Lovely Barcelona

I had a wonderful bike ride up to the Olympic Park (the summer games were held here a number of years ago) this morning. I saw the Montjuic Radio Tower, I saw kids playing (Aussie rules) football and of course, their national pastime, soccer (which they call football). This scene doesn't provide the sense of hectic activity I witnessed from my vantage point above the field. Whistles were blowing constantly, kids were running here and there, coaches were yelling. Very frenetic.

I tried to find those tennis courts I spotted from Google Earth but they proved elusive - the entrance to them at any rate. I circled around them from every side, climbing and re-climbing the hills they're nestled in -- I got close but never set foot on them. But I did see the Montjuic Tower and I suppose it's one that all radio stations should aspire to emulate, in terms of design at least.

 The Olympic Park is spacious and I'm sure, a mecca for anyone interested in sport. I saw many people biking in the park, along with walkers, runners, and others just out to feast on the views of the spacious plazas and immense buildings in the complex.

 I must add a comment about biking. I have enjoyed the hell out of biking in this city. Of course you know I enjoyed biking in Amsterdam too but here the weather is so much better, perfect for biking. While riding in big city traffic is a challenge, I must admit I enjoy the adrenalin rush involved with keeping up with the traffic, making my way night or day to places that are miles away. It's hard to understand why someone like me, who loves the peace and quiet of the Skyline Drive ride in Homer could be so excited about riding in this big city traffic but I am. Another benefit of biking everywhere is that I don't have to learn the subway/metro/bus systems at all. Check out this subway map for Barcelona. Confusing, isn't it? Bikes and my autorouting GPS have solved my transportation problems very satisfactorily.

Barcelona, like Paris, makes bikes available to its citizens for a nominal charge. There are bike stations located all around. I'm sure it encourages bicycle use. As a tourist you cannot rent the Barcelona bikes because you need a local address to which a permit card can be mailed but there are normal rentals available like the one I have. Here is a photo taken right across the avenue from my hotel. The nicely dressed couple is uncharacteristically waiting for the signal to change in their favor. A bike parking station is visible in the background. Residents merely scan their bicycle rental card, remove the bike from the rack and drive away. They can return the bike to any station in the metropolitan area.

A look at my watch tells me it's 4:30 which means I must saddle up and head back to the rental place to return my bike. I'll walk back here via La Rambla and perhaps return to the Plaza Reial for dinner. It's been another special city on a tour that's only now reaching the halfway mark. I had toyed with the idea of staying in the U.S. after Christmas and finding a place to play tennis but now I've decided to proceed with my original plan and head to Thailand in February. Talks with Ainara in Bilbao have convinced me that, should Thailand prove too hot and uncomfortable for me, China is a definite possibility. Plus, Ainara will be in Thailand in February. I hope to be able to meet up with her there.

I reckon it's fated that I will feel sadness every time I leave a place. It's certainly been that way for my European adventure. After I surrender my bike I'll walk down La Rambla for the last time. Naroa told me I'd love Barcelona and she was right. I bought my tickets back to Paris this morning too, so before very long I'll be back in the states for Christmas. Sigh. It will be great to spend Christmas with family but I'll certainly be thinking about the trip to Thailand and about returning to Europe someday.

Barcelona - Park Guell

This entry has been a long time coming because, well, I deleted it by accident. Just as I was telling someone on the Couchsurfing site about how this blogging software is always saving your posts so you don't lose them while you're writing, I lost a very long entry. How did it happen? It was while uploading images, a slow process from this hotel in Barcelona, when I did something that caused all the text to become selected, and when I pressed a key, all the text was deleted, actually replaced, by that character. At that precise moment the automatic save feature, usually a good thing, executed and saved my entry. Only problem was, it was empty, except for that single character, at that point. :-(           Ah,well, live and learn.

Picking up where I left off yesterday, with my bike locked a mile or so from my hotel, let me condense what I was going to say to just this: when I got back my bike was unlocked and my unknown antagonist's bike was gone as well. End of story. Ultimately it was merely a misunderstanding and his way to deal with it, which would have had serious consequences for me had I been leaving town yesterday, was only a minor inconvenience.

So, I rode off to visit the beautiful Park Güell, which sits atop a hill on the north side of town. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site and it is quite something to see. The ride up the hill on my rented single speed bike became so tough that I had to walk it for the last half-mile or so. A modern light weight bike with a derailleur and some gearing for hills would have been nice to have. Once again I found myself wishing for my Cannondale MTB, with its 27 gears and good disc brakes. A cooperative fellow tourist took this photo of me at the very top of the hill, at a place called Tres Cruses.

 

Below is a photo showing the main walkway with some of the remarkable Gaudi stonework found throughout the park.

I have several more photos prepared for this entry but as the upload process is so time consuming, I'll just have to come back and add them later. I had them all in here yesterday, dammit, and now they have to be re-sent to the server. This hotel, the Silken Concordia on the Av Paral.lel, is very nice hotel with friendly and helpful staff, excellent room layout and super clean facilities. I would recommend it to anybody wanting a nice, inexpensive hotel in Barcelona. However, the Internet service is slow and requires a different login and password sequence each day, a real PITA in these modern times. (The management assures me that a change is imminent.)  Especially if, like me, you're blogging and using high quality photographs to illustrate it. Below is a shot of some of the fabulous mosaic on the Dragon Fountain.

 

The Dragon Fountain is one of the more famous things found in this park. In Spain especially it seems everyone wants to have his or her photograph taken in front of whatever church or sculpture is the purported subject of the photo so you've got to be quick to get your shot. These school kids were hangingall over the dragon most of the time. The park was very busy on this beautiful day. Below is a picture of a woman working to restore the fine artwork on a wall near the fountain. (Click on the photo to see the fine detail.)

Oh, and I finally had some tapas. I ate in a restaurant in a lovely little square, the Plaza Reial, last night. I rode over on the bike after again failing to get that nighttime photo of the Torre Agbar. For some reason it was not lit up. Anyway, I had bumped into this little area after my visit to the ancient Jewish Quarter (photo right) earlier in the day and it appealed to me so much that I returned to it.

Another draw for me is that it's right off the fabulous La Rambla, Barcelona's tourist playground. The plaza is filled with outdoor cafes so it was just a matter of checking the menus, which are almost always posted in plain sight, until I found one with a selection I liked. Ah ha, the Cafe Rio was featuring a seafood tapa plate for 12 euro! Perfect.

My friend Gregg commented jokingly on Facebook that the trouble with Spanish paellas is that they usually have eyes. Even my very first meal, which I ate in a tiny bar near the hotel, had eyes: smoked herrings with potato salad. The herrings were, of course, served whole with the head attached. The other meals I've eaten here have all had whole prawns in them and last night's meal did too. Two huge prawns, 4 huge mussels, a few clams, a plate of assorted cheeses with chorizo and ham, some delicious batter dipped calamari, and french fried potatoes served, as is the custom here, with a spicy mayonnaise alioli. Everything had just the right amount of garlic and spicy heat. And everything was laced with liberal amounts of olive oil. (I have yet to see a piece of butter anywhere in Spain.) The meal was fantastic!

Anyway, here it is, 10 am already and I have a mission. My Valencia Couchsurfing host, Rety, who I won't meet in person until tomorrow, has suggested that I should visit the Olympic Village and see this famous tower, the Montjuic Communications Tower. I found it on Google Earth and note that it's very close to my hotel. And right nearby are a whole block of what appear to be tennis courts, clay tennis courts. All of a sudden the Olympic Park area has become a must see both for the tower and the tennis.

Barcelona

My first impressions if this huge city are very positive but it is indeed a big city. I rented a bike today and did quite a bit of riding around looking at the sights. I walked over to Plaza Cataluna this morning by way of the broad and busy La Rambla, a boulevard with a huge center pedestrian mall (with bike lanes) and lots of vehicular traffic on both sides of that, to get to the bike shop. It's a busy place, full of vendors selling Christmas stuff and a few interesting street performers. I thought this one fellow's act was quite good so I recorded it. You can see it on Facebook. I'm not sure how to link it here as yet -- frustrating -- but I will figure it out eventually.

Below is a shot of La Rambla, or more properly, Las Ramblas (see this Wikipedia article for more). This is one of the main drags here and it's going hot and heavy at all hours. Street performances, music, places to eat and snack, souvenir booths, tourists and residents walking up and won the wide avenue -- the place is teeming with life all the time.

I finally reached Plaza Catalunya (Plaça Catalunya) where the bike rental shop is located but I was first drawn to the spacious public area in the center of the square. American cities should take note of these places . Homer is struggling with whether or not to even have a public space, and if it does, we might just let a big box store develop it. Yuk! All the cities I've visited have had very nice parks not to mention a multitude of bike and pedestrian walkways. Anchorage is pretty good, relatively speaking, and the trail system there helps make living in that city enjoyable. What's wrong with the rest of us?

From here I got my bike and headed back down Las Ramblas all the way to the beach. There is a beautiful, long, sandy beach here. It's lined with restaurants and shops, boat harbors and yacht basins, and shady copses of palm trees and grass. Naturally, a bike path runs along its full length. As I was riding along I caught out of the corner of my eye what looked to be a naked lady soaping up under one of the showers provided to wash the salt off after swimming. Nah, I thought, I'm seeing things. But then, sure enough, I came across an entire beach where everyone I saw was naked. It was mostly older men but still, the attitude about nakedness here is quite a bit different than in the states. When I was flying in on Vueling Airlines I glanced through their little seatback travel book, you know the kind I mean, and noted it was pushing naked vacations in the Canary Islands; bathe naked, hike naked, bicycle naked, party naked. Even the streetside advertisements for lingerie, for example, show naked women with their breasts fully exposed. Hell,as long as you're going to use sex to sell things, which we certainly do in the states, this just takes it to another  more honest level I reckon. While some might condemn this as licentiousness, others will say they're tired of the restraints put in place centuries ago in our Judeo-Christian tradition. What do you think?

After the beach tour I headed to what is perhaps the primo Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) site in this city, the cathedral known as Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family). I provide a photo below. I think it's fair to say that the artistic and architectural legacy of Gaudí are the hallmark of this city. I have visited many museums and churches in Europe on my tour and it seems as though most of them are either being renovated or reconstructed at the present time. The Sagrada Familia is no exception. Here is a link to a Wikipedia photo of this cathedral from 2006. If you click on the photo that loads first, the 7 MB original will begin to download into your browser window. Even back in 2006 when that photo was taken, you can see stationary cranes in the background. I'll wager I've seen at least 50 of these things working on museums and galleries in Europe this year. I'm pretty sure this cathedral is only being cleaned and repainted but it's a big job. If you're looking at my full size image, check out the scaffolding at the right side. It looks miniature compared the the massive size of the church structure proper. Part of the reason this work needs to be done is that Barcelona, like any large, modern city, has problems with air pollution and airborne particulates, particulates that can ruin an art form like the Sagrada Familia.

I did not enter  the church today opting instead to move on to other things I wanted to see. I headed over to another Gaudi building, the Casa Mila, which was close to the cathedral. I didn't get a shot of it but again there is a wonderful photograph of it in Wikipedia. What I did photograph was a nude figure, cast in bronze I think, done by French Catalan sculptor and painter Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). There is an exhibition of his works going on in Casa Mila currently.

I headed home after this intending to go out later to snag a look and a nighttime photograph of a very interesting building that I ran into while riding to Sagrada Familia earlier, the Torre Agbar. So I unlocked my rented bike and headed east. I had eaten an early breakfast at the hotel so by now, 6 pm, I was starving. And I wanted to try some paella. So I stopped at a restaurant along the way and entered. When I indicated that I wanted some seafood paella the waiter looked a bit confused and asked, Now? I said in turn, yes, now. Normal people don't usually eat supper in Spain until later, often much later. My friends back in Bilbao seldom eat dinner before 9 pm.

Eventually we got everything straightened out and my order came. I ate it, paid for it, and then left the restaurant to continue my ride to the Torre Agbar. But when I got to my bike I saw a large chain going around and through it, a chain I was not familiar with. Stupidly, I had inadvertently locked my bike and another one together when I locked mine to a post before going in to dinner. Then I found a note, written in perfectly respectable English, in which the owner of the other bike told me that he would be back later that night or else he would meet me sometime the next morning to unlock my bike. There was also a phone number given but he didn't answer any of my several attempts to contact him. I'll let you know how that all turns out. Tomorrow could end up being a very difficult day.

Bilbao with Marta

Naroa is visiting with family today so Marta and I spent a few hours walking around town. I hadn't planned on doing anything special today, mostly because Naroa was away, but Marta had the day off and she asked me first thing this morning, Do you want to take a walk? We could see a few sights and then stop back at the Gure Toki for some foie con manzana. Oh yes, I replied, let's do that. What a sweetheart she was to spend her day off showing me around. Plus, she was leaving for a 3-day trip to Madrid early next day. The walk was fantastic, the sun came out later and the temperature reached nearly 70, and of course the foie was sublime. Here's a photo of Marta when we started our walk. (BTW, Doug, I logged almost 22K steps on the day.)

We walked back o the Guggenheim because I had failed to get a photo of the sculpture in the adjacent plaza, a sculpture I'm sure my sister Sandy will especially enjoy seeing. Here is the "Puppy".

Afterward we walked along the river to the old town for the foie. The sun was out by now and it became quite warm. I stuffed my jacket in my pack and walked around for the first time since arriving in Europe in a short sleeved shirt. Below is the Gure Toki bar where, in the opinion of my friends, they serve the best foie con manzana in all of Basque Spain. I gotta believe it's true.

After the walk we headed back home to get Marta's car. She wanted to take me up above town to where I could get a look at Bilbao from the heights. I just had to include this shot of the exquisite Guggenheim Museum. It bears repeating that the building itself is pure art.

Marta brought me back to the flat, cooked us some lunch, and then raced off for a date with a friend. I went out for a few beers and conversation with Naroa and Ainara in the evening but we made it an early night. We will meet again in the morning for coffee and then I will head to the airport for my flight to Barcelona. On our last night together Naroa and I shared some of our favorite music: she gave me several albums by a group that we had listened to in our trip to San Sebastian called Los Delinquentes and I gave her my current favorite by Wilco, Wilco [the album]. She loves anything done by Dire straits and has every track they ever recorded. I find it strange that this young Basque lady loves Dire Straits, a group I was listening to in 1975. I reckon it's because Naroa is totally cool.

Shakespeare wrote: Parting is such sweet sorrow. Dave says, no shit Bard.

Couchsurfing and travels in Bilbao

The first part of this entry is about people because they have been so important to the success of this, my first trip in Europe and my first long solo jaunt. There are photos and some more "travelogue" down below a bit....

I've had a very special trip, special in a way that  most of you have probably never experienced. I've been Couchsurfing. The organization I'm associated with, Couchsurfing.org, has been around for a while and has many thousands of members. The idea is that you stay with people, in their homes, in the countries you want to visit. The organization has a system built into it that allows and encourages one to leave references, short evaluations of the people you're encountered, so that others can know in advance if a potential host is trustworthy. (Ebay uses a similar system to rate buyers and sellers that are unknown to you.) If you've found someone especially trustworthy and in addition have met them in person, you can leave a special kind of reference; you may Vouch for him or her. Vouching is never done lightly. It is an indication that you trust this person very much.

Furthermore, the people who host you do not expect to be paid. They host people because they like doing so. They enjoy meeting people and showing them the place where they live. They enjoy sharing stories, especially travel stories, with others. And, if you're like me and speak only English, they will be invaluable in helping you find special places to visit, places that may or may not be in travel guides, helping you to use the Metro or the rail system, helping to understand the local customs, turning you on to their music and art scene, helping you enjoy the experience of visiting their area much more fully than you could ever do on your own. And sometimes you will find that you've made a new friend. That's perhaps the most fantastic thing about traveling this way. If you are open to this I can almost guarantee it will happen.

I have been extremely lucky to have been hosted by some fantastic and interesting people during this tour. I came to Europe because I had met a few folks in Fiji last spring and who lived in Paris, and I had a desire to learn something about my European roots. Teahana and Arnaud are not part of Couchsurfing.org but, hey let's be real, they might as well be. They put me up for 10 days in their small apartment near the Bastille in Paris and then they proceeded to show me Paris. They showed me Paris as only Parisians can. They didn't only suggest where to go and what to see, they actually came along and guided me; guided me through the Paris Metro system, took me to their local coffee shops and markets, made me feel totally at home in a city that otherwise might have remained foreign and unknowable. Thanks to them I learned to love Paris. I will return to stay with them for the last few days of my tour as my flight back to the states departs from Paris on 22 December. I'll enjoy finishing my trip in their flat, eating fine French cheeses with Arnaud, drinking some more of that excellent Cote du Rhone with Tea--and I feel fairly sure that will not the last time I'll see them.

Then I traveled to Berlin to my first true Couchsurfing host, Jana, who lives in the heart of Berlin near what to me is one of the most impressive war memorials I've ever seen, the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. I arrived and the first thing she did was to cook me a breakfast of bacon and eggs with coffee and toast. Pretty nice. She cooked some fantastic meals throughout my stay and acted as my tour guide, sending me to some of the best sites in Berlin. Plus, she helped me obtain my railroad tickets to Poland, my grandmother's birthplace, and then said, if you like, why don't you stop back here after Poland. There's lots more to see in Berlin. I did and there was.

Poland was the most difficult place to visit because so few people I encountered understood English. But Ewa (and Daniel), my host there, speaks perfect English and was really helpful and generous to the point that she gave over the office, the only private space in their very nice but tiny flat, for four days. My trip to Dobrzyki is covered in another blog entry but I must admit I'm not sure that visit would've happened without the generosity of this wonderful young woman. I didn't have too much interaction with her husband Daniel because he doesn't speak any English but he was also very gracious and reconfigured his wireless Internet so that I could get online.

I had a great time in Amsterdam but rather than Couchsurfing there I stayed in a nice, budget hotel there, the Euphemia. It was ideal in many ways; it is close to the major museums, my favorite neighborhood the Leidseplein,  and not that far from the bustling downtown area and the bars and cafes in and around the Red Light District. Oh, and of course, the Mellow Yellow Coffeeshop and the Little Coffeeshop were literally only a few steps away. While Couchsurfing is a very cool way to travel, I wanted to occasionally be in a place where I could keep my own hours and do my own thing.

And then I chanced to come to Bilbao, Spain, which is where I'm writing this. The connection with my host here was not through Couchsurfing but, as with Tea and Arnaud, because I had met Naroa in Fiji where she was one of the dive instructors with whom I made my first scuba dive. Naroa since quit her job in Fiji and happened to be home in Bilbao when I contacted her to ask if she would be willing to host me. She said, come ahead. It was a wonderful visit. Below is a photo of Naroa and her best friend and traveling buddy, Ainara:

Naroa and Ainara

Naroa has spent much time with me, taking me on walking tours of her hometown and bringing me into her circle of close friends. Her best friends Ainara and Fanny and flatmate Marta, have been super friendly and relaxed. When we drove out to San Sabastian they had the music going in the car and were rocking out just as though I were another girlfriend. They were playing music by Spanish group Los Delinqüentes. However, I was surprised to learn that Naroa's favorite group is Dire Straits, a group that I count among my own favorites, and that she has all their stuff. It was fun to be around all that good female energy and to see how they relate to one another. We've had a great time together and mostly because of them I've had a fantastic visit to this part of Spain. Below are a couple of photos from a little ride we took out to the ocean at Elixaide about 15 miles from downtown. Here is a view looking west toward the estuary that leads back to Bilbao.

Earlier we had crossed that estuary on one of the strangest bridges I've ever seen, the Puente Vizkaya Bridge. It is, in fact, the only "bridge" of its kind in the world. Once the crossing starts you'd bet you were on a ferry of some sort but you're actually in a gondola suspended by cables from the superstructure above. Check it out (click on the image to see it full size). It can carry about 8 cars at one time. The bridge was built in 1888, destroyed during the Spanish civil war, then rebuilt in 1941. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Puente Vizkaya Bridge

The next few pictures are from our visit to San Sabastian. This is a resort town and in the summer is crowded with tourists from Bilbao and elsewhere.

Here are a few shots of the street scene in San Sabastian and a couple of us in a cafe, eating pintxos, of course, drinking canas, short beers the gals like to drink, and red wine:

San Sabastian street scene

Here's a great shot of Fanny. As I have said in a previous post, I wish I were 20 years younger (among my group of friends, who doesn't?), because if I were I would be chasing after this vivacious and beautiful woman for sure.

Fanny

Below is one of Fanny and Ainara, and then a shot of the four of us in a cafe at San Sabastian:

 

Naroa, me, Fanny and Ainara

Noted on 12 December: I want to add a note here concerning smoking, both dope and tobacco, in Spain. It is very common to find people smoking cigarettes in restaurants both in Bilbao and Barcelona. Also, marijuana, while officially illegal, is smoked as well. In Bilbao at least, it's often mixed with tobacco but nevertheless, you see it all the time. I reckon there's a helluva lot of cigarette smoking going on in Europe compared to the U.S. Although I haven't spent much time in a big American city recently I'm pretty sure smoking has dropped off in popularity nationwide. Not so here. Practically everyone you see is either smoking or getting ready to light up. People smoke on their bikes, on their motorcycles, in their cars, on the streets, and as I said, in restaurants and bars. If this offends you, perhaps you shouldn't visit Spain.

Friday night in Bilbao

First, just a quick note: I only recently discovered that I can use larger photographs in the blog and they display in a smaller size. To see the full size image, just click on it. DOH! Live and learn I guess.... So, on to the commentary ;-)

Just back from a fantastic evening with Naroa and her girlfriends. I don't think I've ever met a nicer or cooler bunch of ladies in my life. I fell in love with all of them. They genuinely made me feel like an old friend, part of their family, and I find myself humbled by their openness and readiness to befriend a stranger, especially one as different from them as I am. Here's a photo of Naroa and Fanny, who is actually French. After a visit to Bilbao, she liked it so much that she relocated here. She's been here for three years now and is on her way to becoming an honorary Basque.

We drank wine and ate pintxos all day, moving from bar to bar, from cafe to cafe, as is the custom here on the weekends especially, and had a fantastic time. These girls know how to live and how to show their lovely city to travelers in the best possible way. Of course there are seafood pintxos, mushroom pintxos, various other delectable combinations of veggies and meat, including one made with zucchini and squid ink, but the crowning achievement in the art of pintxo preparation IMHO is the one called Foie con manzana, shown below:

This sublime creation consists of thin slices of goose liver lightly sauteed with apples and topped with a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The taste and texture of this morsel is like nothing I have ever experienced before. I almost lost control over these things but stopped at just two. My friend David Stutzer would rave about these too because, like me, he loves a good dinner based around some fresh deer or moose liver, except that these are so much more delicate, with the flavors of the apple and liver blending subtly, just so.

You can indulge in a plateful of luscious pintxos along with a glass of excellent vino tinto house wine in most of the places we stopped at for just a few euros. It has been said that "an army travels on its stomach", meaning that without food you really cannot fight, or even have an army. I also travel with food in mind. Naroa tells me it's good that I like to eat because this is the traditional Basque way to meet with friends and hang out. Enjoying a variety of excellent pintxos and red wine, having good conversations with your best friends and companions on a Friday night. Yep, that sounds like a helluva good way to live.

 Above is a photo I took in the cafe where we had the Foie con manzana. That's Naroa, Olaia, Marta (Naroa's flatmate) and Ainara. These are the fantastic ladies with whom I was lucky enough to spend the evening. This old guy feels a bit like he's died and gone to heaven.

Christmas is just around the corner and Bilbao, like cities and towns everywhere I've been so far, is getting all trimmed and decorated for the occasion.

Today we will drive to the coast to visit San Sebastian and see some of the Basque countryside.

Basque counry

Arrived in Bilbao late yesterday after a long day hanging around the Stansted airport during a boring 7-hour layover. The flight from A'dam lasted 40 minutes and the flight to Spain was an hour and 40 minutes, so it was a strange way to spend a day. I struggled with the pay phones at the Bilbao Airport, finally giving up, and went ahead and jumped on the next bus into Moyua Plaza, which is the center of town. I eventually was able to contact my host, Naroa, and she generously offered to walk downtown to meet me and guide me back to her place. She has a real nice apartment and a very comfortable couch. Her flatmate Marta is very sweet also and she welcomed me into their place warmly. We had a nice visit, I had a shower, then they made some dinner, we talked some more and I finally got to sleep at about 1 am -- since I had been up since 6 am the day was a fairly long one for this old geezer.

Today Naroa took me around showing me her hometown. We walked for a couple of hours until finally she asked, are you hungry? Yep, I said, I'm starving! So for my very first Basque food she took me to a cafe called the K2 in the old town of Bilbao where I ate some pintxos (pinchos). These lovely little treats are called tapas in the rest of Spain but this is definitely Basque country so here they're pintxos. It was sort of like eating several different appetizers that ended up being a meal in itself. Very enjoyable.

Then I visited the Guggenheim Museum on the river. What an impressive piece of architecture it is! A modern art palace of titanium, glass and stone. It contains a large installation of a series of metal sculptures by Richard Serra, The matter of time, that is hard to describe in mere words. I had seen some of his work in magazines but when confronted with the real thing, huge plates of steel formed into graceful curves arranged so that one can walk inside of them, one wonders how in the world he ever managed to bend these massive plates into such perfectly curved shapes. As no photos are allowed inside this museum, I provide this link which also shows the space within which it's situated at the museum in Bilao: Serra Sculptures. You shoud realize that what appears in the photos to be thin sheets of metal are actually steel plates that are about 2 inches thick!

There were also paintings by Chagall, Picasso, Kandinsky and they're currently featuring the works and life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Even the local residents don't know how it happened that Bilbao was chosen to be the site of a lavish Guggenheim Museum  when the only others are located in much larger centers of population and culture, New York and Venice.

Not sure where I'm off to next. Naroa and I will do some research and depending on what we learn I will probably go to either Lisbon or Barcelona for a while before returning to Paris. Barcelona, while expensive, is Naroa's favorite place in Spain and I'm sure I'll be able to get a flight from there back to Paris easily. Jana and I had talked about Algarve, Portugal, and that's still an option. And as I was writing this entry I received an invitation from a Couchsurfing host to come stay with them in Valencia which is, like Barcelona, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Ah, decisions, decisions.

Crazy bikers

Update, Monday Nov 30, 2009 - See the biking photos I just added on Picasaweb at:
Biking. They belong with this entry but I didn't have time to upload them up before.

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I know we've all been joking about the bikers here and how indomitable they are. The weather doesn't faze them, traffic doesn't slow them down, motor scooters sharing the same bike lanes don't seem to worry them. I left the hotel this morning intending to ride over to see and photograph a windmill. There are only a few of them left and I haven't seen one as yet so I thought, I'll head southwest and check out the closest one, the one called Reiker Moller. But when I got down to the street it was pouring at least as fast as it last night. My attitude about riding in the rain has changed I think, but it hadn't changed enough to get me onto the bike in this stuff. I walked to the bagel place up the street for breakfast.

While I was sitting there looking out the window at the traffic I was forced to take note: I'm seeing bikers, plenty of people out biking, as usual. I decided to do a little photo gallery of people riding bikes in Amsterdam. Eventually I'll put them on Picasaweb but I'll include a few here.

In all of these photos, please know that it is raining steadily. Also  these are cropped portions of larger images that I took at my camera's maximum telephoto setting, about 5x. Some people are better dressed for it than others. Women bike along, wet hair streaming out behind. Temperatures are in the high forties maybe, hypothermia weather.

I hate how this blogging software treats image placement. Good luck with trying to make pictures look intentionally placed, even planned, but whatever.
Notice the gal on the left. She does not like the fact that I'm photographing her as she talks (and rides).


Biking is easier than driving but it isn't problem free. Let's say you want to go to a popular spot, a restaurant,  a market, or a museum. You've got to find a place to put your bike, and by "place" here I mean you must find some sort of immovable object that, in addition to being immovable, offers a means of attaching your bicycle to it. You may learn that you have to "park way down the street" where there's a bike rack, or fence,  a railing, a utility pole, something, anything to lock your bike to. And in these places every conceivable place is often already taken.

These bikes never come indoors either. Nor are they made for climbing hills. Most bikes you see are in only mediocre condition while some are close to rattling themselves apart. I have seen only two bikes of the sort that I would call a "road bike," at least what we in Homer refer to as a road bike; those were being driven by jocks, and both were seen in the Amsterdam Bos (a park) today, a Sunday when the bike nuts are off work. You don't see many hard core bicyclers here. Because everyone bikes, bicycling isn't as special as it is back home, I'm guessing.

These bikes are heavy. The one I have must weigh at least 50 lbs. But there are no hills anywhere so the weight of the bike isn't all that important. Durability and simplicity are what's important. Most bikes are single speed with a disk front brake and pedal brakes in the rear hub. These are the so called "coaster brakes" used on American bikes when I was a kid. To stop, you just reverse the pressure on the pedals as if to start pedaling backwards; the harder you push back, the quicker the stop. After years and years of handbrakes these took some getting used to.

The drive chain is always enclosed. This saves you from getting grease stains on your clothes or worse, getting your clothing caught in the chain where it will not only get greasy but might be ripped apart in the bargain. It also protects the chain from moisture.
It can stay nice and oily in its little case. This is doubly important because these bikes are outside all the time. They seldom, if ever, see the inside of a garage or apartment.

Nobody wears helmets. Some people wear hats when riding in a rainstorm but many don't. And bikers don't really follow the rules. They ignore signal lights, choosing instead to look at traffic conditions, evaluate the situation, and then quickly doing whatever it takes to move forward, almost without thinking it seems. A perfectly respectable gentleman will suddenly grow tired of waiting for the light to change in his favor. He'll just jump out there and cross the road, be it two lanes or three, no problem. But cars aren't the only vehicles out there. You also have trams, and buses, and motor scooters, not to mention scores of other bikers, most of whom consistently disregard the same laws as you. This makes for many an awkward encounter in intersections, I can tell you.  And I must admit, I'm learning to ignore traffic laws as well. You learn to disregard them because in order to move around on a bike you must. And then it seems like there are so many lanes on the roads: one for buses and trains, one or maybe two for cars, one for bikes and scooters, and a sidewalk for the unfortunate pedestrians. How do you know which is okay to use? Scooters and even motorcycles use the bike lanes and even the sidewalks with impunity. Okay, no let's say you need to make a left turn at a big intersection. You want to stay in the bike lane while doing it?  Good luck. There are as many ways for a biker to get through that intersection as there are excuses to stop smoking (or eating) and you'll see them all in the first hour you spend on the streets.

Many bikes are black. They look pretty much alike. Why have a bike that stands out, that attracts attention? The more likely it is to get stolen. A nice plain, undistinguished, replaceable, and black, bicycle is what one needs in Amsterdam. Disc brakes? A 27 speed derailleur-gear system?   Total overkill for a town like Amsterdam.

Yet, no matter how decrepit a bike is, they are always locked when the owner goes into a store or coffee shop or to pick up some groceries on the way home from work. And there's not just one lock but two. The main lock is essentially a piece of heavy chain fitted with a locking device to allow it to connect to itself. It's reminiscent of the one I used to lock my Honda 750 motorcycle back in 1974.

In the inset you'll notice a device that looks a little bit like a handbrake assembly. It's a rear wheel lock that's attached to or is part of the bike frame. The key can be withdrawn from it only if it's in the locked position as shown in the picture.

The other lock, the chain lock, must be threaded between whatever immovable object you located in step one and both the front wheel of your cruiser and its frame, and then to that part of the immovable object that has offered itself to be attached. I call it a chain lock not because it locks the drive chain of the bike but because it consists of about 20 inches of big links of hardened chain which can be connected to itself and is flexible enough to enable this "threading" I talked about earlier.

Okay, you're ready to lock your bike up at last. Remember to lock the rear wheel first so that the other key on the keyring can be brought to bear on the chain lock. Attach the chain to the immovable object and then push it through the spokes of your front wheel making sure it goes around the frame too, finish threading it on your hands and knees if required until finally you get to push the locking pin home, then turn the key one-quarter turn, remove and pocket the key. You're free to go shopping.

Here's where I've been leaving my green-fendered bike at night. This stand is just down the street from the Euphemia Hotel.

There's more to the story but I have an errand to run. Bikes do need maintenance occasionally, as mine does now. I was way over in the western part of the city at a place called the Amsterdam Bos on my way to one of those windmills I spoke about earlier when I discovered I had a flat. It was Sunday, I had no tools and no way to get the bike back home. So I locked it to  a convenient post until I figure out how to fix it. I'm on my way to the rental shop, 2 miles distant, to see what they recommend. ;-)

Here's a couple of other photos that belong here. The tram stations are places where lots of people leave their bikes  while they're at work. Here are a couple of photos of one in the south part of the city where I went with my borrowed tools to fax that flat.

And of course. here is a picture of the Reicker Moller windmill I had set out to visit yesterday but didn't actually see until after I got that flat tire fixed. There aren't that many of these around anymore, only 5 remain in the Amsterdam area AFAIK.

Saturday in Amsterdam

The old Jacques Brel song keeps going through my mind as I dress to go out. "In the port of Amsterdam," he sings in the chorus, "There's a sailor who sings, Of the dreams that he brings, From the wide open sea." It's become an ear-worm, a little snippet that replays itself now and then as I wander around this great city.

Last night I finished up with the blog and managing my growing photo collection at about 1 am. I decided to go out for a late supper but didn't really think I'd find anything still open. Wrong--! Big city, Friday night, the neighborhood was rockin. Crowds jammed the narrow streets in a little nightlife neighborhood about a half-mile north of here. Music was spilling out into the night from every bar. Absolutely crazy. I went into one, ordered a beer and sat listening and watching the dancers for a while. The music was intense with a strong beat, the drums were especially loud and crisp--an excellent sound system I must say. Later I found a felafel bar and ordered a plate of felafel with hummus. A perfect dinner. I headed back to the Euphemia to turn in.

Today, Saturday, it's raining again as I get suited up. I'm wearing my lightweight polypro longjohns under polyester pants, my Ibex wool turtleneck, the threadbare Mountain Hardware windblocker jacket that I seem always to be wearing, and a rain jacket stowed in the daypack. I have a warm hat and gloves but haven't needed the gloves yet. Of course, I remind myself, if I were at home on Diamond Ridge looking out at the falling rain and gray skies, there's no way I could be persuaded to get on the bike and go for a ride. Here, I say no problem. As my good friend Alisa used to say, "There's no such thing as bad weather. There's only bad gear and a bad attitude."

I wanted to check out the Van Gogh Museum but a long line waiting to enter persuaded me to bike to a couple of the parks first to get a little exercise, so I headed to Vondelpark. Discovered some clay tennis courts there - they were almost underwater after days of rain showers. Headed next to a small park nearby, the Sarphatipark, checked out the De Rokerij coffeeshop where I finally finished the joint I bought so long ago and had a pretty good latte. After lunch I went back to the Van Gogh and waited for about 30 minutes to get in. I realized too late that the line I was in was for people who needed to buy tickets. Because I had purchased a museum pass on my visit to the Rijkmuseum I essentially had a ticket --I could have walked right in. Ah, next time. Great museum, loaded with memorable works by the master. My boss had a good quality art print of Von Gogh's Sunflowers on his dining room wall. That was the first Van Gogh I had ever seen. But here I was now, 40 odd years later, actually seeing the real thing, in glorious color. On how many walls have you seen this one?


After I got back I decided to take the tram in to Amsterdam Centraal as a sort of dry run for my departure in a couple of days. Bought my train ticket to the airport. Helpful fellow at the station told me trains run to Schipol every fifteen minutes and the trip takes 15 minutes. I contented myself with the knowledge that I will have no problem making my 9:30 flight to Spain on Wednesday. Then I headed off to explore the downtown area.

I wanted to see the famous Red Light District. Along with the liberal dope laws Amsterdam has legalized prostitution. The Amsterdam Red Light District covers a large area of the oldest part of the city. The buildings are tall and crowded together and overlook tree lined canals. The area is pretty cool and the later it gets, the busier it gets. And the darker it gets, the more obvious the glow of the fluorescent red lights above the many windows in the area becomes. I didn't take pictures of the girls because it's frowned upon and I didn't want to offend, or lose my camera. Here is a slide show I found on the Internet that is an accurate depiction of what I saw: Red Light District Slideshow. I did take what I thought was a pretty nice night photo of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal. I posted a copy of this one on Facebook the other day.

 I wandered through the maze of narrow streets looking on my right, then looking left, looking at girls of course. Young ones, old ones, black, white, coffee colored girls, some incredibly beautiful and some not so beautiful. They look out at you and try to make eye contact. And if you respond at all they invite you in to join them. It was a fairly strange feeling I must say. I have zero experience with prostitutes and I guess it's destined for me to remain that way.

Finally I ended up at the Cafe Gollem, on Raamsteeg, a place I'd read about and marked as a place to visit because it stocks over 200 different beers.  It was packed but I stuck my head in to check it out. It seemed friendly enough (notice the bartenders expressions) so I edged inside and after a few minutes actually got a seat at the bar. The menu advertised something called Brigand IPA on tap. I ordered a glass. I developed quite a taste for these strong, hoppy beers last summer. We're lucky because the Grog Shop in Homer has a great selection of excellent IPAs available. The ones I especially like are from Oregon, and I've been missing them. I tried my beer. It was perfect! With a nice bite, and nice flavour. Brigand is a very fine IPA indeed and to date, the best beer I've drunk in Europe. Here's the Cafe Gollem's beer list.

I started a conversation with a friendly sounding couple on my left. He is a Scot, Stuart, recently married to beautiful Colleen who, strange as it may seem, was born and raised in Amsterdam. They met in Scotland, got married last spring, and decided to live in Amsterdam. They were lovely folks--we shared several more beers, exchanged stories about travel, Alaska of course, and email addresses. You never know, I told Stu, I might be back. And if you ever decide to come to Alaska, well look me up....

I walked back to my hotel to turn in but not before a) I stopped off at Mellow Yellow for a "coffee", and took a little walk afterward to clear my head. Damn coffee!  I completed a short walk around nearby Wetering Circuit in the rain. I was dressed for it but still, it was coming down pretty fast. Of course, as always, there were bikers out despite the fact that it's now about 1 am and pouring down rain. You just cannot keep these Dutch bikers indoors on a bad day. More about biking in my next entry.

Amsterdam, the weather, biking

I've been out and about by bicycle all day again. I headed to the Anne Frank Museum first but when I spied the long line queued up to get in I went instead to Rembrandt's House, located in a fashionable part of the city then (as now), near De Waag, and about 3 or 4 miles off.

It wasn't a good day for biking. It was chilly and windy and every so often a rain squall would come along and drive big droplets of water onto the sidewalks. But people are always out riding. Young business execs, both male and female, dressed in fancy skirts, a good suit and raincoat, or maybe something leather, maybe holding an umbrella or a cell phone, but everyone you see is just biking along as though it were summer. I don't know why the bad weather isn't bumming me out but suspect it has to do with the fact that here in Amsterdam everyone's riding, all the time, no matter what the hour, no matter what the weather. You just get into a certain frame of mind from within which you can effectively ignore the rain, the wind, the chill, and just go with it.

Rembrandt's house dates from 1630 or so and as such is a an example to me of the way my Dutch ancestors might have lived if they had been wealthy. Here are a couple of photos of what's inside. This was an expensive house when it was built. Rembrandt apparently lost it in a bankruptcy when he was unable to make the payments. I show only the kitchen and a photo of his pigment mixing bench.

I did return to the Anne Frank house and looked with fascination at the place where 6 Jews hid from the Nazis for years. They were eventually reported and ended up in various concentration camps. Only Anne's father Walter survived the war. He discovered his daughter's diary and had it published in 1947. Another achingly sad  story from the WWII years. I don't have photos and for the most part, especially here, that's alright. The general rule in the Dutch museums and churches is that no photos an be taken. In France cameras amd photos are permitted as long as you use no flash. In Berlin, it varied depending on where you were.

Anyway, I got back here after a long ride, a ride in which my normally trusty GPS took me far out of my way to get to one of the big parks on the west side of the city. Every so often on the ride to the park when the rain would pick up in intensity, I would pull over to take shelter under an awning or some other overhang. I'd warm up for a while and then ride the next piece. I note that all the while I'm staying dry others are streaming by on their bicycles. So I take off and move to the next intersection, and the next one after that. Certain intersections by now are starting to look familiar. I'm recognizing where I've been before, and sometimes even where I'm going.

One of those spots I call The Lido, after a department store that's perched on the banks of the canal. It seems as though my travels inevitably take me though here and I'm always pleasantly surprised when  I recognize it as "The Lido" (It's actually the Leidesplein). The Rijksmuseum is a stone's throw away, the Paradiso and the American Hotel overlook the Singelgracht--to my mind the scene couldn't be more perfect as a representation of an exemplary metropolitan area. Knowing the Leidesplein neighborhood with its restaurants and museums is nearby makes me want to live right here someday in order to experience it fully.

And let me tell you, these Dutch girls are TALL. I swear most of them are at least 6 feet  and some are taller than that. I'll pull up at a signal and see a woman on a bike ahead of me. She is often young, maybe twenty, twenty-five at most, and she's usually tall, my height, and attractive. I'm not used to looking upward at a woman, but I don't find it uncomfortable at all. I wish I were 20 years younger because I would love to chase one of them for a while. It's not the first time I've wished for that, and it won't be the last.

I got a bit wet and a I got a bit chilled on my ride home but I did get back after a while. The Euphemia Hotel is very close to the Rijksmuseum. I recalled the rest of the route back from the Rijksmuseum to my hotel from memory . After stashing the bike I had a coffee in an tiny restaurant appropriately called "The Little Coffeehouse" right next to my hotel where I managed to get myself warmed up. The rain is, after all, just water. And here I am. All charged up and ready to go again tomorrow.