San Sebastián

We are nearing the end, folks.

The other night I was in my bed waiting for sleep to hit me and I found myself a little emotional when I realized that I will only spend 3 more nights (one of which will most definitely be spent in packing hysterically and trying to squeeze everything in my bags that once seemed so big) in my bed in my room in Madrid. Yikes.

I am now sitting in the hostel after finishing breakfast and before heading off to brave the cloudy beach. Yes, I am in San Sebastián. Therefore, yes, I am going to the beach. No matter what.

I have a blanket, a sweatshirt and jeans. An umbrella will be accompanying us. But make no mistake, we are definitely going to the beach. I have a crappy fiction novel about Katherine of Aragon to entertain me, so there is that, too. And some sangria, of course.

We went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao yesterday and it was absolutely breathtaking!

Seriously, you should google the building because it is awesome in every sense of the word. It is a masterpiece of modern architecture, a work of art to house others. It is Frank Gehry´s throwback to his childhood when he claimed he continually dreamt of sailboats in his dreams. Yeah, a little ambitious for a building. I thought so, too.

Turns out it is exactly the manifestation of what he said. We spent the same amount of time outside taking pictures and just generally admiring the building itself as being inside the actual place.

This is also where I fell in love with grand installation art pieces, too. Seriously, there are people out there who are completely creative with large-scale sculpture. Give these people a HUGE empty white room and whatever supplies they want and they will give you some amazing things. People can be so talented.

Lauren and I spent the way back to San Sebastián on the train talking about ETA and scaring the shit out of me. ETA is the Basque terrorist group (think March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombing and last month´s politician assassination in Bilbao) and we couldn´t help but reflect on the fact that all the tiny Basque towns we were chugging through on our little train were the nests for the Basque terrorists.

Yeah, and then the train stopped on the tracks for some unknown reason. In the dark. In the humid jungle that is the Basque country. I wanted to cry because I just knew a terrorist group was about to board our almost empty car and wreak havoc on us. They didn´t though, so we´re fine.

I really don´t have much to worry about here. They target Spaniards, not Americans. Hey, if I have to hang around the lairs of a famous terrorist group, I am super glad that it´s the one that doesn´t really have a beef with Americans. It´s comforting I guess.

So we are headed out right now, but I will write more later. Sorry I haven´t really kept up with any of this. The last month or so has been pretty crazy go go go and I was super duper sick for the last 2 weeks.

Later alligators.

On my next post, I´ll write some Basque, too. It is nuts. It is the oldest surviving language in Europe and the only one in the world about which we know nothing. Seriously, nothing about its origins or related languages. The only one we think MAY be related is Georgian. As in the old Soviet country. Yeah... weird.