good measure.

The main hammam in Chefchaouen is open in the afternoons to women. You come armed with a special exfoliant glove, a type of vegetable oil-based gooey black soap, as well as your normal shampoo and body wash. I'd never been, so instead of washing myself, I opted for a massage and gommage for my first time the the resident bath attendant lady.

Who ever would have thought that sitting there half naked, being scrubbed and exfoliated and massaged and having buckets of water poured over your head in a big communal steam bath by a toothless lady would have been so great? Skin like a baby's is a cliche description, but it's an apt one.

I bought a glove and some black soap to take home with me, but unfortunately the hammam lady couldn' t come with me.

Chefchaouen - Akchour and stuff

2010-04-09T15:25:00.004-04:00

When you travel alone, if you're doing it right, you're never actually alone unless you want to be.

I knew that just outside the city walls of Chefchaouen's medina there was a trail that led to an abandoned mosque on the mountainside. But walking alone in the woods didn't appeal to my sense of fun or of security. I'd seen a girl drinking coffee alone in a cafe in the town square, and figuring she was another solo traveller, decided to introduce myself and see if she'd be up for the hike to the mosque. And she was!

Myrthe was Dutch and had been travelling solo through Morocco for 6 weeks. She'd done and seen it all--the desert, all the major cities, and lots of smaller villages. As we had breakfast and hiked up through the medina gate and out of town, she answered my questions about a bunch of the seemingly baffling local customs.

The mosque was on a hill with a spectacular view of the blue and white of Chefchaouen's medina. As we wondered out loud as to how old the mosque was and why it was abandoned, Lamia, a Moroccan girl from Marrakech on vacation with her mother and uncle, stepped in to tell us the history of the building. [It was built by the French during their occupation of Morroco, but the locals didn't trust their colonialists' intentions in building them a house of worship, so no one would go, and so they were forced to board it up.]

We got to chatting with Lamia, and in a perfect example of Moroccan hospitality, invited us to come with them that afternoon to visit Akchour, a nature park 30km outside of Chefchaouen.

The plan was to drive to the entrance of the park, then hike up to the Pont de Dieu, a natural stone bridge connecting two mountains that's supposedly quite striking. The drive into the countryside surrounding Chefchaouen took us through the green hills of the Rif mountains, the road winding through small villages. More than once we came across kids who had to herd the family's goats or chickens off the road so the car could pass. Our soundtrack was a tape of Emirati Arabic pop music.

But about two kilometres before the park entrance the road abruptly ended. Heavy rains this past spring had brought on a mudslide that had destroyed 50 houses and cut off the road. The group of men lounging under trees with their dogs at the end of the road told us it was still possible to get to the park, but we'd have to do a few more kilometres on foot.

We set off, first climbing through the rubble of the landslide, walking on top of destroyed houses and ducking under downed powerlines. We then got onto a path with gorgeous views of the river valley below. But by the time we got to the park entrance, we only had time for a glass of mint tea from a stand just inside if we wanted to be able to complete the hike back before sundown. Le Pont de Dieu will have to wait for my next visit.

Chef Chaouen Day 1

2010-04-06T11:26:00.002-04:00

Morocco is in some kind of weird time zone, which means while it gets dark relatively early, the sun is beating down by 9am. So getting up at 6am to catch the 8am bus to Chef Chaouen felt like much later. I had breakfast- Moroccan pita bread, cheese and mint tea- in a hole-in-the-wall roadside cafe on the way to the bus station while chatting with Ikbal, a computer science student waiting for the bus to the university. He translated my order from French into Arabic for the waiter, and also let me try some of the bread he was eating, which seemed to be made from couscous then grilled. Mmm.

Four hours of winding mountain road later and I'm in Chef Chaouen, pop. 40 000, sleepy mountain village-cum-tourist town. Let's see how well this town walks the line between welcoming to tourists and tourist trap.

And now I'm off into the winding streets of the Medina to find an excursion into the Rif mountains for tomorrow.

Fez Pt.1

2010-04-05T14:33:00.004-04:00

Sunday evening seems like a calm and quiet time to arrive in a new city. But not Fez. Sunday's not the day of rest here, after all, and this fact was obvious from the buzz of activity in the streets of Fez's Ville Nouvelle as I made my way from the bus stop to my hotel. As night fell there were errands to be run, walks to be taken by couples and families in the Jardin Public, dinner to be eaten in the open-air restaurants along the main drag. And of course, the call to prayer from the nearby mosque that periodically punctured the air and sent streams of men in its direction.

Though I'd planned to leave the next morning for Chef Chaouen, three soldout busses meant a change of plans and an extra day in Fez. I'd been planning to come back to Fez after Chaouen anyway, so it was just something to take in stride.

A day to get my bearings in one of Morocco's most ancient cities. I started off wandering around the Ville Nouvelle, the modern new city, before heading to the winding streets of the Medina.

But first I had to cross the street. Many times in fact, and the seeming absence of stoplights meant that I had to stealthily wait with old ladies on the curb without their noticing and then follow the, across the street as cars whizzed by on either side.

I wandered up and down the wide and elegant Blvd Hassan II a bunch of times, getting my bearings before deciding to jump into the medina. Without a guide. Or a map, really.

Before you get to the medina, you have to cross through Fes Al-Jdid, the old Jewish quarter. I seemed to get there at some kind of rush hour, or better put chaos hour. Busses, motorbikes, pushcarts, animals, jaywalking pedestrians and bicycles jamming the narrow street; horns honking and people yelling at each other; street vendors blasting Arabic pop music to entice passersby to take a closer look at the dried fruit, or cushions, or raw sheep's wool, or plastic brooms or fake Nikes they were selling. A definite "just in case you hadn't noticed, you're now in Morocco" moment.

The Medina almost paled in comparison. But more about that later...

2010-02-27T16:08:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about travel as more than simple vacationing; that is, travel as a metaphor for life, a resource for life, training ground for life, as personal development. In my post a couple of weeks ago on Couchsurfing, I talked about how enthusiasm for travel is contagious; seeking out adventurous people wakes you up out of your routine and makes you want to be like them.

In a similar vein, this blog post/video on a talk travel writer Rolf Potts did at the DO Lectures in Wales recently talks about lessons learned from travel that can be applied to your everyday life. Inspiring stuff about living life on your own terms.

Kalimotxo

2010-02-27T14:59:00.004-05:00

I really resisted it for a long time. The very idea of kalimotxo -- the mix of red wine and Coca Cola I had always associated with groups of drunk-in-public teenagers -- just didn't appeal to me. I didn't want to like it. So I refused to try it.

And now I eat my words. One night, at a club, someone passed me their glass (sharing drinks with your friends at bars seems weird to North Americans, but I've found it quite common elsewhere), and as soon as I tasted it I knew that it had to be kalimotxo. It was a refreshing change from beer. And I didn't immediately revert to being 18 and swigging from a purple-tinged 2L Coke bottle on the metro or in the corner of a park with my friends.

Yesterday I ordered one in a bar for the first time. Though now popular all over the country, kalimotxo was invented in the Basque Country, after all, so I just tell myself I'm doing my part to sustain local culture, one katxi at a time.

Planning Morocco

2010-02-18T03:57:00.001-05:00

I'm going to Morocco over Easter break! It'll be my first time on the African continent. I'm flying in and out of Fez, and since I only have a week, I'm thinking of just visiting a few places in the north of the country, probably Chefchaouen and Meknes.

Right now I'm in the exciting planning stages. Tracking down friends, acquaintances and friends-of-friends who've been there, and picking their brains for must sees, places to visit, and travel tips. Considering how close Spain is to Morocco and the close touristic ties that exist between the two countries, there's no shortage of people here who have vacationed there and have information to share with me.

But of course I wanted some sort of guidebook as well. Though I'm a big fan of the Rough Guides series, as far as mainstream travel guides go, this time I've given Lonely Planet some of my hard-earned cash, and for a very specific reason. Through the Lonely Planet website, you can mix and match chapters of their guidebooks and instantly download them in PDF format and pay only for what you download. Why is this great? First, I know I'm only going to have time to visit a few places in Morocco, and therefore wouldn't need or use the whole guidebook, which covers the entire country. I'd rather pay only for what I need. Second, travel guidebooks are heavy to lug around and very conspicuous -- to be seen with one in public SCREAMS tourist. I plan to print off the most essential of my PDFs to carry with me, lightweight and stigma-free. Third, by downloading a PDF to my computer I avoid schlepping around to several bookstores trying to find what I need, and I also avoid shipping charges for on-line purchases, and I get my info instantly. It's nice to see traditional publishers embracing new technologies and new business models to deliver their content, adapting to and taking advantage of what the Internet has to offer.

Why don't hipsters like Bilbao?

2010-02-16T06:02:00.003-05:00

I've known several foreigners in the time I've been living here that just don't like Bilbao. Most are the usual culture-shocked, inexperienced travellers that don't like it simply because it's not home. A couple came to Bilbao after having visited other parts of Spain and were disappointed to find that the north of Spain completely lacks, for lack of a better term, bulls, flamenco and olé.

But there have have been others, who were not simply victims of homesickness or not reading their guidebooks properly, but who nonetheless couldn't really get into Bilbao. And if you ask me, it's because they were hipsters.

Don't ask me to define what a hipster is. Every written definition of a modern-day hipster I've read has some parts I agree with and others I don't. Official definitions aside, if you know what a hipster is, you know one when you see one. And though lots of urban young adults, myself included, may enjoy one or two examples of supposedly hipster behaviour (micro-brews and bikes, anyone?), there's a critical mass of lifestyle, appearance and attitudinal factors that, if you possess enough of them, push you into hipster territory.

In my opinion, irony is what makes or breaks a hipster. Ironically ugly haircuts/facial hair/glasses/clothes. Ironically crashing old-man dive bars and the like, half-laughing at the regulars. Ironically drinking disgusting PBR. Irony implying here a distance or lack of a sincere engagement with your surroundings; even if the concert's great I'm not going to dance. Social events and artistic happenings that are uber-hip, but no one seems really into it.

Irony makes or breaks a hipster, and irony, or lack thereof, is why hipsters don't like Bilbao. Bilbao is a sincere city, in its people, music scene and social life. Ironically ugly clothes here are just considered, well, just plain ugly. (American Apparel wouldn't stand a chance in Bilbao.) Though the late nineties rocker aesthetic is alive and well here, when you see some dude rocking headbanger hair and a plaid shirt it's because he's really into the music and lifestyle associated with that style. The metrosexual look, a mainstay of the look of the moderno (as they're called here) doesn't go over very well here either. A few select bars and events aside, the nightlife is decidedly sincere -- drinking to a traditional rock soundtrack, or dancing to a pop/house soundtrack about sums it up. Bilbainos are rockeros, and I think the metaphor of a balls-out 80's rock band, feeling every guitar riff and ever word of their lyrics, à la Springsteen or something, is an apt one to describe the city. Shoe-gazing, twiddly Casios and pretending you don't care just don't cut it here. Though there are some hipsters floating around Bilbao, the city's just not big enough to create a hipster subculture.

Call it a traditional city, but I personally find this refreshing. As I've said, I definitely partake in some hipster-like activities, but the level of irony encountered on a daily basis in the Mile-End neighbourhood of Montreal was getting a bit much for me, so I'm happy to revel in the sincerity of Bilbao for a while. And for those that aren't, there's always Berlin or London...

Name Games

2010-02-10T16:29:00.003-05:00

I knew it would happen sooner or later.

In class with a bunch of 13 year olds, choosing names for the characters for a skit -- One kid's utterly determined to name the character Patxu Pamela. The Patxu part sounded vaguely Basque, and I wanted to get on with the lesson, so that's what we named him.

I might as well have named the character Hugh Jass or Amanda Huggenkiss or Mike Hunt. Patxu Pamela, said out loud is pa' chuparmela, aka. to suck my dick.

And I didn't figure it out for a week! Hilarious.

Bilbao Sundays

2010-02-01T05:26:00.002-05:00

"I Love Bilbao Sundays" reads a friend's Facebook status. Sundays do have a special flavour in Bilbao, simple and back-to-basics, stemming from the fact that there's nothing to do.

Well, besides drinking. If you get up at a decent time, the Sunday morning activity par excellence is to meet up with some friends to potear. Poteando on Sunday morning doesn't differ all that much from they way you'd potear any given evening. It's getting together with friends for a couple of drinks and pintxos but in a way that's so unique to Bilbao. Order your drinks at the bar inside a tiny, narrow pub, then bring them out into the street, which becomes a defacto extension of the bar. Adults stand around and chat, kids play together in the square or at the other end of the street, pintxos are nibbled, and once glasses are empty the ritual repeats itself at another bar down the street. On Sunday morning from about 11 to 3, people get together in different areas of Bilbao such as Plaza Nueva (above)for a drink leading up to Sunday's centrepiece: a giant lunch entre familia.

But if Saturday night was a late one (as they often are) and you don't get yourself out and about in time to potear, you've missed your window as many bars and restaurants close up after lunch. All stores, including supermarkets, are closed, so there is no shopping or errands to be run. Sunday's offerings are narrowed down to football and the movies. If Sunday's football games don't suit you, then your remaining entertainment option is the movies, which are often sold out on Sunday nights for that very reason.

Walking, be it urban styles along the ría, or up into the hills surrounding the city in typical mendizale fashion, is also a Sunday activity that can help you deal with Saturday night's excesses. Unless it happens to be downpouring all day, as it was yesterday. The formula for Bilbao Sundays--family, friends and football--suffers when heavy rains make for soggy poteando and miserable mountain climbing. And then Bilbao Sundays can seem...long.

Happy Monday!

The CouchSurfing Project

2010-01-31T05:45:00.005-05:00

I recently created a profile on CouchSurfing, the "world's largest hospitality exchange network." The goal of the site is to facilitate travel and cultural exchange. If you have a spare room or a couch, you can offer it up for a traveller who may be passing through, and similarly travellers can search out a place to stay for free in their next destination. There are more than a million members worldwide, and lots of people I know have used the network in their travels. I don't have a couch that anyone over 5'1" could think about sleeping on, but I've offered to meet up with anyone passing through town for a coffee or a drink. After a year and a half in Bilbao, I think I'll be able to to orient a new-comer off the tourist track. CouchSurfing Bilbao has quite an active forum on the site, and and I've been to one of their local meetups.

As I get more involved in the CouchSurfing project I'm realizing that the travel bug metaphor is an accurate one. Not only in the sense that you often come back from a trip "infected" with the desire to pack your bags and leave on a new journey. But the more you surround yourself with people for whom travel and intercultural exchange is a passion, a habit, and a priority in life, the travel bug can be caught and transmitted between people. Just try having a beer with someone who's recently come back from 3 months backpacking through China, or wandering around Ghana taking photos, or doing an internship in Uruguay, and not getting up from the table with a desire to get on the next bus to the airport.

This actually makes sense, given research that says you are who you hang around. Many emotions are supposedly contagious, and we justify our behaviour, good and bad, by whether others in our peer group are doing the same thing. So, if your friends are fat/happy/successful, you're more likely to be too. If you're friends are big spenders, good luck trying to keep a budget. So the contagiability of the travel bug isn't really that surprising. Being around people that realize that real travel doesn't include the word "all-inclusive", that thrive off of culture shock instead of fleeing it, that reorganize traditional ideas of home and work to go beyond 2 weeks of vacation per annum makes you want to be like them. You start to absorb their enthusiasm, and next thing you know you're constantly asking yourself, "Where should I go next?"

Comida: Part Two

2009-12-13T18:16:00.002-05:00

"Y para el postre tenemos: flan, natillas, queso con membrillo, cuajada, tarta de chocolate, mandarinas o plátano."

I found it weird the first time I was eating dinner in a restaurant, and at the end of the list of dessert choices was a banana. Or mandarin oranges. Or a plate of strawberries. Brought out just like that: a piece of fruit on a plate.

It shouldn't be weird. Fruit is nature's dessert, after all. But it was. The inevitable comparison with home popped into my head, and I couldn't imagine a nice, sit-down restaurant serving you a piece of fruit on a plate. And even if they did, would anyone order it? But sometimes you're in the mood for a lighter dessert, or a healthier dessert.

Fruit is not only nature's dessert, it's nature's convenience food. Some American friends and I were joking about how our students here wouldn't even recognize the recess snacks our childhood selves used to take to school. A banana, an orange or an apple? Or Fruit Roll-ups, Fun Fruits, and Fruit Gushers? My students and colleagues at the high school almost exclusively snack on fruit, or maybe a homemade sandwich on crusty bread or a digestive or arrowroot biscuit. It's just so simple.

The striking thing when you go into a supermarket or fruit and vegetable market is the state of the fruit and vegetables. They're deformed, assymetrical, spotty. Perfectly edible and in great shape, but visually they don't compare with the picture-perfect, genetically modified, waxed and colour-injected produce in North American supermarkets. It's a nice reminder of what fruit and veg are supposed to look like.

Comida: Part One

2009-11-16T05:06:00.005-05:00

It's often the seemingly small details that catch your attention while living in a foreign place. I find myself taking note of differences between life in Bilbao and life in Canada that I never could have foreseen before coming here. Aspects of life that I took for granted while living in North America but that simply don't work the same way here.

One big difference is the differences in attitudes toward food. Last year, I tried to teach a lesson in one of my English classes about Slow Food, a back to basics movement started in reaction to the proliferation of fast food that encourages people to reconnect with food through eating local and organic, eating homemade, eating for flavour as opposed to convenience and rediscovering the pleasure of cooking and eating with family and friends.

"I don't understand this movement," one of my students told me. "Homemade food, slow meals, eating together with family? That's just how we eat here."

And she's right. Cooking, cooking, eating, family and friends are all things taken very seriously in the Basque Country, so the Slow Food movement seems a little redundant. And though fast food and convenience food are more and more popular, their popularity is nowhere near what it is in North America. Fast food outlets are generally restricted to suburban malls on the city outskirts, and when they opened a McDonald's on Bilbao's main drag years ago, it eventually went bankrupt.

North America people are falling into two camps. The "live to eat" camp: Foodies, locavores, organic-or-bust shoppers and those who live, eat and shop by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food manifesto: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." And then the "eat to live"-ers: Those who blissfully ignore the hoop-la around fast food and Wonder Bread and spray cheese and food colouring and mechanically separated pork byproducts and hydrogenated this-and-that.

But in the Basque Country you don't have such polarization simply because attitudes and practices surrounding food have not become so unhealthy as to necessitate a revolution, a reaction or a manifesto.

For example, both Slow Food and In Defense of Food recommend seeing cooking and eating as an event to be shared with family and friends. Eating in your car or from Drive-thru's is a major no-no. But here? Moot point. I've seen maybe one Drive-Thru since I've been here, and requesting evenn a coffee "to go" is seen as kind of strange. The thinking is, if you want a coffee, go into a Cafe-Bar, take 5 minutes to drink it there. You're really not saving that much time taking your coffee to go.

And I think they're right.

People don't eat and drink walking down the street, in stores, in the metro, on the bus, like they do at home. They'll just wait till they get home, or pop into a cafe for a snack, or at the very least sit down in a park to enjoy their drink. I've started doing it too; it's less messy, you enjoy what you're eating more, and in the end, you don't really waste that much time.

Similarly, fast food hasn't taken off here ( in my opinion) because of the fact that on every street corner here you have a cafe/bar. Inside they serve everything from hot drinks and pastries to alcohol, sandwiches, tortilla and pintxos. If you're craving a snack, why would you order a BigMac, when you can pop into a bar and get a mini Iberian ham sandwich on homemade crusty bread or a pintxo of fresh seafood or local cheese? Instantly? And for 2 euros? With nary a neon light in sight.

Lunchtime

2009-11-08T17:08:00.002-05:00

My colleagues and I eat out once a week at a neighbourhood restaurant.

I've come to conclude that if you dine with someone who grew up in a small, coastal fishing village, invariably, the fish served at any restaurant outside of that village will be pathetic/bony/runt-y in comparison with the gigantic/meaty/delicious fish that are caught/served in that village. Especially compared with the gigantic fish dad/grandad used to catch.

Also, you will come to question your own alcohol tolerance, which cuts you off at ~5 beers per night, while people from the fishing village normally drink 30-40 beers a night.

El último lunes en Gernika

2009-11-01T09:49:00.004-05:00

Last year's Último lunes de octubre in Gernika was a soaking wet affair. It poured rain, which made all the day's festivities a little less than pleasant, from wandering around the open-air farmer's market that covers basically the whole town, to drinking txakoli and cider in the street or trying pintxos of local cheeses, to listening to the lilting song/prose of bertsolaris, all of which are normally quite pleasant activities.

But this year--Redemption! A sunny, unseasonably hot day made lounging in the town square with a bottle of cider and a talo (a thick corn tortilla cooked on a grill wrapped around a hot sausage) the most enjoyable activity you could imagine.

And then we saw this wonderful poster in the window of the Gernika tourism office: "We don't want tourists, we want friends!" Well, plying the 90 000 people that came to visit Gernika that day with fresh food and festivities seems like a good way to start.

Fall in Euskadi

2009-10-23T07:42:00.003-04:00

Plentzia
Kristine and I!
The view from the cliffs
Castillo de Butron

Fall in the Basque Country is amazing. Some days are warm, some are crisp. The trees and flowers and still in bloom; the leaves don't change colour until late October or November. And so far, it hasn't rained THAT much.

We've been taking advantage of the fall weather and of Bilbao's being surrounded by coast and mountains over the last few weeks. Some are regular Sunday strolls, like a walk up Artxanda (and a funicular ride down). We've taken in the coast via Muskiz Beach and the trail from Sopelana to Plentzia along the cliffs. We walked more than 700m straight up for the views from the top of Pagasarri, and followed the seemingly never-ending trail from Plentzia along the river to the Nintendo-castle Butron.

Basque hikers are hardcore. Young or old, they all get up early and do their hiking to be back home for a 2 or 3pm lunch. Then, on some of the more accessible trails you see people out for an after-lunch stroll in the late afternoon. We usually manage to time things so that we are just heading out when the hardcore hikers are heading home, active during everyone else's siesta time.

The best feature of hiking around here is that trails often lead from village to village. Which means that when you get to your destination there's always a pub or cafe where you can refuel before the trip back.

12 de octubre

2009-10-23T07:13:00.004-04:00

Día de la Hispanidad, Día de la Raza, Fiesta Nacional de España--whatever name you give to the 12th of October, it remains a national holiday, complete with military parade in Madrid, celebrating the arrival of Christopher Colombus on American soil and beginning of Spanish colonization. Schools, businesses and public offices were closed for the day.

But if you don't exactly identify as Spanish, or don't think the beginning of colonization is something to be celebrated, the holiday isn't that meaningful, though a day off is always appreciated. But if you're a Basque who doesn't identify as Spanish, and on top of that feel some antagonism toward the Spanish state, it would be impossible to let the symbolism of October 12 and its flaunting of Spanish dominance pass by quietly.

Some students at my school organized a protest encouraging students to...come to school on October 12. The doors were locked, the teachers were at home, but some students showed up in a kind of symbolic eff-you to the Dia de la hispanidad. I have to hand it to these students; everyone accuses teens of expressing their adolescent rebelliousness by half-heartedly taking on the hippest political/social cause of the day. But these students who came to school on a day off are obviously 100% dedicated to what they believe in.

Muskiz

2009-10-03T18:47:00.007-04:00

The 6000 or so residents of Muskiz must have crapped their pants 30 years ago when Petronor finished building their giant oil refinery outside town. The quaint downtown, the soft-sand beach ringed by green hills and cliffs and the river that snakes between them are dwarfed by the tanks, smokestacks and machinery of the several-kilometres sqare refinery and chemical plant .

Minutes from the Vizcaya/Cantabria border, Muskiz's industrial installations blink and hum, grabbing your attention as you pass on the highway. I'd heard about their great beach, though, so Kristine and I took advantgae of a warm, late-September afternoon to check it out. The 4km walk between the train station and the beach followed a dirt path along the quiet Rio Barbadun. It was early-fall lush: cows and sheeping grazing in small-scale farms, reeds and trees growing out of the riverbank into a canopy over the trail, splashes of purple and pink flowered vines.

And the whole walk we were never more than a couple hundred metres away from the towering, noisy monstrosity of a petrol refinery. From the town right to the coast. We were blown away by the sheer hugeness of it. (Check out the relative size of the villages of Muskiz, Pobena, and San Julian compared to the refinery, with its dozens of round white oil tanks, on the map.)

But somehow, magically, when you got to the beach, from the vantage point of a towel in the sand, a chance combination of a couple of jutting, stony hills and a patch of trees blocked Petronor from view. You could look out at the ocean, pretend the salty wind fully masked the chemically odour, and concentrate on more important things: e.g. seeing which of the September surfers braving the waves that day could ride the waves the longest.

Al Txoko

2009-09-22T08:13:00.003-04:00

First, the definition of a txoko.

From the Basque word for nook, or small space, a txoko is a closed gastronomical society typical across the Basque country. A group of friends will chip in money to buy a commercial space, outfit it with a full kitchen and eating space, (and nowadays a soundsystem and TV and all the comforts of home). The members then use the space to get together and cook and eat together, or with their guests. Traditionally, txokos were about serious culinary creation and experimentation ( and maybe a singsong after dinner), and were for men only. Nowadays, though the focus is still food, in all but the most traditional txokos anything goes, and women are allowed.

And a good thing, because half of the people at Xabi's txoko in Bermeo on Saturday were women. And we didn't really cook: we picked up some roasted chickens and some wine, and threw together a salad, and made some homemade french fries. And we didn't sing any traditional Basque songs, though we did watch the regattas. The txoko had an amazing view of the port of Bermeo and the open ocean, and we could see the news helicopters circling overhead covering the rowing races, we couldn't see the actual boats themselves for the high waves and rain. So we turned on the TV to watch the rowers up close. Urdaibai, the local team, didn't win. But later, as we were having coffee and ice cream in the centre of town later, the team came jogging along the port, and they were given a full cheering, flag-waving, song singing welcome anyway.

Vuelta a Bilbao

2009-09-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

Montreal. New Mexico. Nova Scotia. Summer was a mix of business and pleasure in several places, and now I'm back in Bilbao. Which is also a mix of business and pleasure, in a different way. Business in that I'm leading a typical life of work and study. Pleasure in that, being in a foreign country, in some ways even the most mundane, everyday tasks become an adventure, and I can help but remember that I'm still travelling, no matter what I'm doing.

London

2009-07-06T10:19:00.008-04:00

There were a couple of reasons I was looking forward to visiting London. Similar to visiting New York for the first time, I felt this great sense of anticipation, of finally getting to visit another of the world's great metropolises (metropoli?)--cities you know so much about before even setting foot within their limits. I was also looking forward to catching up with Jacqueline, an old friend from Montreal now based in London ( and who welcomed me into her East London pad.) Oh, and there were those meetings with my professors at the University of London.

But the most important was the food.

Nine months in Bilbao had seen me eat my weight in delicious Basque cuisine--steak, cod, rich sauces, ham and pintxos--but I longed for spice. Mexican salsas, Thai chilis, Jamaican jerk, curries from all over the Indian subcontinent--I wanted spicy heat of all kinds. I wanted to this one weekend to be the kind of international food mosaic that makes up the normal diet of young inner city dwellers in a large, multicultural city. In London like in Montreal, cheap, quick, late-night or take-out food is synonymous with "something new and flavourful from somewhere other than here", and every grocery trip to your neighbourhood immigrant-run corner market sees you throwing something new and unfamiliar into the cart.

And boy, did I get what I wanted. Spice, flavour, and treats simply not to be found in a smaller city like Bilbao: curries, roti, sushi, soupe tonkinoise, bubble tea, organic rhubarb/apple juice... In fact, most of my weekend was spent wandering around the different neighbouhoods and revelling in all the things London is but Bilbao isn't: huge, overflowing, teeming with people from every country imaginable, exhilarating in the sheer variety of types of people and personalities on the streets, in the shops, in the Underground.

Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park

International food market, Brick Lane, East London

Columbia Road Flower Market, East London

San Juan

2009-06-26T16:08:00.005-04:00

In Quebec, June 24, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, is a party. Parades, big budget concerts, block parties awash in the blue and white of the fleur-de-lys. Canada Day celebrations pale in comparison.

Here, San Juan has no nationalist associations--it's a celebration of the longest night of the year. The traditional way to celebrate it, like so many traditions passed down over generations, is really fun, but really dangerous. Every neighbourhood sets up a huge bonfire, which is the centrepiece of the evening's celebrations; beer stands and music are secondary, though necessary. You write your regrets for the past year and wishes for the year to come on a piece of paper, and toss it into the fire. Burning of school books and notes is optional. Then comes the dangerous part: jumping over the fire. You have to do it in order for your wishes to come true.

but as one of my students put it, you start out the evening preparing the fire and drinking beer. Then, the height of the flames is inversley proportionate to your level of drunkness. By the time you feel courageous enough to jump over the bonfire, the flames have burnt down into coals. some municipalities have banned the bonfires, but some still have officially sanctioned events, and others still just continue the tradition anyway.

Ibilaldia 2009

2009-06-02T04:04:00.004-04:00

There's a certain predictability to many of the fiestas and festivals in the Basque Country. Whether they're celebrating a patron saint or a holiday, there are usually stands selling drinks, sandwiches and talo, maybe some traditional baked goods or food products or farm-fresh produce, and a stage with entertainment, all open-air.

The Ibilaldia, held last weekend in Galdakao, was all of the above, but with certain variations on the above themes. First, it's a yearly festival held to promote the Basque language, organized by a local ikastola, or Basque-language private school, who get to collect all the proceeds. Everything was in Basque, from signage to announcements, and most of the people at the event were speaking Basque too--not so common for an event so close to Bilbao. The entertainment--music, poetry, etc.-- was Basque-centred as well.

And the coolest part of the event is that it was spread out over 6 sites in and around the town and surrounding countryside. So that meant short hikes through the woods between beer tents, and different atmospheres happening simultaneously on different stages. It added a kind of outdoorsy note to what would have otherwise been your typical festival of light-hearted summertime debauchery.

Here's the promotional video for the festival. Conspicuously absent from this video are the hordes of drunken teenagers we saw in groups along the trail; I've been told getting together with your under-age friends to get drunk on kalimotxos at the Ibilaldia is kind of a rite of passage.

The national anthem scandal @ the Copa del Rey

2009-05-19T07:28:00.004-04:00

A Basque team and a Catalan team confronting each other to win the "King's Cup"; the irony of the two Spanish peoples with the strongest nationalist/separatist sentiment playing to win a symbol of the Spanish monarchy, in the presence of the King and Queen no less, was not lost upon most. But football trumps politics, though a plan was launched among Basque and Catalan spectators to express their dislike of the Spanish state by whislting when the national anthem was played before the match.

But one of the stations broadcasting the match was the Spanish state-run TV station, rTVe. Mysteriously, before the game, viewers didn't see the national anthem being sung; they cut to a reporter live in Bilbao talking about the ambience in the stadium. And then, the video footage of the players standing at attention for the anthem was played at half time, without the sound. Here's a video that shows what viewers saw on different TV channels. ETB1 ( a Basque channel), TV3 ( a Catalan channel), and TVE.

The public cried Scandal! Conspiracy! TeleEspaña claimed it was human error, that they weren't trying to hide anything, and but their director of Sports programming still ended up resigning.

Athletic, Athletic, zu zara nagusia...

2009-05-17T15:38:00.004-04:00

The Bilbao Athletic played the Barcelona Football Club in the Copa del Rey final this week. Picture the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final times ten.

The Athletic are unlike any other football team in the league in that all their players are from the Basque Country, while big-budget teams like Barcelona recruit the best players from around the world. Athletic fans are particularly rabid, as their fandom is tied up in nationalism. Some even consider the Himno del Athletic (sung here by hundreds of school children), the unofficial national anthem of the Basque Country.

The anticipation of the Copa final was incredible. Thirty thousand Basques took time off work to fly to Valencia for the final. Here in Bilbao, storefronts and balconies had been flying the red and white Athletic flag for weeks. Kids and teachers alike came to school in red and white. Several huge screens were set up all around the city, and the San Mamés stadium was sold out for an evening of music and the game on the big screen. Thousands and thousands of people, dressed in red and white, filled the streets as of the afternoon for the 10pm game.

But they lost the game. The ecstatic buzz that was in the air before the game turned into palpable disappointment. But the pride that Bilbainos have for their team meant that most people partied into the wee hours in spite of the letdown, as if to prove their unconditional love for the Athletic. But unlike Canada or the US after such a stunning loss, there was very little violence: very few fights, no rioting, and only a bit of vandalism.

Friday afternoon the Athletic returned to Bilbao from Valencia. The crowd that came out to see the team give a speech on the balcony of the town hall, and the city-wide party that ensued, was almost as impressive as Wednesday night. In any case, more than you'd expect for the losing team, or, the sub-campeones as they were being called on the Athletic website.

Basauri, circa late 70's

2009-05-08T13:57:00.002-04:00

Basauri, the town south of Bilbao where I work, had more marches, protests and conflict than most barrios in Basque Country during the tumultuous transition from dictatorship to democracy in the late 70's.

Police presence was constant, political activism the usual motivation for their harrassment, as the Basques were mobilizing and demanding political autonomy over Euskadi. One of my colleagues told me it was nothing strange to have the police raid the high school where she studied.

One day, they arrested a kid from her school, and held him in the police station overnight, for political reasons. The following day the whole school, students, teachers, and staff, marched to the police station, demanding to know what was going on. The police came out, told them to go away, or they'd open fire on the group.

My co-worker got trampled in the crush of students running away as the police threatened to shoot. "In the end I got hurt just as bad as if the police had come out and beat us up," she told me.

Intercultural fascination #560

2009-05-08T13:43:00.003-04:00

Deodorant.

Sometime back in the 90's, when the anti-CFC backlash was happening in North America, they stopped selling spray deodorant. Chloroflorocarbons in the atmosphere for the sake of dry armpits? Switch 'em all to solids and roll-ons, the producers said. Except somewhere along the line roll-on deodorant disappeared too, and now for all intents and purposes, in a Canadian drugstore, it's solids or au naturel.

But not here. I'm happy to report that spray deodorant is alive and well.

I was reluctant to embrace it at first, but now I will never turn back. Not only is it less annoying for your skin and clothes, it's FUN to put on! Pppsssssshhhhhhtt! Pppsssssshhhhhhttt!

This is what intercultural exchange is really about.

Feria de abril at Cafe Iruña

2009-04-26T19:16:00.003-04:00

I can finally have something to say when people ask me about all the flamenco I must be seeing here in Spain.

We all grow up with national stereotypes, and some people never outgrow them. Some friends are surprised when I tell them the Spain isn't all wall-to-wall sangria and tapas and "Olé" and running of the bulls and rain falling on the plains. Each region has its own culture and traditions. Think about it: Do kids in Toronto sing Barret's Privateers and Rita MacNeil in school? Do they eat pâté chinois in Whitehorse?

Flamenco just isn't part of the cultural fabric of the Basque Country. But Cafe Iruña in Bilbao, through it's architecture, menu and cultural events, is more evocative of Southern Spain than of the North. And for the last 25 years they have a series of events coinciding with the Feria de Abril, the week-long spring festival that happens every year in Seville.

Saturday night was a flamenco show. Three dancers, a singer and a guitarist performed a spell-binding show, bookended by willing (and less-willing) amateurs dragged onto the stage from the audience to dance by an enthusiastic member of the public in a bullfighter's suit. When the musicians left the stage, DJ'ed flamenco music gave the by then well-lubricated audience something to try out their own flamenco skills to. Thing were going strong when we left at 2.

Now all that's left is for me to see some bullfighting...

Casa rual in Asturias

2009-03-31T15:51:00.007-04:00

Asturias. Paraíso Natural.

The Asturian tourist board's slogan reflects what people from all over Spain think of this long, thin province on the Cantabrian sea: Rolling green hills, quaint seaside and mountain villages, cider and fabada beans, and more cows and sheep than people.

It's a popular tourist destination, and though I'd just been there about a month before, I tagged along with a group of friends who had rented a casa rural for the May 1st long weekend. I wouldn't fault you for expecting a rugged country cottage when you hear the term casa rural--that what I did. But the place they lined up was anything but rugged: newly renovated house that slept 12, complete with jacuzzi, pool, outdoor terrasse and BBQ, sound systems and flat-screen TV, a big yard and a cow field right across the fench.

You'll notice the 11 people I spent the weekend with conscpicuously absent from these photos. I forgot my camera, and had to rely on someone else's photographic memories of the weekend. And the photos captured in one 4 hour stint of debauchery don't accurately represent the otherwise laidback weekend of chilling out, walks on in the country, elaborate multi-course meals, and visits to quaint seaside villages. So you'll just have to use your imagination...

Semana Blanca

2009-02-27T04:56:00.005-05:00

A European appreciation of vacation combined with the leftovers of a once strictly Catholic society means that we civil servants get time off whenever a religious holiday rolls around. This week is Semana Blanca- Carnaval and the beginning of Lent- and so my high schools are closed all week! It would have been the perfect week to take off travelling, but unfortuantely the private sector isn't so generous with its vacation time, and at the language school where I work evenings it's business as usual.

Enter day trips. Northern Spain has a compact concentration of places I have yet to see, and the public transportation that will get you there and back in the same day. So I've been taking advantage of my week off and the unseasonably sunny weather we've been having to get out of Bilbao. (In Bilbao, when you see the sun, you'd better run outside and take advantage of it, because you never know when you'll see it again. )

Monday's destination was Santander with Kristine and an American friend of hers visiting from Ohio. Santander: coastal port city; encircled by beaches; summer tourist magnet but wonderfully quiet off-season. We took advantage of their free-use bike network and went from beach to beach and park to park on wheels, dodging old couples strolling on the seaside promenades. The Basque cities I've visited have these dense medieval centres of winding, narrow stone alleys. Santander's history doesn't go back quite as far. The streets are broad, airy, elegant.

Wednesday was a visit to Durango, 30 kms inland from Bilbao. My friend Julen's from there, and he showed me around the city, which has one of those dense medieval centres I just mentioned. Historically speaking, Durango was isolated for a long time, nestled between two chains of mountains, a river, and protected against invaders by a stone fort and two massive stone churches. When we left the city to go for a hike in Parque Natural Urkiola, history was put into perpsective. From the top of the peak we climbed, with mountains on every side, you could see how any army wanting to take Durango would have had quite the climb ahead of them.

Onstage at the Arriaga!

2009-02-22T13:42:00.003-05:00

I've made my European debut as a non-speaking theatre extra, and at Bilbao's oldest, most prestigious theatre, to boot.

Cosmético del enemigo was playing last night at the Teatro Arriaga. It's a four-hander that takes place in an airport lounge. And how better to create the airport atmosphere than to have people sitting on stage throughout the performance?

An actor friend is friends with one of the actors in the show; they were looking for extras, and my friend asked me if I'd like to join him and his troupe on stage. I accepted of course. It was basically a chance the see a play for free, and up close and personal with the actors.

Here's the view from the stage:

The show was great. Good thing, because falling asleep on stage would have been pretty embarrasing.

Here are my partners in crime; the other actors on stage with me. ( It was Carnaval, hence why one guy is dressed up in a kilt and wig.)

Industrial history of Bilbao

2009-02-22T10:54:00.006-05:00

With a few well-written exceptions, I don't tend to get much out of history books. Something gets lost for me-either in the transformation of real-life actions and events to the written word, or from the page to my imagination. I'd read bits of pieces of Bilbao's industrial history, but a boat trip down the Nervion on Friday has helped bring it all together into a soup of images and anecdotes that resonates much more than a list of dates and facts can.

It was a chilly grey morning, but at least it wasn't raining. The river was calm when I ( and a group of high school history students and teachers from Arrigorriaga) climbed onto a fishing boat the port of Santurtzi, where the river meets the ocean. The following hour, as we travelled downriver tot eh centre of Bilbao, was like a visit to a living museum. Historical houses that used to be the homes of rich factory owners. Functioning factories and abandoned ones. Shipbuilding facilities dwarfing the industrial warehouses-cum-artists' studios on the shore behind them. Rotting remnants of fishing docks that can't be removed for fear of stirring up the century-old toxic layer of debris on the riverbed. Old men fishing and joggers pushing strollers along the riverside promenade. The old warehouses and houses they're planning to tear down to build a Manhattan-esque island of luxury condos in the middle of the river. Scrap metal and cranes and abandoned train cars.

The students didn't really seem to care too much about what we were seeing, so I was the eager student the teachers were more than happy to share their knowledge with.

Liendo, Cantabria

2009-02-16T05:53:00.004-05:00

Iratxe and Txema should be sponsored by the municipality of Liendo. They absolutely love living there and will tell you exactly why: the peace and quiet, the space, the green, it's proximity to a variety of beaches and mountains, hiking and biking trails...and it's only ten minutes from beach-town Laredo, and 30 from Bilbao! Their friends and family thrive on the convenience of city-living and therefore think they're crazy to live "in the middle of nowhere". City living in the Basque country means the butcher's, the baker's and the candlestick maker's all within walking distance from your house, and daily afterwork get-togethers at bar on the corner for catching up over a wine and a pintxo. Unless you're a farmer, why would you want to live in the country?

But from a North American perspective, they live no farther from the major amenities than most drive-to-get-a-loaf-of-bread suburban communities. Except, well, you can buy fresh bread everyday at the general store in the centre of the village (this is Spain, after all). I'm all about city living myself, but at the end of an idyllic weekend at their place, I was ready to move into the spare bedroom and stay put.

My visit coincided with a mid-winter warm snap, and we sure took advantage of it. We biked around the winding roads of the valley, up the mountain, down to a secluded rock beach. We saw houses built in the medieval stone houses, expansive hilltop views of the Atlantic, and at different moments had to stop to let a donkey, and a herd of sheep cross our paths. They showed me various beaches, parks and lookoffs around Laredo. Sunday it was even warm enough to eat lunch outside on their patio.

CanCon, pt. 1

2009-02-10T16:26:00.001-05:00

I was taking questions about Canada from a bunch of grade sevens the other day. They wanted to know everything about Canadian food and animals. We had a computer in the room, so every time they would ask about an animal, I would quickly Google image search it and put a picture up on the screen so that they could see it.

Did you know that if you Google image search "skunk", you get 2 pages full of pictures of marijuana buds? And that amongst the search results for "raccoon" you get this picture of a dog screwing one?

Neither did I. Or the grade sevens. But they do now.

Santa Águeda

2009-02-04T14:38:00.002-05:00

February 5 is the feast-day of Santa Águeda, a martyred Italian saint from the third century, and apparently patron saint of married and breast-feeding women (because as part of her torture Águeda had her breasts cut off.) Groups of children (in the morning), and adults (in the evening), go around in traditional Basque dress singing songs specific to the occasion. The choirs stand in the round and pound sticks on the ground to keep time as they sing. You can listen to audio and read the words to the songs in Basque and Spanish here. As accompanies the majority of traditional festivities in the Bilbao, there is some drinking and general carousing in the Casco Viejo of Bilbao tonight after the groups have finished singing.

Santa Águeda is nothing major; apart from school kids that visit the neighbourhood old folks' homes, only choirs or groups of friends that like to sing take part. But having my otherwise routine evening interrupted by singing on the street below my building was a pleasant surprise.
One of the most interesting parts of living in the Basque Country is observing how people relate to their roots and how seemingly every couple of weeks I get to be part of a different tradition.

Really?!!??

2009-01-20T11:06:00.002-05:00

This random British guy at a party congratulated me the other day on being a McGill grad. "Wow, oh my god, it has such an amazing reputation! It's one of the top 50 in the world, I'm so impressed, you should be proud."

WTF???!!!!!! And he wasn't even drunk!

Is a rose still a rose?

2009-01-20T10:53:00.003-05:00

Basque language was completely banned under Franco. Until his death in the mid-seventies, you could get arrested for speaking in in public. Basque-speaking kids would get beaten at school when they'd show up to kindergarten not knowing much Spanish and without realizing a few words of their mother tongue would slip out.

This I knew. But I recently learned that Basque names were banned too. So, little Julen or Agurtzane or Karmele would show up at school and be told by the teacher that their names were not acceptable and they would now have to answer to their Spanish equivalents: Julián, Rosario, or María del Carmen. Same thing when you went to have your national ID card made. So when Franco died, everyone ran to the public registry and finally got their REAL names put on their ID cards.

Lack of 'recul'

2009-01-12T12:04:00.004-05:00

In some ways I suck as a blogger, for the same reason I suck as a photographer. I'm not referring to my lack of technical know-how, but about the hard time I have stepping out of the moment to be an observer. I could be at a parade, and the floats could be vivid and picturesque, and the atmosphere palpable and it could be a people-watching paradise, but I'll probably end up opting to leave my camera in my bag and keep enjoying the show. And sometimes later I'll regret not having any photos of the moment. But sometimes I'll be content to have absorbed the moment into my memory.

And it can be the same with a blog. When life's full and fun, sometimes it can seem like if you sit down and write about it, you'll miss out on something. Which is why I have a huge list of draft entries from the last month that will soon be filled out with the details on my birthday, Christmas and New Year's, and my recent trips to Madrid and Barcelona. Now that life's slowed back down into the ease of routine, there's lots of time for a little stepping out of frame.

Pagasarri

2008-12-22T05:08:00.004-05:00

Pagasarri is one of the many small mountains circling Bilbao. The 570m climb from sea-level Bilbao to Pagasarri's peak has always been a popular hike, and no day more so than December 21st. For the last 18 years on Santo Tomas day a group march leaves downtown Bilbao and walks up the mountain to the wine, soup, sandwiches, tortilla ( and scenic views) that await at the summit. ( Oh, and don't forget your free gift- a rugby jersey!)

I couldn't believe our luck. After a month and a half of rain almost every single day, the 21st was warm and sunny. I dragged my roomates out of bed, and though we missed the 9am start time for the official march, we figured that leaving at 10:30am we'd still make it up and down the mountain before dark.

The advantage of leaving later was that there were very few people going up at the same time as us. The disadvantage is that they were all coming down, and so we had to fight our way upstream through the crowds. (Ten thousand people were expected to reach the summit that day.) Old folks, spandex-clad joggers, and tons and tons of families braved the mud to walk half a kilometre uphill. I ran into a couple of co-workers on the trail - Bilbao's a small city after all, and even after a couple of months you start having smalltown moments.

Parking a la bilbaína

2008-12-10T11:12:00.000-05:00

I live on the 10th floor of my apartment building, and I'm glad.

My building is surrounding by many others in a dense neighbourhood of mixed-use buildings--apartments upstairs and small businesses on the street level. If you have a car you park it in one of the deep, labyrinthine parking garages below most apartment buildings.

But not everyone's lucky enough to have underground parking. And parking street level is every man for himself. People park every which way, all over the place, double or triple parking, blocking others in, blocking the street. And if you come out and someone's car is blocking yours in, you lay on your horn with the hopes that the offending driver will come and remove their car. No matter what time of day. You keep honking...and honking... and honking..until...they... come...out...

Um, it's still not falling mainly on the plain

2008-12-02T07:27:00.005-05:00

The headline of today's 20 Minutos (my freebie Metro newspaper of choice):

In November it rained 25 days out of 30, and the sun shone for a mere 42 hours

The corresponding front-page article goes on to give the stats that quantify the shittier-than-usual weather Bilbao's been having- litres of rain fallen, average drop in temperatures - and origin of the weather system that is causing it all.

I'm not a whiny wimp unable to put up with a little falling water! My feeling of having had it up to here with the constant rain is justified! I'm not the only Bilbaino that wants to throw herself off the Puente Euskalduna every morning when she wakes up to yet another day of bone-chilling heavy grey humidity!

The last line of the article? And December, as far as we can tell, will be more of the same.

Humid afternoons

2008-12-01T11:01:00.005-05:00

It's cold, grey and drizzly, and I'm bundled up in a wool sweater and slippers. It's my nth cup of tea today as I sit at my computer, taking care of schoolwork, class prepping, and all the administrative tasks needed to keep my life running forward. I'm listening to CBC Radio streaming over the net, trying to keep up with the antics on Parliament Hill.

When you're abroad, you see that some habits are easily abandoned but others die hard. Tea, radio and wool socks on a grey afternoon, it seems, will only be put to the test if my next destination turns out to be Tahiti...

Chocolate caliente

2008-11-30T16:33:00.003-05:00

Spanish hot chocolate. is. amazing.

Forget powder and hot water or mini-marshmallows. Chocolate here is a deliciously thick sludge that would choke the Nestle Quik bunny in seconds flat. It's made from solid chocolate grated and melted with hot milk or cream until it's just barely liquid enough to drink. Forget Starbuck-scale servings--a small mug is all you need. And remember to ask for a spoon, or you'll end up with a chocolately chin trying to get the last drops out of the bottom of your mug.

Biarritz, France

2008-11-23T14:52:00.008-05:00

"There's no such thing as bad weather, only badly dressed," goes a Scottish proverb. Whether or not the Basques have an equivalent proverb, they sure take the sentiment expressed by this one to heart.

The French Basque coast is a popular tourist destination for the French and Spanish alike. In the summer. Why did we decide to go in mid-November, in the heart of one of the rainiest autumns this region has had for years? For the trip of getting away for a weekend, visiting another country, hearing another language, trying something new; basically, for the hell of it.

The French border is a little over an hour away by car on the highway. (Actually, make that lack of a border; in today's Europe, the only way you know you've crossed from one country to another is that the road signs change language.) And though Euskal Herria (Basque Country) straddles that border, the French Basque country has a flavour quite distinct from the Spanish Basque Country.

Biarritz is a tourist town, no doubt about it. And not a seaside fishing village-a NICE tourist town, with high-class hotels ( though thankfully some low-end ones too!), a selection of fine dining, and lots of quaint, yet expensive shops. The winding streets of its centre are clean and orderly. The beach is omnipresent, right in the centre of town, and there are several promendades that let you walk out on the rocks that jut out from the coast. Though it was by no means a ghost town during our visit, you could just imagine Biarritz must transform into another place altogether come summer.

The air in Biarritz was one of a pretention of classiness. Though I won't go as far as using words like haughty or snobby, there was definitely a contrast with the vibe in Bilbao, which is quite down-to-earth.

But one thing that we observed from Basques on both sides of the border was a willingness to continue with their lives despite the grey skies and windy rain that hung over the weekend. As we made our way home on Sunday the Basque coast from Biarritz through San Sebastian all the way to Bilbao was full of people making the most out of their Sunday afternoon. "What's some torrential rain to keep us from our family Sunday afternoon walk along the shore? All we need is head-to-toe raingear and a couple of humungous umbrellas."

Must be something in their genes.

¿Entrevista?

2008-11-23T14:16:00.003-05:00

I was explaining an activity to a group of Grade Sevens the other day.

¨Prepare some questions, because you're going to interview your partner, " was greeted by raucous laughter.

"Wow," I thought to myself, "it's an interesting activity, but not THAT much fin."

Their teacher took me aside later and told me that the Spanish equivalent of Playboy is called Interview.

Vitoria-Gasteiz

2008-11-16T14:45:00.005-05:00

If I had to evoke the landscapes of the Basque Country with one phrase, it would be red clay rooftops and lush green hills. While southern Spain chokes on dusty heat and dry plains, the north is a vibrant green.

Except in the fall, when those green hills turn yellow, brown and red. The colours aren't quite as vibrant as their Canadian counterparts, and the leaves turn about a month later than they do in at home. But fall colours are fall colours-you can't deny their prettiness

So that's why we took the back road to Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city of about 300,000 people, 45 minutes from Bilbao. The back road is longer than the highway but the extra time is made up for in pictoresque views as the hilly road winds through villages and farmland.

The road between Vitoria and Bilbao takes you uphill from sea level to about 500m, which isn't that much, but it means that there's a palpable temperature difference. On the drive into town we wondered out loud why people were walking around in gloves and scarves-and when we got out of the car we found out why. Brrrrrr. The only solution was to seek refuge in the finest of Vitoria's Chinese buffets.

When you visit most cities here, you go straight for the Casco Viejo. The architecture's medieval, the streets winding, and bars and cafes plentiful and atmospheric. Vitoria's old town surprised me in that it had a slightly different flavour than Bilbao's-much more wood in the architecture, and African and Mid-Eastern restaurants and groceries everywhere you turned. We wandered around for a long while before ending up in a bright, airy cafe that overlooked the Casco's expansive main plaza for a coffee to end off the afternoon.

The joy of Sunday afternoon day trips out of Bilbao is that they are as simple as that. There are so many sites nearby-you pop out, see what you want to see, have a bite to eat or a coffee, and you're back home by nightfall.

Canada's cultural embassadors

2008-11-14T10:43:00.002-05:00

Simple Plan, a.k.a. the best fake-heavy, super cheezy pop-rock band to ever come out of Laval, are playing in Bilbao next week. There are posters all over the place.

I overheard two people having this huge argument in the metro over whether the name of the band was pronounced /sim-play plan/ or /sim-pool plan/. It was rally hard not to turn and tell them that the REAL pronunciation is actually /krap/.

Roasting on an open fire

2008-11-13T09:50:00.004-05:00

I don't know what the link is between chestnuts and trains. I'd never even eaten a roasted chestnut before, but when I saw this train-shaped shack on the street the other day, I just knew that it must be someone selling hot, roasted chestnuts. Instinctively, my spidey sense just knew that's what was inside. Why a train? Don't ask me.

So I bought a dozen, in a little paper cone. I choked down the first in its shell before realizing that you remove the outside before eating. Mmmmm.

But then I had that damn song stuck in my head for the rest of the evening.

Hallowe'en in Las Arenas

2008-11-11T17:32:00.001-05:00

Excursión urbana: Artxanda

2008-11-09T14:14:00.006-05:00

Under the weather

2008-11-05T10:02:00.002-05:00

The fall cold is universal.

Days get shorter. The sky gets greyer. The streets get rainier. The temperature drops gradually until you have to stop fooling yourself-there will be no sunny Sundays like the one we had last week until spring.

And then you get sick. Like your friends, colleagues and everyone else on the metro.

As I blow my nose and stare out my 10th-floor window at the heavy grey clouds that have been emptying themselves over Bilbao for days now, I just keep repeating one thing over and over:

"At least it's not snowing..."

¡Truco o trato!

2008-11-01T10:08:00.003-04:00

Everyone here knows what Halloween is. But not everyone shares the same attitude toward it.

Commerce has really lead the introduction of Halloween into Spain. The only places you see orange and black Halloween decorations are stores, and the most decorated stores are the big-boxes, the multinationals, and the shopping centre chain stores. These types of stores sell American products, pop culture, and consumption habits, and so they choose to promote Halloween, which is like all three of these things rolled into one. But though you'll find a couple of racks of kids' Halloween costumes and pumpkin banners and black cat stickers, it's still nothing that's celebrated as widely as it is in North America.

A lot of people resist it. "It's not our holiday, it's an American holiday," they say. "They can celebrate their holidays, and we'll celebrate ours."

But some bilbaínos see Halloween as an excuse to party; for those that do celebrate Halloween it's for adults only. I've seen posters for several club nights and costume parties in bars, and lots of people have house parties.

But because Halloween is relatively new here, and because people have learned its ins and outs from American pop culture, it's celebrated in a straighforward and earnest way. The costume repertoire consists of your typical scary being-witch, ghost, vampire, monster, grim reaper. There aren't too many ironic or tongue-in-cheek costumes. I got many puzzled reactions at last night's party for dressing up as the Urduliz Bridge Champion of 1990. (My costume consisted of a hat and a bridge trophy found in the depths of a storage closet in my apartment.)

Under my umbrella

2008-10-28T18:09:00.003-04:00

It rains a lot in Bilbao in the fall and winter. So bilbainos don't mess around when it comes to keeping themselves dry. Everyone carries hardcore, quality, metre-long, SERIOUS umbrellas. What's great is that in the entryway to every public building, there's an umbrella bin. When you come in, you leave your umbrella in the entry, and you pick it up when you leave. Some places even have these high-tech Japanese umbrella dryers. So civilized.

Gernika

2008-10-28T17:46:00.005-04:00

Lots of tourists who visit Gernika find it a somber or intense experience. The city's best known as being the site of a huge bombing in 1937, when Franco got his pal Hitler to drop a bomb on what was then the traditional Basque capitol, destroying almost everything accept a gorgeous old church and an oak tree.

But I chose to visit on the last Monday of October, which may be one of the most festive days on Gernika's annual calendar. Gernika's well-known for it's weekly Monday farmers' market, but El último lunes de octubre combines an extra-large market with music, drinks and festivities as part of the town's fiestas.

It was grey, cold and raining hard, but that didn't stop the party. The whole town centre was filled with stands and stalls selling local cheeses, vegetables and fruit, flowers, honey, and even tractors and clothing. Sagardoa, or alcoholic apple cider, is a local speciality, and most stands would sell you a bottle and pour the whole thing into plastic cups for you to drink while wandering around the market ( or to chug with your teenage friends while huddling under an awning.)

I tried txakoli, a Basque sparkling white wine, and lots of local cheeses. I really wanted a talo, which was a sausage wrapped in this hand-pounded dough tortilla thing cooked over an open fire. But after waiting 30 minutes in line at the food table, listening to old people yelling at the young server boy in Basque about how bad a server he was, and him yelling back at them how if you wanted a hand-made talo you'd have to be patient, and them yelling back at him that young people these days have no respect for their elders, I decided to opt for more cheese and cider.

Trassssssssshy!

2008-10-26T06:53:00.005-04:00

Any city has different types of nightlife. Everyone knows that going out on Crescent St. in Montreal is different than getting a drink on the Plateau. When you arrive somewhere new, discovering what happens where after dark is an important part of getting to know the city.

And I think after last night we can conclude that Calle Iturribide can be classified as trashy. (Not that trashy is necessarily a bad thing, either. Just wait.)

We're not talking red-light district herion addict trashy. (You can find that in the San Francisco neighbourhood of Bilbao.) Iturribide is a narrow, cobblestoned street that winds uphill for what seems like miles from Plaza Unamuno in the Casco Viejo. It's bar after bar the whole length of the street, with alcoves, alleyways and dimly-lit staircases snaking off to either side. As is typical in parts of the Casco Viejo, it's Medieval meets Industrial.

The atmosphere could be described as 'the night before the apocalypse.' Hordes and hordes of young people in groups overflowing out of bars, drinking and carousing in the streets. Some take their pints out from the bar and form impromptu terrasses on the street, while other just hanker down with their two-liter bottles of homemade kalimotxo ( red wine and Coke!) No one on the whole street is over 30. Even though every single bar on the street has a bathroom, every 5 metres there's some guy peeing against a wall. There are broken bottles and garbage everywhere. Total chaos.

If there's one thing to be said about Iturribide, it's that it's utterly un-pretentious. Those too preppy, classy, or old for the street' form of grimy hedonism party elsewhere. And though I'm glad to have experienced what Iturribide was all about...in the future I think I will too.

Summer Time, and the living is easy...

2008-10-26T06:45:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning freaked out because all the clocks in the house said one time, and my cell phone and computer said another. The European equivalent to Daylight Savings Time ( or Summer Time, as it's called here) had ended, and everything connected to the web automatically updated itself. ( Of course, it took my roommates and I several sleepy Sunday-morning minutes to come to this conclusion.) Wooh for gaining an extra hour!

Las Arenas and Portugalete

2008-10-21T16:51:00.002-04:00

Sunday afternoon it was just me and the old people. Oh, and a couple of families. I personally think the water front of Las Arenas is pretty enough for people of all ages to stroll along. For at least 4 kilometres you're treated to historic architecture and river views, beaches, boats, fishermen and parks. The Puente Colgante is a UNESCO heritage site, or, regardless, just plain cool.

But it seems like young people, if they don't happen to be tourists looking to take a little sun and walk off the remnants of the previous night's fiesta, don't like to go for Sunday afternoon walks. Oh well, I'll be in good practice for when I get old.

Me and Justin Timberlake

2008-10-21T16:39:00.002-04:00

My high school student find it absolutely HILARIOUS that my last name is MacDonald. They have no idea that it's actually a pretty common name; they've only ever heard of the restaurant.

Today was the first time I met one of the classes of 17 and 18-year-olds. Their teacher told them I was coming, and somehow they knew that my last name was MacDonald. They thought it was so funny. Before I came to the class, they covered the blackboard with McDonald's golden arches and wrote "I'm lovin' it" all over the place. They died laughing when I turned around to erase the board and I thanked them for the nice drawings.

Conservatory

2008-10-19T13:37:00.002-04:00

Bilbao's a really nice city for its details. If Bilbao were a person, it would be that house wife that puts really nice imported handsoap in the bathroom, and sachets of lavender under the pillows in the guest room. If Bilbao had a CV, it could list "attention to detail" as one of its personal qualities.

Allow me to give an example. The block that contains the entrance to the Sarriko metro station is also home to the slick and super modern conservatory of music, and a kind of urban park/promenade, a descending series of cement steps, trees and benches. Running the length of the park are these metre-high metal posts that have speakers inside. I think they're connected to a stereo inside the conservatory somewhere, because there's classical music coming out of them all day. As you walk the length of the park, you get symphonies and piano sonatas in stereo. Awesome.

Encounters with nationalism, episode 1

2008-10-16T13:46:00.003-04:00

I told the group of 15 year olds that I was celebrating my one month anniversary.

"Of what?" they asked.

"Of my arrival in Spain," I responded.

"But this isn't Spain, this is the Basque Country," answers one guy. Mohawk. Basque flag on his t-shirt. Leather jacket. Stare of death.

Everyone looks at me in trepidation.

"Oh, well, one month ago was the day I arrived in Madrid," I say. Super casual.

Guy looks satisfied with the answer, and we continue with the class.

I haven't been here long enough, nor do I understand the Basque political situation in enough detail to pronounce myself for or against independence. But I lived in Quebec long enough to know that subtleties in the definitions and terminology of countries, territories, and peoples count for a lot. If you don't handle them with care, you can get yourself into trouble without realizing it.

Fiestas de Basauri

2008-10-14T14:17:00.006-04:00

I didn't go to the Fiestas de Basauri to ingratiate myself with my hosts. True, one of the schools I'm working at is in Basauri, a suburb just south of Bilbao, where the week-long party that coincides with the day celebrating the town's patron saint is an ultra big deal.

I just went because everyone said it would be a good time.

In the end, though, my students were more than pleased to hear I'd partied with them-and by them I mean their town, their culture and their people-on the weekend. Several towns in the region have festivities during the spring, summer and fall to celebrate their patrons saints. Bilbao's are in August. Basauri's is special because theirs are the last ones of the season; it's the last chance for everyone to go all out before winter.

So what are the festivites? I am having a hard time trying to pin down exactly what they're all about myself. It's like folklore meets patriotism meets hedonism. Most of the town is blocked off into a giant pedestrian zone. There's a huge outdoor market and a fair, and a couple of outdoor stages for music and peformances. There are performances of traditional Basque music side-by-side with rock and pop in Euskara. Basque flags and slogans were everywhere.

There are tons of people running around in various degrees of traditional Basque dress ( Here are some pictures.) Of course, there are the older people in the full-out traditional outfits, while the younger people have coolified the traditional pieces- adding a ripped t-shirt with the puffy striped skirts and laced-up shoes, for example.

And the hedonism comes into play with the zurrakapote, a sugary wine that you drink out of this glass beaker. (Make sure to tie a bandana around your neck first, or you'll splatter red wine all over your shirt.) We were some of the few that didn't have theirs firmly in hand, refilling it at different establishments as the night went on, and passing it around amongst friends. The streets were absolutely packed with people of all ages, including what seemed to be the entire population of the high school I am working at, who seemed all to have indulged in morethan a little zurrakapote.

I was luckily in the company of several Basque friends, who, though they weren't from Basauri, were veteran fiesta-goers, and were happy to answer my questions about just what was going on. We ended up at a lonja, which is a bar that's not a bar- a space for drinking and dancing and having a good time that's open only during the fiestas. Ours served beer in 800ml paper cups and played techno music with the bright flourscent lights glaring. There was a mural of the Simpsons dressed in Basque clothing painted on the wall.

I felt completely out of my element all evening, but I kind of like feeling that way. Though people say Basque patriotism is is little more diluted in Bilbao than elsewhere, you don't seem to have to go far from the city centre in order to find it.

Bermeo and the coast

2008-10-07T15:53:00.006-04:00

The weather gods have been smiling down on us the last three weekends. Rain and cold will suddenly give way on Sundays to bright sun and relatively warm temperatures.

A coin flip decided this weekend's destination. Laura, Javier and I drove down the estuary of the Rio Nervion that runs through Bilbao till we got to the coast. It was winding highway through green hills along the shore till me got to the town of Bermeo. Small it is, and rich it must be, judging from the number of yachts docked in its harbour.

Bermeo's also in a part of the Basque country that's very heavily Basque-speaking. Bilbao is quite bilingual; you see signs and ads in both languages. But in Bermeo, street signs, posters and storefronts were all in Euskera. We saw so many Basque flags hanging from balconies over the narrow streets of the old town.

Down the coast from Bermeo is the village of Mundaka. Mundaka has a big surf scene, and hosts all kinds of championships and and competitions. The beach was pretty calm when we went through, though the town was packed and there was not a parking space to be had. We settled for a beer and some pintxos at a bar on on the road just outside of town, before heading home.

Bilbao--->Madrid

2008-10-07T09:12:00.000-04:00

Most of the foreigners I've met in Bilbao have visited Spain before. Vacations or university study-abroad programs bring them through Madrid, Barcelona or the sunny southern coast. They fall in love with Spain and decide to come back, though it seems like some of them get quite the surprise when they get off the train in the Basque Country. It's sometimes not the Spain they thought they knew.

The country is made up of distinct regions and peoples, each with their own language and culture. Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalunya, Madrid, Andalucia-all part of the mosaic that makes up Spain. In the Basque part of the mosaic, the food, people and customs are different than in other sections. Some say the people are more reserved, harder to get to know. That it lacks the everyday passion and panache of the rest of the country. Oooh, but the food...Mmm!!!
The differences in climate and landscape are like a visual reminder of the cultural differences between the north and the south. In five hours on the bus to Madrid, we went from Bilbao's misty green hills dotted with orange terracotta roofs, to wide open plains, dry and yellow under the sun. From 15 degrees to 25.

I can't personally speak for the differences between northern and southern Spain, as I haven't yet visited much outside the Basque Country. But I'm happy to have had Bilbao as my first point of contact with Spain. I really like it here. Maybe coming in with no expectations is a good thing.

Excuses, excuses

2008-10-05T18:08:00.003-04:00

My blog posts are coming in spurts these days. I was away in Madrid last week, and have been busy getting ready for this week, which should be a prety packed one. A meeting in Vitoria tomorrow, two more training sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we're supposed to start work on Thursday. But what's thrown the blogging for a loop is the fact is our internet situation. Up until now, either I steathily connect to my neighbours' network ( when I can pick up the signal) or I have to go to my roommate's room and sit on his floor to connect to his landline. And we're still waiting for the people from the phone company to install our wirless line.

Dissing organziation

2008-10-05T18:07:00.000-04:00

I've found what it is that really gets North Americans' knickers in a knot when they're abroad. Take the most open-minded, culturally aware, laid-back people, but put them in some sort of formal situation like a conference, or administrative office, where things are less than organized, and they don't like it.

I am definitely part of this group.

Up until this point, the organization of the Spanish government teaching program I'm participating in has been less than stellar. The program is joint-administrated by two levels of government, and they're just not on the ball, especially when it comes to communicating with the participants. Especially in the weeks leading up to leaving home, it was kind of nerve-wracking to not really feel like you knew 100% what was going on.

Talking to other North American participants on the net before leaving and at the orientation, I came to realize one thing about us. For something unofficial, social or informal we don't care if things are loose and disorganized. But for anything official or formal we expect a tight ship. So we've kind of been going crazy with the way this program is run.

But there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. That in itself is also something we have to get used to. We just have to lower our standards, expect things to be disorganized, and go with the flow...a lot. Welcome to Spain!

Tarjeta de extranjero

2008-10-05T18:05:00.001-04:00

It's like hockey. Fans will all say they're against the violence in the game, but then when a fight starts, they're on their feet cheering. So when the kerfuffle started at the front at the line, it was kind of exciting. I mean, I had been waiting on the street outside the Bilbao police station since the darkness of 7:30am.

You want a Spanish passport, national identity card, or foreigner's resident number? Go to the police station, open 9am-2pm, Monday to Friday. Are you Spanish? Get there a little before 9, go to the front of the line, get your appointment time, come back when you're supposed to, and it's done. Are you a foreigner? Oh, well. Get there as early as you can wake up, and wait on the street in a painfully slow-moving line, and pray you'll get in before they close at 2pm, or else you'll be back waitingin the line-up again tomorrow. And as the sign posted outside the police station doors says, please don't line up before 5am.

Yelling and movement from the front of the line. It was probably 10am, and those at the front of the line had been there since 6am at least, though from the vantage point of someone who hadn't gotten there until an hour or so later, it was hard to see what was going on up front. The security guard surveying the line butts out his cigarette and goes to investigate. He then comes by hauling two young men practically by the ear. They had tried to jump the line. The guard shows them the back of the line. "Dirty Moroccans..," you can practically hear him thinking. But the bored security guard seems happy to have something to do, and we're happy to have a moment of excitement to break the monotony of the street corner.

The two young guys keep trying their luck. Sneaking up front only to get hauled to the back again. Conversations with the people around me in line, coffee runs, and trips to the other side of the street to warm up in the sun were punctuated by intermittent yelling from the front of the line and then the boys' walk of shame the length of the impatient, glaring line of foreigners.

They were still going at it when I got to the front of the line at 1:30pm. They'd changed their technique, and were now just harassing the security guard at the police station door directly. "Why can't I go in? Why can't I go in? Tell me! Justify your job! Justify your job!"

Though you have to admire their perseverence, they didn't get anywhere with it. The Bilbao police may make you wait on the street to get your identity card, but at least they're fair about it.

The beach @Gexto!

2008-09-29T16:09:00.007-04:00

I spent the end of last week and the weekend working on some freelance work. It was torture sitting at my computer all day Saturday while the sun shone outside. When Sunday rolled around and it was sunny yet again, my roommate Javier and I split for the beach.

This week we hit up Getxo, a well-off community downriver from Bilbao. We sat in a cafe, hung out on the beach for a bit, and then wandered around the old town. Oh yeah, and played around on their outdoor moving sidewalks a bit.

When we went into an Irish pub to get a beer, we accidentally sat down in front of the TV, not knowing that a soccer game was about to start. The local team, the Atlético de Bilbao, were playing, and, well, if we had gotten upa and tried to leave during the game and blocked the TV, there would have been a riot. So we stayed until the first half was over.

Walking on, walking on broken glass

2008-09-26T05:36:00.003-04:00

Small yet notable cultural difference # 4567:

I think kids that grew up in my generation in North America were one of the first to be indoctrinated about the evils of litter. At one point in elementary school, "Litterbug!" was the worst insults you could call someone. I've talked to friends my age who have traveled outside of North America, and it always immediately catches our attention and pains our souls the way people in many places litter like crazy.

The Spanish don't have a problem with litter. Outside.

Inside? Well, I've been in several neighbourhood bars and cafes here where people just chuck everything on the floor. Wipe you face with your napkin? Throw it on the floor. Finish you cigarette? Crush the butt right there under your foot. Get your receipt? Drop it right there on the floor in front of the cash register. The guy who sweeps up at the end of the night has his work cut out for him.

I kind of thought it was something limited to cafes, until I went to a nightclub last night. And it was the same! Except instead of throwing your napkin on the floor, people would set down their glasses or beer bottles on the floor by the wall, and they were constantly getting smashed. Or on the dance floor someone drunk would drop their beer bottle right there and just keep on dancing. The whole dance floor was this crunchy mix of broken glass and alcohol.

I have to say I was glad to have worn boots and not some sexy open-toed sandal.

Barcelona vs. Gijón

2008-09-24T18:15:00.000-04:00

When we went to the old men's bar on the corner to watch the soccer game I hadn't been expecting to come out with a newfound appreciation of the positive aspects of the sport.

My roommate wanted to watch the game and the bar around the corner was showing it on the big screen. Simple. Beers were ordered, seats facing the screen were found.

It was Barcelona versus Gijon; one team from near-ish here, one from the other side of the country. When Barcelona scored their first goal, cheers went up from our table, while the rest of the bar stayed silent. And that's how it started.

First the bartender, this young guy with a faux-hawk that was practically bouncing off the walls, yells over a comment with a friendly smile. At each goal, it was the same - another comment followed by some impassionned discussion with my roommate about the greatness of some player, or how bad some team were doing this year. Then this couple sits down between out table and bar, and then the discussion turns into a roundtable debate. I sat, ears wide open, absorbing as much information as I could about Spanish soccer. The Spanish and English soccer leagues are the best in the world! The sports press in Spain is too Madrid-centred! You don't know how hard it was for me to come out to my friends as a supporter of San Sebastian when all of them are fans of Bilbao!

Outside of North America, the passions that soccer arouses in people anywhere are unbelievable. any Joe ( or Jane) Blow on the street, should you stop them at random, has THEIR team, and the common knowledge of the teams and players is quite encyclopedic. And when you put people that don't know each other together, soccer gives them something to talk about, something to connect them together.

The beach at Sopelana

2008-09-22T09:45:00.005-04:00

Ever since I found out you can get to the beach by metro, I've wanted to go. So as soon as I'd taken care of finding a place to live and moving my stuff, I was on my way.

My roommate Xavier came along. He's from Barcelona, which also has metro-accessible beach, so he didn't quite have the same level of excitement as someone who'd been landlocked in Montreal all summer, but thought it sounded like fun. It was a gorgeous, sunny day.

There's quite a surf scene on the coast around here. The waves are surfing waves, not swimming waves, and the fact that it's late September meant that most beachgoers were content to tan or play around on the shore. As were we.

A cold beer and a kebab ( the Spanish version of a shish taouk) tided us over for the metro ride back to the centre.

Some first pictures of Bilbao

2008-09-21T06:18:00.005-04:00

I went out in the mood for a monster picture-taking session. And then my camera batteries died. Here's what I managed to take before they did.

Sarriko : a.k.a Home Sweet Home

2008-09-20T13:50:00.006-04:00

If I haven't really been in full blogging mode since I've arrived it's because I've been preoccupied with settling in-getting things like a phone, apartment, bank account and my papers in order for my stay here.

The phone was easy, the papers somewhat so, and the bank account is still to come, but the detail that was giving me the biggest headache was the housing. The routine- scanning the ads, noting numbers, making calls, leaving messages. I realized early on that e-mail was NOT the way to go, as no one answers them. But even when I switched to phone, very often the room would be taken by the time I called, or not available until October 1. Frustration!

Last night I was freaking out because I was having trouble setting up visits. And then, I got a bunch of calls to set up visits, and then, a call from an apartment I had visited the day before and really liked, offering me the room! ( I accepted right away.)

So today I went and picked up the keys for my new place. It's in Sarriko, a couple of metro stops outside of the centre, near Bilbao's universities. We've got tenth floor views of the river and hills around the city, and two balconies. My roommates are Xavier, from Barcelona, and Florentino, from Bilbao, who study economics at the Universidad del Pais Vasco. There will be another roommate to come.

We spent the afternoon redecorating. We're subletting the apartment from this old woman, and let's just say all her throw rugs, collages of her dogs, and framed velvet pictures of Jesus feeding the lambs got thrown into the cupboard pretty fast. Even the candy in the crystal candy bowl was about 50 years old.

Tomorrow I move in!

(Above is a picture of the Sarriko metro station! The Bilbao metro's only 10 years old and very high-tech.)

Pintxos!

2008-09-19T10:37:00.005-04:00

I took a break from apartment hunting yesteday to meet up with Hannah, an American from New York who's been here for over a year. She did the program I'm doing last year, and she found me on Facebook, where I've been asking her all the questions the officials from the Basque government don't seem to want to answer for me.

Though learning the do's and don'ts of any new place by trial and error is half the fun, it is sometime nice to have someone who shares the same cultural background as you fast-track you through the process.

Hannah (and Leslie and Lewis, two Californians also living here), took me out for my first pintxos. Pintxos are particular to the Basque country, and they go something like this: You go into a bar, go up to the bar and order a small glass of wine, or beer, or clara ( a drink I discovered yesterday which is beer mixed with lemonade..mmm!). The whole bar is covered with plates of different hors d'oeuvre-type snacks. Anything to simple ham on bread, to an artichoke covered in cheese and deep-fried and toothpicked to a piece of bread, a dollop of a mayonnaise-y vegetable salad with a shrimp on top, small sandwiches, or Spanish tortilla (kind of like a potato omelette), and the list goes on. Different bars have different pintxos. Because half of the things no one really knows what they are, including people from here, you just go and point and the bartender will put whatever you choose on a little plate for you. There are also bigger portions of dishes that you can order to share amongst a couple of people.

These were my first pintxos, but will not be my last, I guarantee. It's kind of a huge part of the culture here.

Estoy en Bilbao!

2008-09-18T07:19:00.003-04:00

The last couple of days since my arrival have had me running around, trying to find housing and get settled. I wrote a couple of blog posts last night on my computer, but my hostel doesn't have WiFi, and I forgot to transfer them to my USB key to post them from an internet cafe! They will be coming soon. I'm going to visit 3 apartments today. Hopefully in my next post I'll have found somewhere to live!!!

Countdown to September 15th

2008-08-28T23:28:00.004-04:00

You can get to the beach on the metro from Bilbao. (!)

As I piece together bits of information on where and how I will spend the next 9 months, certain things strike me and pique my curiosity. Bilbao's proximity to the ocean, mountains and the French border. Stories of the city's current renaissance as cultural capital of northern Spain. The fact that absolutely no one who I've talked to who has visited Spain has disliked it; On the contrary, most love it.

When I say I'm piecing together information, I'm not exaggerating. The Spanish government and now the Basque government aren't exactly, how can I put it, organized, swift or efficient when it comes to informing program participants about the details of the program or answering our questions. Thank god for the web; past and present participants have found each other on Facebook where we pool our information and collectively try to figure out what's going on.

If this were my first time abroad, I'd probably be more nervous. But it's not, so I'm not. I tell myself all the details will come together in due time. ( Though I would be a little more at ease if my visa would just show up already...!!!) It's pretty easy to distract yourself with the details of travel prep and endless Google searches, keyword: Bilbao.

¡Spain!

2008-08-16T00:24:00.006-04:00

I've wanted to visit Spain for a while. It seemed like the perfect place to do a stint working and travelling, but after a little research I came to realize Spain's kind of a tough place for North American ESL teachers who prefer to work over the table when possible. The steady stream of Brits flowing into Spain with their EU work permits means no Spanish ESL school in going to go out of their way to arrange the papers for someone this side of the Atlantic. And working illegally can be tough, especially in the bigger cities where cost of living is high and it can be hard to make ends meet. Sigh.

But then I found out about the Auxiliares de Conversación program.

The Spanish government organizes for teachers from all over North America to work as native-English-speaking resources for Spanish ESL teachers in schools and language centres all over the country. Students get some exposure to a native speaker and learn about North American culture, and the North Americans get to know Spain from the inside out.

So I applied, and, well...I'm leaving September 15th! I'll be in Bilbao, in the Basque Country, until June 15th. I've been assigned to two secondary schools in the suburbs of Bilbao, where I'll be working for the 2008-2009 school year.

The Underground City

2007-11-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

Tourists to Montreal are always so disappointed when their questions about Montreal's "famous" Underground City are met with a roll of the eyes. "They make it sound so amazing in the tourist books," I always say. "It's nothing more than some glorified underground malls that connect some metro stations and office buildings downtown."

But the secret is, I DO actually think the underground city's cool. But in the winter, when any tourist in their right mind is far, far away from Montreal's icy streets. Then it becomes out little secret-the way for us Montrealers to get around downtown without setting foot outdoors.

I love the challenge of trying to maneouvre the often badly marked series of tunnels trying to get to get across downtown to Point B. "This is where I am, this is where I need to go...I wonder if I can get there without going outside..." You really have to know where you're going in this maze of tunnels; and every time I reach my destination, I feel like I've joined the ranks of "those in the know." It may take longer than just walking outdoors, but I didn't even have to to put my mittens on. And nether did the streams of everyday people that you find in the "city".

The "city" is bottom floors of office buildings, underground malls, long, scary corridors, metro stations; there's modern architecture as you connect with the flashy Palais de Congres, and a refurbished heritage building complete with stone fountain and facade as you go through the edge of Old Montreal. You can pretend you're a traveller as you pass through the train station, or an office peon as you go through the food court of the Bell building, a suburban retail queen as you cross the Eaton Centre or a homeless guy begging for change or napping in the corner at Metro Bonaventure.

Exploring the everyday lives of everyday Montrealers with one thing in common: staying out of the cold.

The Big Apple - In pictures

2007-04-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

The view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brownstones in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Old El Paso it ain't: authentic Mexican eats at the Pacifico, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Meet me down by the docks. Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

Brooklyn

2007-04-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

Every Canadian that travels in the US has their own list of the little things that most catch their attention upon arrival. Having to order "hot tea", the money all looking the same, lack of bilingual packaging; I'm always impressed by the wide array of new-fangled, state of the art innovations in snack and convenience food that greets you at every corner store. Like, corn-chip cones filled with chocolate and peanut butter? That one hasn't made it north of the border yet.

Deane and I arrived wide-eyed and tired through a post rush-hour traffic jam to Alexis' Brooklyn digs. What she pays for a postage-stamp of a room in an apartment shared with two other people, charmingly located between two highways and the docks could get you a swank one-bedroom place all to yourself in the hippest part of Montreal. Ouch. Welcome to New York. Maybe they call it the city that never sleeps because it's so expensive you had to pawn your bed in order to make rent.

This was our home base for a weekend that involved much wandering around, the wanderings broken up with people-watching from inside warm cafés, and ample amounts of beer and food. Anti-tourism: the best way to really see what a place is all about.

Brooklyn is absolutely huge, densely populated, and encompasses several widely-varying neighbourhoods. You have downtown Brooklyn, with skyscrapers and banks; Williamsburg, the formerly run-down newly-gentrifying hipster capital of the world; gritty industrial-adjacent Red Hook and Bushwick, crack-den central. Prospect Park and Carroll Gardens have a well-cultured yuppie thing going on that recalled Montreal's Plateau. Ample territory for aimless loitering, despite the the unseasonably cold temperatures.

In the more well-off parts of Brooklyn, it's all about babies and dogs, it seems. Tons of young, couples with bumps or babies, ( or both), and that lacking, a couple of dogs in tow. Many establishments allow dogs, and those that didn't felt the need to preface their storefront sign stating " No dogs allowed in the store" with a " We love them, but..."

Another trend I observed was a maté boom. Imagine me, fresh off the boat from Argentina, maté central, and I get to Brooklyn to find several cafés offering "Maté Lattes" and cosmetics stores hawking maté face products. I guess in the same way green tea boomed a couple of years ago, and now can be found in every café and face cleanser maté's the next new readily available pseudo-healthy ingredient that ups the natural-ness quotient of whatever it's put into. You heard it here first, folks.

In general the same leisurely weekend rhythm of late brunches, afternoon walks and browsing small shops for books, CDs and neat clothes pervades, in a manner eerily similar to the way it pervades life in downtown Montreal. But with a New York twist, of course.

The Big Apple - In Words

2007-04-13T13:36:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine once met Ralph Benmergi, CanCon TV semi-star. She said she was really surprised at how short he was in person. Without really realizing it, she'd formed an idea of what he was really like from what she had seen on-screen. And though I hate to draw any kind of parallel between the city of New York and a has-been 90's TV host, it's sort of the same deal when you visit NYC for the first time.

The images, place names, personality and of the Big Apple are onmipresent in North American pop culture, from the Jazz Age to Sex and the City. So you have a strong idea of what you're going to encounter before you go. Actually it's usually because of the pre-conceived ideas of what NYC is all about that you decide that it's somewhere you just have to visit in the first place. Don't many people want to see Broadway, Time Square and the Statue of Liberty at least once in their lives?

There were no disappointingly unmet expectations during my introduction to New York City this past weekend. But because we stayed and spent most of our time in the borough of Brooklyn, as opposed to Manhattan, it was kind of like getting invited to Michael Jackson's for a family barbeque, and ending up spending most of your time drinking beer and chatting with Janet. Brooklyn's the down-to-earth, less glamourous but still famous in its own right younger sibling to glitzy, frenetic, centre-of-the-world Manhattan.

But New York's New York, and my short time there only deepened my fascination and made crystal clear the necessity of a second visit to really get to know this absolutely humungous city.

Montreal

2007-03-19T23:12:00.000-04:00

Some would say the best part about travelling is coming home. I'm not sure if I'd agree, but it's true that after a trip you come home a different person than when you left. Cliché, but true.

You just see the world differently. You take fewer things for universals, because you now know the reality you're used to isn't necessarily the same for everyone. You realize you'd gotten used to new things you hadn't even realized you'd gotten used to. You notice how many things at home have changed, and how many things haven't. You've changed.

Though I'm back in Montreal I haven't quite gotten out of trvaller mode yet. It's like I'm a tourist in a place I know well. After living 6 years in the same apartment, I'm now living on the other side of town, on the other side of the tracks.

New jobs, new experiences; fitting, for a person who feels completely renewed.

Pics from Nova Scotia

2007-03-10T14:31:00.000-05:00

My siblings Matt, Mark, Natalie and I got together for dinner in Halifax on Thursday night, before going to catch one of Matt's bands play at the Attic.

Winter at Melmerby Beach. Warm winter = not much snow

New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Population:10,000. Tallest building: 6 storeys.

Chile once more!

2007-03-06T15:46:00.000-05:00

I've learned the secret to a smooth, wait-free trip across the Chile-Argentina border. Go in the middle of the night. Not only are there very few cars and busses crossing over, but the customs agents just want to go home, so they wave you through no matter how sketchy you look. My trip over the border in September took 3 hours; the way back was no more than 45 minutes.

My stint in Santiago was meant as a little downtime, chilling with my good friends Claudia and Jessica, before heading back to Canada. We stayed at Claudia's boyfriend Sebastian's house in the middle-class residential neighbourhood of La Florida. Such a change from the traffic-noisy corner of Montevideo and Marcelo T. in Buenos Aires; la Florida was rows of colourful little houses, lush plants and greenery in every tiny shoebox yard, and relative quiet, ( well, except for the barking dog I would say 85% of the homes had lurking in the yard or back alleyway...)

Wednesday I took a day trip to the port city of Valaparaiso, Chile's second-largest city, about an hour and a half from Santiago, on the coast. I'd spent New Year's 2004 there, but it was a quick rush-in, rush-out job, as we were staying down the coast at the beach and only came into the city for the New Year's festivities. I'd wanted to go back and explore it at my own pace ever since.

Valparaiso's the seedy port cousin to Santiago as capital city. It's noisy, dirty, chaotic, dangerous, working class to the core - and utterly charming. The city consists of a series of hills, or cerros, that encircle a harbour. Twisting, narrow streets amongst rows of colourful, ramshackle houses seemingly piled on top of each other spread back from the shore and work their way up the hills. Several hills have funicular-style cable car elevators or asensores that facilitate pedestrian access between the lower town and the hillside neighbourhoods. On any given hillside you find a labyrinthine network of winding streets, deadend alleyways, and small stairways and passageways. It's urban planning at its worst ( or at its most absent) and that's exactly why the city is so amazing.

As soon as you leave the bus terminal in Valpo ( as the city's affectionately known), it gets in your face. People hawking everything from used clothes to meat to jewellery on the sidewalk. I took an old-fashioned streetcar from the bus terminal to the city's main plaza, and from there spent the whole day wandering. Up and down different asensores, from this cerro to that, getting lost in a maze of colorful houses and winding lanes and then figuring out where I was. Spending as much time as I could at every lookout I came across, absorbing the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, and the sprawling, hilly rainbow that is the cityscape.

Mendoza

2007-03-06T15:45:00.002-05:00

The city of Mendoza followed Malargüe on the itinerary. It was like coming full circle, as Mendoza had been my first stop in Argentina back in September. And now it was to be my last stop on the way out of the country. It was funny, everything Argentine that had stood out to me the first time in contrast to the Chile I had been used to - the accent, the insanity over football, the money, the different look of the people, the Argie mini-mullet, the real coffee, the tiny empanadas - was now a part of my life, practically. The pretty, quiet streets that had seemed so calm after the chaos of Santiago now seemed calm after the chaos of Buenos Aires.

Simon and I met up at the bus station, and hiked in the heat to our hostel. Unlike the hostel I stayed at the first time, this place, though very nice on the inside, was situated outside of the centre, in a sketchy area seemingly popular with Mendoza's ladies of the night. After a couple of games of foosball with the 5 year-old son of the hostel owners (who, sizing me up as easy Canadian prey, was QUITE disappointed I kicked his Argentine ass...), we went out for some beef and wine downtown.

The next day was something like 40 degrees. Too hot for wandering around town. Too hot for biking in the mountains. So we caught a lift with a guy associated with our hostel the Termas de Cacheuta, up in the mountains. Seriously the crappiest car ever (the dashboard was missing...), driven in typical insane Argentine fashion at breakneck speed up the winding mountain road. As many Argentine cars run on a dual system of gasoline and natural gas, we stopped for a natural gas fill up on the way. At a natural gas station, everyone has to get out of the car as it's filled, as a safety precaution. ( So I guess if the car blows up you'll be standing oh-so-safely 1 foot away, instead of in it.)

The termas were a complex of several pools of thermal mountains waters, of varying temperatures. Lots of families, though the desert plants and the overtowering mountains kept it from feeling too much like a water park. So we soaked our bones and soaked up the sun, and I actually saw someone whiter than me for once, which made me happy. Afterwards, we dried off and had a maté as the families filed out of the complex.

We narrowly missed getting stranded in the small mountain village housing the termas as we jumped onto a bus back to Mendoza as it was pulling away.

Back in town, we stopped for supper at the Automovil Club Argentina (their version of CAA.) Yes, they have a restaurant. An unlikely spot, you say? They had a wicked terrasse on the street, sweet food deals, and the place was full of happy, well-fed, if older, people.

Check out Simon's gallery of pics from the Termas.

Saturday we decided on a trip up to the Andes. I dare you to visit Mendoza, it's skyline overtaken my the Andes' impending presence, and not feel the urge to get a bit closer. The guy that ran our hostel let us in on a secret; instead of shelling out 150 pesos for a guided group excursion up into mountains, there was a bus that left every morning from the bus terminal for 15 pesos. The two main attractions, Parque de Aconcagua and Puente del Inca, were a walkable 4km apart, and the bus returned to Mendoza in the evening. Argentines pride themselves on not necessarily cheating the system, but definitely milking it, and I was more than happy to continue my habit of undermining the tourism industry by putting together a DIY excursion.

The bus left at 7am sharp and began the winding 4 hour ascent to the top of the Andes, right to the Chilean border. The higher we climbed the narrower and twistier the roads got, snaking through progressively smaller towns and villages as our ears popped with altitude. Frequent stops slowed the trip down. Though watching people load, and then unload further down the road, loads of firewood, fresh bread, and that day's newspaper, you realized that the tourists were among the least pressing cargo on the bus that acted as a important means of transport between remote communities.

We jumped off the bus at the side of the road at the entrance to Aconcagua Provincial Park. Named after the tallest peak in the Andes (almost 7000m!), the reserve is very popular among hikers, as well as the mountaineers that come attempting to scale peak. There was not a cloud in the electric blue sky, and the sun beat down on us as we did a short day hike though the park. Unlike the Andes farther south, where forests abound, here there was not a tree to be found and the day was hot! We gazed off in the distance at the snowy peak of Aconcagua (which very few climbers have been able to access this year, as it is unseasonably snowier than usual...)

Once hiking time was over, we started the descent along the side of the serpentine mountain road to Puente del Inca. This road being the main throroughfare for truckers hauling their wares from Buenos Aires to Santiago, as well as all international busses and car traffic, it wasn't quite the idyllic hike we'd had inside the park. Despite the incredible 360 degree mountain scenery. We spotted a trail ( that later turned out to be used by horseback riders) that followed an old set of railroad tracks, and abandoned the paved shoulder.

Puente del Inca is this funky phenomenon. First, it's a natural stone bridge over a rushing river. Basically the river carved a hole in the rock, so you have a bridge over the water, but it's the same piece of rock making up the bridge, and the cliffs on either side. Then there's a hotel and spa complex built on the side of the cliffs in the 1940's, that was later washed out in a flood, and now lays abandoned. But contributing to a constantly changing and evolving rock landscape is the high sulphur content in the river water, which, builds up and erodes surrounding rock faces with bright yellow mineral deposits. Besides the bridge there is a small village, consisting of a hostel, a couple of restaurants and a bunch of souvenir shops. The place is a major tourist attraction, despite the fact that due to erosion visitors can no longer cross the Puente, they can only take pictures from afar. Which is what we did, and then retired to the terrasse of a small snack bar for some nourishment, and to wait for the bus back to Mendoza.

Simon's shots of our day in the Alta Montaña.

Malargüe - La Payunia

2007-03-06T15:45:00.001-05:00

Tuesday February 21st I got up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to the town of Malargue, 3 hours from San Rafael. The early morning start was necessary in order to get to Malargüe for a 9am excursion out to La Payunia Volcanic Reserve.

150km from Malargüe via bumpy, winding backroads, the reserve is famous because it contains something like 300 volcanos within its boundaries. The most recent eruption was more than 500 years ago, but the effects of centuries of eruptions can be seen in landscape, most notably the black desert-like terrain. Upon closer inspection it's not black sand, but rather what you could call volcanic gravel. Different peaks and craters dot the reserve, which, given the altitude, is home to lots of llamas and guanacos.

The tour company I had signed up to go out there with is famous for the open-air caravan they take visitors through the reserve in. You're in the vehicle most of the day, but since the caravan consists of a sort of a roofed cart with benches pulled behind a 4WD truck, you get a more up close and personal experience with the landscape than you would in a traditional van.

Except when its raining. Which it was when I arrived in Malargue. Then they pull down these plastic window-style coverings to shield the passengers from the elements. Well, not all the elements. Malargüe was also experiencing a cold snap when I was there, and the day we went out would have been nippy for a November day in Montreal, let alone Argentina in the summer. Not really the day for an open-air caravan ride.

But we set out anyway.

As the twelve us as packed into the caravan, each of us layering on every item of the inadequate summer clothing we'd all predictably show up with, we were hoping that the weather would soon clear up. But, to the contrary, the higher the altitude as we climbed the road into the reserve, the colder it got, the stronger the wind, and, most frustratingly, the foggier it became. The cold and wind we could have handled, had we been able to see what was around us. But the guide's explanations just kept on coming out like "Well, over there in that cloud is Volcano such and such.." or normally, on a sunny day, from here there's this AMAZING view of blah blah blah..." The stops on the way through the reserve, which normally were for short hikes, walking around, taking in the amazing open spaces and strangely coloured geographical landscapes, were reduced to a quick run around in the bone-chiling wind and then getting back into the truck as quickly as possible. The silver lining was that the steaming maté being passed around inside the truck was all the more welcome...

And then it was mutiny - almost. Choro (our local guide/driver of sherpa-like qualities who new the terrain and the climate like the back of his hand and sped that caravan over dunes and hills like it was nobody's business) drove the truck into this nook he knew of behind a small hill where we were shielded from the wind for us to eat our lunch of empanadas and wine. By this point everyone was freezing, and sort of bored, or sort of pissed or very pissed at the lack of being able to see anything through the thick fog. There was a huge group debate on whether we should continue on into the fog, or whether we should head back to civilization. We were almost at the crater, the kind of crowning glory of the reserve because of the impressive views from the rim. Choro insisted that it looked like it was clearing up over the crater. But everyone was at the end of their rope. But one guy suggested that we listen to Choro, go onto the crater, and then if it were still cloudy from the top, turn back. And so that's what we did.

And were we all ever glad we did so. Magically, somewhere between lunch and the top of the crater, it totally cleared up, and got warm and sunny. The caravan snaked up the side of the crater, and then we got out and hiked up the rim for some of what I would qualify as the most spectacular views of my whole trip to Argentina. The Andes in the distance, the black volcanic pampa/desert terrain, dotted with flashes of yellow and green plant life, and the rainbow effects of mineral deposits.

On the way back down we got to see all the amazing landscapes we missed on the way up. Mood inside the caravan improved severalfold. For me, the near-freezing experience of the morning was worth it for the views from the top. Not everyone thought so, though, and when we got back to the company's office, there was a major bitch session with the company staff. I stayed out of it and went home to my hostel for some pasta and a well deserved bottle of wine.

Malargue - Cavernas de las Brujas

2007-03-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

My second outing from Malargüe was thankfully less eventful than the first. Cavernas de las Brujas is a network of caves in the mountain face out in the middle of nowhere. Legend has it the caves used to be used for shamanic rituals by local aboriginals, hence the name (bruja=witch.)

You donned your helmet and headlamp, and then went into the caves for a two-hour visit that involved hanging out in the hugeentry chamber of the cave to get our eyes used to the darkness, and then much climbing and shimmying through narrow crevices, the whole puncuated by historical and geological explanations by our amazing guide Estela.

A virgin caver, I thought it was cool, though some Europeans complained it was a let-down compared to the caves they've got back home.

We stopped for what had been advertised as a "hike" at a park on the way back to Malargue afterward. The "hike" was a 30 minute nature walk with 15 other people along a trail to a grantedly pretty little waterfall. A guide stopped the group every 2 minutes to explain the fossils found along the trail to the group of bored-looking kids and ill-dressed middle aged women in flip flops and mini-skirts. Blah!

Luckily, the "hike" was followed by lunch at a restaurant featuring the region's famous chivito! Aka. GOAT ( though I didn't know it at the time...could have sworn it was beef of some sort...) Mmmm, a big hunk of goat meat on a huge bone, roasted over an open fire and eaten with your bare hands. I then understood why Malargue's chivito is famous throughout all of Argentina.

Bikes and Bodegas

2007-02-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

Undermining the tourism industry. Why pay big bucks for a tourism professional to organize your day, when you can do it yourself for a fraction of the price? This seemed to be an underlying theme of my time in San Rafael.

Vanesa and Laura were my dorm-mates, on vacation from their office jobs in Buenos Aires. We decided to forego the organized bike tours of the wine country just outside town and venture out on our own. We stumbled across a bike shop that rented comfy, wide-tired, coaster-brake bicicletas playeras at 15 pesos for an 8-hour rental. And the local tourist office gave us info, addresses and opening hours of the handful of bodegas in the area; they even drew us a map.

A quick trip to the mercado to pick up some snacks for the road, and off we went. Getting out of town was a bit nerve-wracking; cycling downtown Montreal at rush hour has nothing on negotiating the insanity of the roads in even a small Argentine city. But just out of town a bike path appeared parallel to the road. It was warm and sunny, that intense Andes sun that beats down ( and after soaking it up the length of a day leaves you zapped come evening time...) The ride was quite flat, the landscapes on either side vineyards and humble houses, the Andean cordillera faint in the distance.

So the rhythm went like this: Bike a couple of kilometres, arrive at a winery, go for their free guided tour and tasting(!). Chill out outside on the property until the buzz wears off. Then continue on to the next. There was an olive oil plantation/balsamic vinegar factory along the route as well. Though after their tour that ended in an educational video full of images of gfresh salads and glistening vegetables they left you hanging; there was no tasting to be had. What a rip!

The itinerary finished off at the uber-classy Bianchi complex, the white-walled buildlings that housed the plant, warehouses, and sales and showroom flanked by a huge manicured lawn and fountains, in addition to a large vineyard. The place was packed with tourists waiting for the tour, with just as many buying wine and champagne by the crate in the gift shop. There were a surprising number of bored-looking kids on the tour, undoubtedly dragged along by their vacationing parents eager for a break from running around in the mountains. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for opting for Disney World and not a winery tour, when we went on OUR family vacations.

We biked back to the hostel and got a delivery of asado and beer for supper. Oh yes, huge chunks of Argentine beef straight off the barbeque, delivered with side dishes and beer straight to your home. Argentina's the BEST!

( On an unrelated side note: I was the only foreign tourist in the hostel in San Rafael. The place was filled with Argentines on vacation. You see, with the exchange on the Argentine peso as it is, many Argentines now choose to vacation within their own country. As a result, in the last 5 years the Argentine tourism industry has ballooned, with the resulting development and expansion of infrastructure and services all over the country. Good news for the independent traveller.)

San Rafael

2007-02-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

Got into San Rafael at 4am on Saturday. San Rafael's in Mendoza province, three hours-ish south of Mendoza city. Walking around the city on sunny Saturday afternoon I was reminded of the vibe that exists in Mendoza; things are pretty, quiet, and laidback, and there's an omnipresent cloudless, electric blue sky that I think has something to do with being so close to the Andes.

I went from one end of the town to the next, visiting the tourism office and travel agencies figuring out how to best spend my couple of days in the region. When the crowded Saturday afternoon streets become suddenly deserted at around 2 or 3pm, I realized sanrafaelinos observe siesta scheduling; that is, businesses are open in the morning until the early afternoon, and then close and re-open in the early evening. So well, I decided to do a little "When in Rome.." and went back to the hostel for an afternoon nap.

Sunday I decided to eschew the organized excursion route and go up into the Cañon del Atuél, the river canyon and surrounding mountains that are the area's main attraction, on the city bus and jump off at some point along the route that looked interesting.

The bus rounded a bend and I saw a couple of signs for rafting trips down the Atuél river, so I got off. A couple of minutes later I was sun-screening up for a trip down the river with a young family and a couple of guys from Mendoza. The level-2 rapids didn't give us the kind of rocky ride I was expecting ( I'd never gone rafting before... only seen it on TV) but the sun was bright the river was refreshing. At one point we jumped into the water and, holding onto the raft, were pulled down the river by the current.

The rafting company's "office" doubled as a general store and a bar, so after getting a drive back upstream in the company van, I followed up the rafting session with a couple of cold beers with some of my rafting partners. We sat at a couple of umbrella-ed tables on the roadside, me and two guys from Mendoza who'd been travelling around the province on motorbike, and told stories, jokes and talked about our respective countries and regions. I turned down their offer of a ride down the valley to San Rafael on the back of a Harley, though, because I felt squeezing a little more activity into my day in the canyon.

I realy wanted to go hiking. Many of the adventure tourism companies in the canyon offered guided excursions, but there was usually a 3 person minimum and at least a 30 peso charge. I started chatting with the woman who'd sold me my rafting trip and she clued me into the fact that right across the road from where we were standing, there was a trail that followed an old riverbed into the sandstone hills for about an hour. She may now have been wheelchair bound, she let me know, but she'd grown up in the area and knew all the trails that crisscrossed across it. I had a peaceful walk through the grey standstone hills, so different than the lush green forests I'm used to hiking in Canada.

I caught the bus back down to San Rafael and hooked up with Laura and Vanessa, two girls from Buenos Aires that were also my dormitory mates, for dinner.

Rainy Neuquén

2007-02-16T12:22:00.000-05:00

Neuquén, pop. approx. 200,000, is a nice little city. The regional capital. Touristy in as much as it's a transport hub for Patagonia, but not really for anything else. So the streets give off a normalcy, full of everyday people doing everyday things. Even when it's unseasonably 12C and rainy.

(Today's it's rainy and thundering all over the country. There was a freak hail storm the other day in Mendoza province. And someone told me it's snowing in the Andes! And that's where I'm headed tonight.)

The lady at the tourist information booth tried to give me a brochure on fly fishing in the region. I passed. But maybe I should have taken it. You can fly fish in the rain, right? I've already walked around the quaint, and compact town centre. I don't have any hotel room to hang out in, and it's 4 hours till my bus.

Puerto Madryn

2007-02-16T07:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a cloudy and grey day spent wandering around Puerto Madryn. Hostel check-out was at 10am, and my bus to Neuquén didn't leave until 9:45pm.

Madryn, as small as it is, seemed downright urban compared to Puerto Pirámide. The beach that runs the length of town was practically empty, as it was overcast and a bit chilly, though the sun did peek out in the afternoon for a bit.

So it was reading for a bit on the beach, walking around, having coffee overlooking the ocean and reading a bit more. I found a little reading nook underneath the cement overhang of the promendade that runs the length of the beach for when I wanted to escape the UV rays.

Change of itinerary

2007-02-15T10:06:00.000-05:00

So, the hard reality of travelling by the seat of your pants without an itinerary or reservations hit home. I took the bus back to Puerto madryn from idyllic Puerto Pirámide last night to catch the overnight bus to Esquel, in the Patagonian Andes. But it was full! That's high season in Argentina for you.

So I've stayed the night in Puerto Madryn, going to spend the afternoon on the beach, and then tonight it's back on the bus again. But, I've completely changed my itinerary, after realizing that the way I'd been envisageing things I was going to spend more time on the bus than actually enjoying nature. That's the trouble with Argentina ( and I suppose Canada too...) There are just so many gorgeous natural wonders to see. But they're all sort of far apart. 8h, 12h, 2oh bus rides. It's hard to resist the urge to see and do too much.

So I'm heading to Neuquén tonight on the bus. Will spend a night there, do a day trip before hopping on the bus to San Rafael, in Mendoza province, where I'll spend a couple of days. Near the Andes, though not the Patagonian andes. But with lots of amazing sights and scenery.

And then I'll just be a short hop from Mendoza, where I'll end up on thursday the 22.

That's the joy of travelling alone.... you can change your itinerary at the drop of a hat.

Puerto Pirámide

2007-02-15T08:18:00.000-05:00

The Peninsula Valdes is a chunk of land, a couple of hundred kilometres in circumferences, that juts out from the Eastern coast of Argentina into the Atlantic. (Though it's not marked on my little map here, it's the point that sticks out near Rawson.) It's dry and dusty, not much to see inland besides salt deposits and scrubby bushes, and the shoreline consists of sheer 70m cliffs dropping off to the sea ( with a couple of beaches here and there.) The cliffs shields the approach of the cold wind from the west, warming the water in and around the peninsula, and thus attracting all kinds of marine wildlife, such as sea lions, elephant seals, dolphins, orcas, and other types of whales.

Most people who come to visit the peninsula stay in the town Puerto Madryn, on the mainland, but after 4 months of urban delirium in Buenos Aires I was looking for a nature escape, so I spent two nights in tiny Puerto Pirámide ( pop. 200), on the peninsula itself.

Paradise, really. This Nova Scotian has always found it hard to be on a beach where you have to jockey for a bit of sand between music-blasting jocks, kids playing paddle ball, and suntanning Barbie-wannabes. But the beaches near Puerto Pirámides, wide, wild, and most importantly, practically empty, had more in common with the never-ending beaches in the Maritimes than most. Just the way I like it.

I went on a boat excursion to see the colony of sea lions just down the coast from the village, and to do a bit of snorkeling. I rented a bike and biked around the area aurrounding the village. Surrounding the beach there are lots of cliffs and dunes to explore. And I stayed in the what I think may be the quietest hostel in the world. The village was so relaxed and the whole place emenated peace and quiet.

As the the girl from the hostel with whom I spent an afternoon at the beach put it, "Amo este lugar." ( I LOVE this place!) I would have to agree with her.

The road to Patagonia

2007-02-14T20:34:00.000-05:00

After a couple of months in Buenos Aires I'd forgotten that the rest of Argentina is completely different than the capital. ( Sort of like the way that people in Bs As forget the rest of the country exists...)

The 18 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn was my re-introduction to the vast, wide-open spaces that you find in so much of this country. The feeling of space.

I had been expecting Patagonia to be a little less, dry. A little more green. Maybe once you get farther south. But the area between Mar del Plata and Puerto Madryn ( these places aren't on my little map here, but Puerto Madryb is near Rawson) is dusty and dry. The vegetation is short and scrubby. The sky blue, blue, blue and the highway long and winding.

Tigre and The Paraná Delta

2007-02-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

It's a great contrast. Just one hour north of sprawling, urban Buenos Aires, you have the lower reaches of a huge delta system. Five hundred rivers ranging from small streams to some of Argentina's most important water systems, and thousands of square kilometres of the land formed by the sediment collected between them.

The town of Tigre, a quiant suburb of Buenos Aires, is the gateway to the Delta. It's the end of the commuter train line, it has a big amusement park and a giant market most famous for its furniture and fruit. It's also where all the companies that operate tours and water taxis through the delta are based.

There are no roads on the islands of the delta, the waterways assure transportation via boat or water taxi for the people and businesses found there. There are schools and churches, "corner" stores and floating gas stations, all accessible by water only, for the thousands of permanent and seasonal residents of the area.

So on steamy Saturday afternoon Simon and I jumped the train, and then jumped a long wooden boat that took us on a visit of the first section of the Delta. The first section is mostly cottages for people from the city; everything on stilts, so that rising river waters don't routinely damage what's inside.

The waters are brown, the greenery lush. Willows dip into the waters and ferns overhang narrow waterways. The dock in front of every house oftens acts as a patio, from where to take in a little sun, drink maté with friends, oversee the kids swimming, and watch the boats go by.

See Simon's pictures of the afternoon here.

Plans a' changin'

2007-02-12T20:03:00.000-05:00

So, well, before my travels could even start the itinerary had to change.

The Atlantic coast of Argentina, between Buenos Aires and Neochea, is a mob scene in January and February. Basically, all the millions and millions of people that live in Buenos Aires decide to escape the steamy, sticky heat by going to the beach. All at once. To the same beaches.

And this year it's worse that usual. Usually, Uruguay's coast gets its fair share of vacationing Argentines. But this year several of the border crossings for cars between Argentina and Uruguay are blocked by protestors. You see, there were a couple foreign-owned paper companies looking to build big, polluting plants in either Argentina or Uruguay. Argentina vetoed the proposal, because of the environmental repercussions. Uruguay decided to go acept it. Except, the plants will be built on the river that forms the border between the two countries, and the pollution will end up touching just as many Argentina cities as Uruguayan. So the citizens of the town affected have been doing rotating strikes on the international bridges for a couple of months now.

Anyway, so the weekend at the beach turned into one last weekend in Buenos Aires, with a daytrip to the Tigre Delta. I left Buenos Aires Sunday night on the overnight bus and am now in Puerto Piramide, near Puerto Madryn.

Impending Travels

2007-02-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

So this Friday it's bye-bye Buenos Aires.

Me and my friend Simon are going to some beach on the Atlantic coast for the weekend. A beach of the rustic and nature kind, as opposed to the corporately sponsored, seen and be seen kind.

Then I'm continuing on alone to Puerto Madryn for a couple of days. It's a UNESCO nature reserve where you can rip around on the ocean in a boat and check out orcas, whales, sea lions, penguins and other such things.

Then it's a week in the Argentine Andes, hiking and biking and "fucking nature" ( as my friend David would say.)

Then it's a few days in Mendoza, and then across the Andes to Santiago for a few days and a few bottles of wine with my Chilean crew.

And then it's back on the plane for Canada March 1st! Santiago-Miami, Miami-Montreal, Montreal-Halifax, baby. A week in the motherland with the fam, and then it's back to Montreal on March 10-ish.

I'm cheezy, I know

2007-02-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

My friend Cameron took this picture for me when he was visiting Mar del Plata recently.
Hardy Har Har!

el Catedral

2007-02-02T16:46:00.000-05:00

It's fitting that the very neighourhoods of Buenos Aires in which tango was born are now becoming home to venues for young people to dance and listen to it. Neighbourhoods like Almagro, historic home to tango legend Carlos Gardel, are full of small underground bars, theatres and clubs where not only tango but independant theatre and art flourish.

It's a formula we've seen in cities all over the world. You've got a run down, working class neighbourhood where the rents are low. Artists, many of whom are not of the working class stock the neighbourhood is made up of, flock there, because of ample cheap studio and living space. Low rent means less time working the lame day job, more time being creative. (Of course, the cycle finishes off when the artists and related activity transform the face of the neighbourhood into something more broadly appealing, it becomes an attractive place to live for the yuppie class, and rents go up, eventually driving out the original inhabitants. Gentrification, baby.)

Almagro, though, has not become completly gentrified as of yet. It's still in the stage where it's just home to a lot of great theatre and underground clubs. Like El Catedral, where I ended up both Wednesday and Thursday nights. I don't know what it used to be before. It's huge vaulted ceilings recall a silo or warehouse. A humungous open space, with worn hardwood floors, an ecelectic mismatch of tables and chairs I'm sure were pulled out of the garbage, with an open dance floor/performance space in the middle. The walls are covered with a range of, well, stuff, some we could refer to as art, others that some would, nicely, call found objects, or less nicely, call junk. The crowning piece is a huge red fabric lampshade/chandelier that mildly resembles an oversized, deformed heart. The bar is run by a group of guys who supposedly live on the premises, though I'm not sure where. The bar was quite the going concern for a while, but then was closed down for a while. It's been open again for a couple of months, and getting back on its feet.

Thursdays are milonga nights at the Catedral. Tango dancing, though nothing resembling your stereotypical tango affair. The revival of tango amongst Buenos Aires' youth means that they dance tango in a way adapted to their own style. so on the Catedral's dance floor you see everything from jeans, shorts and sports sandals to those baggy canvas hippy pants. And a couple of couples dressed to the nines in low-cut dresses and dress pants and shirts. A pair of high, strappy heels is obligatory for the woman, though, no matter what their style.

And so we just watched them dance. And joined in for a couple of songs. But the endless variations of styles and personalities on any packed tango dancefloor is quite mesmerizing. And as opposed to your traditional milonga, a quirky, informal milonga at a place like the Catedral for me represents the new, modern, evolving face of the artform. It's fascinating.

Countdown to leaving Buenos Aires

2007-01-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

It's my second last day of teaching. The month of January is drawing to an end. And my departure from Buenos Aires is drawing closer and closer. I don't exactly have a date of departure or an itinerary yet; I have to get to Santiago for my flight on March 1st, and I'm going to get there overland. I want to see the south of Argentina, I want to see Misiones province in the extreme north. I want to see the mountains, I want to see the ocean. I have to connect the dots and esee what I want to see and also get myself to the other side of the continent in time for my flight back to snowy Canada.

It hit me last week as I looked at the calendar how little time I have left here in this city. Even though I've just been here for a couple of months, you start to put down roots in your own little ways. You start to make long term plans and projects. But I realized last week that all those things I've been meaning to see and do in this city but keep putting off? If I don't get around to them now, they won't get done. The next week will be busy.

It's sort of sad, you know? The friends I'll be leaving, the students of mine that were practically crying when I told them I had to go... But at the same time there's the undeniable impression that life goes on and it will go for everyone once you leave. Departures always seem to provoke these two opposing feelings....

Love and marriage

2007-01-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

The economic crisis of 2001 has impacted Argentine society in innumerable ways. Someone explained the ever declining national rate of marriage saying that it's because people just don't have the money since the crisis. If they're going to have a wedding, they want to do it right, so if they can't, they just don't bother. They'd just as rather live in sin.

I'm not sure how much I believe this one. Maybe societal views toward marriage have been changing as they have in countries all over the world. But there's an omonious Catholic cloud, remnants of things past, that floats over this country and unfortunately still casts its shadow over everything from public opinion to law-making. So maybe if you can justify your living in sin economically, it's harder for people to label your evolving social values as immoral.