Pagasarri

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

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

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

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...