Bilbao

September 25th

Today was blissfully free of travel. I slept as long as I wanted, enjoyed a yummy Spanish breakfast including tortilla and did some exploring. It was lovely to be in a country where I finally spoke the language. Ok, well maybe my brother was right when he said that meant I was going around Bilboa saying things from high school Spanish like "El medico come la carne" and "El bebe llora, waaa waaa". However, anything beats pointing and pleadingly looking into some Russian's eyes desperately hoping he understands my pantomime.

Anyway, Bilboa is an interesting town. It has industrial roots and it shows in the architecture. Check out more here.

The Nervión River used to be really polluted, but they've cleaned it up in the past ten years. However, during low tide you could see all these disgusting bottom feeder fish...

and shopping carts.

(Note: The gray areas near them are all the fish. Gross.)

Like Moscow, they have lots of dogs running loose in town, but they were obviously not stray. They must have a good obedience school in town, because all the doggies were well behaved.

I spent most of the day in the Casco Viejo (Old City) area of town. It was really quaint and had awesome shops.

Later that evening, I went with PJ to Cafe Bar Bilbao for cervesas and pintxtos (Basque word for tapas).

Spain rocks because it is an eating-drinking-going-out culture. After my difficulty with food in Moscow, it was a delight to find a bar or cafe on every street. In addition, the Basque region is said to have the best food in the country. The locals love this particular bar and flock here for drinks and snacks after work and before their usual dinner time of 9pm.

Apparently, it's customary to throw your napkins and cigarette butts directly on the floor!

Now, before when someone said sardine, I would cringe. I thought of these disgusting canned oily fishy things that you couldn't pay me to eat. But here they were filleted fresh and marinated in garlic and citrus. PJ raved about them so much that I gathered my courage and tried one. Man, sardines piled on roasted red peppers, topped with delicious bacon, and served alongside a frosty beer were actually fantastic!