Under my umbrella

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

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!

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.