Bilboa

There were only 2 manmade objects I reeeeeally had on my list to see on this trip, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain was one! (Teaser: I should get to see the other one soon!)

I only heard of the building because Todd did a report on the architect, Frank Gehry, when he was in school. I put in on my list then and here we are 10 years later!

It was about an hour drive on the Spain tollways, which now we’ve mastered those, no problem. Except, haha, this time there was a person in the booth–ok! The mountains of rock and trees were on both sides of the road and here and there you could see the Atlantic. Twice there were steep valleys with an actual wind sock on the side of the highway so you could know in advance if the winds were especially high.

Mike starts off each trip with confidence. The museum literally says on their website they have no parking, but there is underground and street parking nearby. Yeah right. Once we hit the city, it’s just chaos and no roads go the way you think. And once a light was green, but here come cars the other way, so we don’t know what that’s about. Finally we found an underground lot which was on the other side of the road, but I reached out my window and waved to a guy who kindly let us cut in front of him.

Now we’ve encountered all parking lot scenarios we felt pretty sure we knew what to do. And as a bonus the parking lots have a bathroom you can use with your ticket code woo!

What I didn’t expect was how smushed into the city the museum was! As you come over the bridge, BAM! there it is, right on the side of the road. As you come walking down the street, it it so obvious and seems to be the centerpiece to the whole city.

The museum was opened in 1997. Frank Gehry was born in Toronto and still lives in California at the age of 94. One architectural critic said of the museum that is was “one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something.”

“Puppy” welcomes visitors to the front entrance. The cost was 12 euros.

People posed around the building, while a man played really nice guitar.

It was 78 degrees and party cloudy yesterday, so people were really enjoying being outside! The entire surrounding area seems to encapsulate the museum. The bridge for the adjacent highway sort of seems part of the museum and huge murals decorate surrounding walls across the river. Maybe the spider wasn’t exactly cute, but people definitely wanted to stand under it!

Clouds of steam came up from the side of the water pool.

Inside the building was tall and bright. People took pictures inside as eagerly as outside.

This a museum of modern and contemporary art, and the building itself was the best part.. One entire wing was dedicated to huge structures that when you walk inside them made noise sound different or made you feel like you were leaning.

My favorite room used mirrors to make colored lights go to infinity 🙂 I might need this for our house!

We never know what to eat, or for that matter how to get food. We found a place that seemed to have a lot of locals. As we stood there confused, a really friendly waiter said, Hola! He offered daily menu options and said we could sit upstairs and he’d be right up. It occurred to me how only a little kindness makes so much difference! His English was really good also, and he said he had been to Mexico and Miami. We weren’t sure exactly what we ordered but it included chicken and rice, pork and salad, and like a rice pudding dessert and was all delicious!

We got home around 5 and Mike fed the sheep 🙂 They come right over for him now! It was warm and lovely outside. The sunset for our last evening cast yellow light on our yellow-flowered trees.

We have been waiting for France to vote on the pension situation, which was scheduled for yesterday. At the last minute, the president invoked his right to pass the bill without a vote. Wow. So now we really don’t know what to expect. World events feel like they are closing in, and there have even been small-scale football riots both here and in Italy. I am committed to trying to enjoy the experience to the end of our trip and just go through it all and hope for it to be as smooth as possible!