Friday, 24 May 2013
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Rain rain go away, come again...in July when I've gone! #travelblogger
Blog 142/365: Photoblog
I only have five weeks left and I'm totally sick of the weather raining on my parade. Tonight I very briefly joined my favourite language exchange in Algorta for a quick post work drink before fleeing back to Santutxu as my end of term reports are due in tomorrow. It wasn't actually raining so we braved the cold and wind to sit outside. This time last year I was in almost the same spot absolutely baking!
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
MatadorU: Assignment two - the devil is in the details #travelblogger #travelwriting
Blog 141/365: My revised assignment two from my MatadorU writing course which was a task where we had to record ourselves noting details on a familiar route we often take and then create a piece from all the details. The goal wasn't to create a 'story' or a proper travel 'article' it was just to concentrate on details.
Walking to the metro in Casco Viejo
I’m walking up the steps that lead to the regal Plaza Nueva, a neoclassical square on the edge of Bilbao’s old district. I’m temporarily in the cool of the shade under the arches that surround it. This is where you can find the most inventive and, locals will tell you, most expensive, Pintxos. The Basque answer to tapas. I glimpse at them through bar doorways; tiny bundles of edible and colourful joy teetering on small pieces of bread atop all the bars I pass.
I cut across the open space and the sun hits my skin, the rainiest city in Spain doesn’t always live up to its reputation. The sky is bright blue and the Palm trees fit in for once. It’s late afternoon and quite a few people are enjoying themselves sitting outside the two titan Pintxo bars; Cafe Bar Bilbao and Victor Montes. A well dressed woman with thick make up and heavy wrinkles sips on her Basque wine; Txakoli and blows smoke in my direction. She certainly isn’t the only one smoking. It makes me sigh, not because I dislike the smell but because it reminds me of a conversation I had with an American girl who said Bilbao’s primary smell was smoke. I disagreed at the time and thought it was a much nicer fragrance like freshly cooked Spanish Omelette or the smell of grass after it rains. Maybe I notice it more now but I seem to be continuously proved wrong. Bilbao does smell an awful lot like smoke a lot of the time.
There’s a brightly coloured banner which has been stretched all the way around the railings that lines the square. The words are all in Basque, with bold primary colours and pictures of smiling people of all ages running with branded ‘Korrika’ bibs on. I might not understand the Basque language but I’ve been told it’s to advertise a run to promote the use of the Basque Language.
I make for the corner and exit the square under one of the ‘cuevas’ (caves in Spanish) which is the name locals give to the square’s access points and I’m now in Casco Viejo proper, the city’s old district which spills out from the seven original streets of Bilbao. Given that it’s still lunchtime despite being 3:40pm, I don’t see any shops open but no one is home having a siesta as their southern counterparts probably are, they are out enjoying the sun and having a drink.
I pass recycling banks where a guy with a tattoo creeping up his neck and several piercings is hanging out with two bulldogs with spiky collars. Nearby I hear the sound of the street cleaner’s truck, who is already out on the streets wearing his bright green overalls the and orange fluorescent jacket. I go past the green BBK bank and up a few steps on to another square, Unamuno and in the middle a large sandy coloured dog is literally flat out in sunshine. He’s lying so still that I wonder if he is in fact dead until I see the flick of his bushy tail. He reminds me of a Husky dog although his colouring is all wrong. A blonde woman rushes past carrying a large green plant, whilst groups of people are drinking wine or coffee in the nameless bars that surround the square. On the steps up to Extebarri park young people in baggy trousers and headbands are chatting and on the far corner a small group of homeless people with three large dogs are smoking. In fact nearly everyone is smoking. I hate being wrong about that!
I head to the entrance to the Casco Viejo metro, which is like another cave with a tunnel leading underground. An old man walking with a bit of a limp walks ahead of me wearing a black beret – something people normally associate with France but actually all the old men wear them here, a bit like all the old men wearing flat caps back home in the UK. A bearded man in a suit checks his watch and dashes past me followed by two young women with university folders who are jogging slightly. I follow them at much more relaxed pace, thinking about how I’m usually the one to be running for a metro. As I'm walking in, I briefly turn my head back and sigh as I see a guy flicking his cigarette butt to the ground as he follows me into the cool.
Walking to the metro in Casco Viejo
I’m walking up the steps that lead to the regal Plaza Nueva, a neoclassical square on the edge of Bilbao’s old district. I’m temporarily in the cool of the shade under the arches that surround it. This is where you can find the most inventive and, locals will tell you, most expensive, Pintxos. The Basque answer to tapas. I glimpse at them through bar doorways; tiny bundles of edible and colourful joy teetering on small pieces of bread atop all the bars I pass.
I cut across the open space and the sun hits my skin, the rainiest city in Spain doesn’t always live up to its reputation. The sky is bright blue and the Palm trees fit in for once. It’s late afternoon and quite a few people are enjoying themselves sitting outside the two titan Pintxo bars; Cafe Bar Bilbao and Victor Montes. A well dressed woman with thick make up and heavy wrinkles sips on her Basque wine; Txakoli and blows smoke in my direction. She certainly isn’t the only one smoking. It makes me sigh, not because I dislike the smell but because it reminds me of a conversation I had with an American girl who said Bilbao’s primary smell was smoke. I disagreed at the time and thought it was a much nicer fragrance like freshly cooked Spanish Omelette or the smell of grass after it rains. Maybe I notice it more now but I seem to be continuously proved wrong. Bilbao does smell an awful lot like smoke a lot of the time.
There’s a brightly coloured banner which has been stretched all the way around the railings that lines the square. The words are all in Basque, with bold primary colours and pictures of smiling people of all ages running with branded ‘Korrika’ bibs on. I might not understand the Basque language but I’ve been told it’s to advertise a run to promote the use of the Basque Language.
I make for the corner and exit the square under one of the ‘cuevas’ (caves in Spanish) which is the name locals give to the square’s access points and I’m now in Casco Viejo proper, the city’s old district which spills out from the seven original streets of Bilbao. Given that it’s still lunchtime despite being 3:40pm, I don’t see any shops open but no one is home having a siesta as their southern counterparts probably are, they are out enjoying the sun and having a drink.
I pass recycling banks where a guy with a tattoo creeping up his neck and several piercings is hanging out with two bulldogs with spiky collars. Nearby I hear the sound of the street cleaner’s truck, who is already out on the streets wearing his bright green overalls the and orange fluorescent jacket. I go past the green BBK bank and up a few steps on to another square, Unamuno and in the middle a large sandy coloured dog is literally flat out in sunshine. He’s lying so still that I wonder if he is in fact dead until I see the flick of his bushy tail. He reminds me of a Husky dog although his colouring is all wrong. A blonde woman rushes past carrying a large green plant, whilst groups of people are drinking wine or coffee in the nameless bars that surround the square. On the steps up to Extebarri park young people in baggy trousers and headbands are chatting and on the far corner a small group of homeless people with three large dogs are smoking. In fact nearly everyone is smoking. I hate being wrong about that!
I head to the entrance to the Casco Viejo metro, which is like another cave with a tunnel leading underground. An old man walking with a bit of a limp walks ahead of me wearing a black beret – something people normally associate with France but actually all the old men wear them here, a bit like all the old men wearing flat caps back home in the UK. A bearded man in a suit checks his watch and dashes past me followed by two young women with university folders who are jogging slightly. I follow them at much more relaxed pace, thinking about how I’m usually the one to be running for a metro. As I'm walking in, I briefly turn my head back and sigh as I see a guy flicking his cigarette butt to the ground as he follows me into the cool.
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Goodbye season has started #travelblogger #expatblog
Blog 140/365: Photoblog
And, it has started... Leaving do season is upon me. As I have talked about before, it is one of the biggest downsides to life abroad, if not the biggest. In the last few days, I've already attended two leaving do's (leaving party for anyone who doesn't understand British English) and had three goodbyes- one was with one of my all time favourite students, which a tough enough task.
Here's a pic of Greg, Michal and I with our friend Rob who leaves Bilbao tomorrow.
*sigh*
Monday, 20 May 2013
I see French Bulldogs #travelblogger #bilbao
Blog 139/365: Photoblog
You know you hear of broody women who cannot stop seeing babies wherever they go? Well I seem to be experiencing something like that at the moment. Not with babies! With French Bulldogs. Either I'm just seeing them everywhere because I have a new found obsession OR practically everyone in Bilbao has an adorable French bulldog that I have to resist the urge to steal.
Here are just a small selection of the French Bulldogs I have come across in the last few months:
You know you hear of broody women who cannot stop seeing babies wherever they go? Well I seem to be experiencing something like that at the moment. Not with babies! With French Bulldogs. Either I'm just seeing them everywhere because I have a new found obsession OR practically everyone in Bilbao has an adorable French bulldog that I have to resist the urge to steal.
Here are just a small selection of the French Bulldogs I have come across in the last few months:
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| My first French Bulldog love - you never forget your first |
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| He did lick my boob though...that was weird |
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| I made friends with this old chap on the metro |
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| We bonded, obviously |
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| On Saturday I met these beauts |
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Who am I? #travelblogger #expatblog
Blog 138/365
The fact is, I'm having an identity crisis. For the best part of the last three years, and for three months the year before that, living abroad, being a traveller, being an English Teacher, often being out of my comfort zone and learning something new every single day have all formed part of who I am. At the end of June, I will leave Bilbao and return to the UK, and here is the scary word, indefinitely. And for me it is scary. I don't think many of my friends back home will understand that though. I find it difficult enough to explain how I feel.
One of my good friends, however, pointed something out to me over Christmas that I hadn't really thought about. I was explaining how I thought I would have to come home for an extended period to really get where I want to be career-wise. I was telling her how scared I was that I would get trapped in the UK and wouldn't be able to afford to go abroad and have adventures. She smiled and asked me how long ago it was that I'd first gone to live abroad when I went to the USA. I said it was around four years ago. She then asked me if I remember how scared I'd been beforehand and how I had come into the office where we worked one lunchtime and cried because I didn't want to go. She then said "Not that long ago you were afraid to go abroad for just three months and now you're afraid to come back. Think how much you've changed in that time."
The first module on my travel writing course taught us that even writing about our hometown or home country is travel writing because for the people reading it, it will be somewhere new and different (unless it's your Mum or best friend reading it of course!). I really need to start thinking of going home as an opportunity. As I said to a friend the other day, it will be nice to reconnect and catch up properly on all the things I've missed out on. Plus for Christmas, my best friend gave me a Rough Guide book about must-see places in the UK (it was a not too subtle hint that I should spend more time in the country!).
Last year, around this time, I saw a quote on facebook that brought a tear to my eye and I've been thinking of it an awful lot over the last few weeks: “You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place... like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.” Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.
I won't just be missing the person I am here in Bilbao but I'm going to miss the person I have been over the last four years. Maybe, though, I'll really like the person I'll be in London....
The fact is, I'm having an identity crisis. For the best part of the last three years, and for three months the year before that, living abroad, being a traveller, being an English Teacher, often being out of my comfort zone and learning something new every single day have all formed part of who I am. At the end of June, I will leave Bilbao and return to the UK, and here is the scary word, indefinitely. And for me it is scary. I don't think many of my friends back home will understand that though. I find it difficult enough to explain how I feel.
One of my good friends, however, pointed something out to me over Christmas that I hadn't really thought about. I was explaining how I thought I would have to come home for an extended period to really get where I want to be career-wise. I was telling her how scared I was that I would get trapped in the UK and wouldn't be able to afford to go abroad and have adventures. She smiled and asked me how long ago it was that I'd first gone to live abroad when I went to the USA. I said it was around four years ago. She then asked me if I remember how scared I'd been beforehand and how I had come into the office where we worked one lunchtime and cried because I didn't want to go. She then said "Not that long ago you were afraid to go abroad for just three months and now you're afraid to come back. Think how much you've changed in that time."
The first module on my travel writing course taught us that even writing about our hometown or home country is travel writing because for the people reading it, it will be somewhere new and different (unless it's your Mum or best friend reading it of course!). I really need to start thinking of going home as an opportunity. As I said to a friend the other day, it will be nice to reconnect and catch up properly on all the things I've missed out on. Plus for Christmas, my best friend gave me a Rough Guide book about must-see places in the UK (it was a not too subtle hint that I should spend more time in the country!).
Last year, around this time, I saw a quote on facebook that brought a tear to my eye and I've been thinking of it an awful lot over the last few weeks: “You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place... like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.” Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.
I won't just be missing the person I am here in Bilbao but I'm going to miss the person I have been over the last four years. Maybe, though, I'll really like the person I'll be in London....
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| I'll miss this girl... |
Saturday, 18 May 2013
International Museums Day at the Guggenheim, Bilbao #travelblogger
Blog 137/365: Photoblog
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| Outside the Guggenheim... eerie! |
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| Being naughty taking pictures of one of the key pieces of art |
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| Do they know they've hung them upside down? |
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| Andy Warhol. Also saw some Picasso! |
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