So now I've finally got a few minutes to finish everything that happened on our Midterm trip. After the last night in Madrid, we woke up packed all our stuff up and started walking to the car rental place. The unfortunate part was that NOTHING in Madrid is open until 10AM and that's when we were suppose to pick up the car...but didn't know where it was. So we finally looked at about 3 internet cafes that all said their internet started at 10AM. Apparently there's some magic switch in Madrid that gets flipped and turns all the internet of Madrid on at 10AM or something. Anyways, we sat down and had one last breakfast in Madrid, checked where the rental car place was and got ready for the trip to Bilbao.
After the breakfast, we walked the 10 blocks to the rental car place and spent about an hour getting all the paperwork filled out. Finally it was time to hit the road! I was going to be the navigator in the lead car that Jav was driving while Sam was in the backseat. Bloom was driving the other car with the rest of the boys in it. It took about 45 minutes to get through the Madrid traffic, but soon enough we were out on the open Spanish roads! We stopped for lunch at a nice little hotel just past the city of Burgos. It was an INCREDIBLE meal. Everything that everyone got was simply amazing! After the meal, we popped back into the car and continued on to Bilbao.
A short 2 hours later, we found ourselves in the middle of Bilbao. We parked, found the hotel, and settled in. We all decided to start walking and see what the city was all about. We walked down the river towards the Guggenhiem Museum designed by Frank Ghery. On the way, passing a bridge designed by architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. The museum was closed, so we walked around it and then looked for someplace to grab some food. While the guys ate and grabbed a beer, I ran back to the hotel for my camera and tripod so I could take some night pictures. So, we sat outside close to the museum and waited for the sun to go down. ...and we waited...and waited. Finally by about 10:30, it was starting to atleast get dark enough that the streetlights were turned on. I started to walk around the museum, snapping away, trying to highlight various features of the building. I then wandered over to Calatrava's bridge where I was able to get some great shots because the bridge is illuminated from below. Finally at about 12:30, I made my way back to the hotel for the night.
I woke up the next morning after sleeping in for the first time in what seemed to be ages (it was really a week). I hopped online, uploaded some pictures and talked to Leah. After a quick shower, I headed off to see what the inside of this museum was really all about.
ATTENTION...Architectural Rant ahead!
Now let me preface this with the comment that I have never really been the biggest of Ghery's fans. I respect some of his stuff because of the way that his firm has intigrated the use of computers and digital design into actual built work, as opposed to some abstract form of artwork that is left to renderings, magazines, and the computer screen. Ghery has a huge impact in actually being able to make some incredible peices of architecture by other architects. Being from Cleveland, I've seen his building on the campus of Case, the Peter B. Lewis Building. As my mom has said, "It looks like he made a building, took an empty pop can, tore it apart and put it ontop of the building." Sadly, I actually agree with her for the most part. In the Lewis Building the use of titanium panels and seemingly free form surfaces growing out of the brick really don't make much sense.
Now that I'm done with my little architectural rant, let's continue with the story....shall we? I walked around the Guggenheim to the main entry, which is actually on the side away from the river. Descending down toward the entry door, which are all glass, tesselated to create a faceted curving entry. After ordering my ticket (in spanish, suppringly all on my own) I walked into the main atrium space. It was an absolutely experience and sense of space. I was truly suprised by the way in which the space grew vertically, as well as horizontally. Unfortunately because it's in a museum, I wasn't able to take any pictures of anything in the museum. The space was interesting because it was so light and felt very open. From the ground floor, I could see all the way up to the top level, see outside, see the various people walking on the levels above me, see people in the stairs, elevators, in som of the exhibition spaces, all without moving from that spot. Now, I've been wondering since I have been in this space if Ghery and his team REALLY knew what the end result was going to be, or if they just got really lucky to have created so an incredible space. In all honesty, I'm willing to be that it's a bit of both. The space just really worked! Most of the exhibition spaces were pushed to the exterior with the atrium and vertical circulation centered in the building acting as a core. For as volumunous as the space is, the squarefootage of the building was rather small.
It was possible to make it through the entire museum in about 2 hours. As for the exhbits, the most interesting were the large cortend steel sculptures done by american sculptor Richard Serra. Anyone who's been to the Pulizter or the Contemporary in St. Louis would recognize the similar style to his work there entitled "Joe". Like "Joe" these sculptures were enormous and about experiencing space as you actually engage the artwork. Walking through some of the spaces, I started to wonder if this indeed was art or architecture. Then I coughed (still trying to finish off the cold) and realized that the sculpture that I was in was meant to act as an echo chamber. As the cough reverberated throughout the narrow space, it continued to sound different, never dampening! There was actually a video where Serra was interviewed about those peices of work which were designed specifically for that location...even before the architectural competition for the museum was started! There were also some of his models at a scale of 1" = 1' of the exhbit. It was really pretty cool to see how he worked!
After the museum, I walked around the rest of the city (which took all of 15 minutes) and somehow ran into Sam. He was looking for Neil and Bloom to meet them for a drink, so I tagged along. Since everyone had a chance to see the museum we started to talk about the museum, what we thought about it, the space, and the art, and the city. It was suprisingly a fairly intellectual discussion considering the size of the glass we had infront of us! After that, we walked up past the train station to grab some food at a place that was suppose be an Asian Italian fusion resteraunt. It again was INCREDIBLE! We then headed back to the hotel, where I got a good night's sleep, to try to kick the cold for the rest of the trip!
Woke up the next day and headed out to San Sebastian which is an hour drive if you take the highway. We decided to take some back roads and follow the coast the entire way. Again, I was navigator in the lead car, this time Bloom was driving it. Not knowing REALLY what I was doing, I looked at the map an figured out a route that would get us there and looked like we'd have a good potential to see some great sights along the way. We followed the river out of Bilbao and followed it. Yes, we took one little wrong turn, but aside from that we had a beautiful trip. Even the wrong turn ended up being great! It lead us down to a parking lot, right on a cliff overlooking the water!
We stopped for lunch after being on the road for about 3 hours. Again we stopped at a beautiful spot that was wide open, overlooking the water. We wondered down to the water again, looking for a place to eat. A few of us hopped up onto the break wall to take some pictures of the waves crashing into it. We then saw this little resteraunt that was right next to the break wall. We settled on it...we were going to eat there and we were going to sit outside so we could watch the waves. The meal was again wonderful. Nice fresh fish, beautiful day, waves crashing, surrounded by good friends...it was really fun. We found a set of stairs that made their way down to the rocks on which the waves were crashing, so we followed them and I got some more great pictures of the waves crashing (not to mention Cerny running and Jav getting soaked).
After the meal, it was back into the car and onto San Sebastian! We finally pulled in about 7pm, 7 hours after we left. I suppose by that time think only the skipper, the Howells, the proffessor, Ginger, Mary-Ann, and Gilligan could have understood how we felt. But we wouldn't have given it up for anything. Instead of highway, we got fresh air, beautiful sights, and a wonderful lunch!
Once in San Sebastian, we got to our hotel, and decided that we were going to head out for some tapas for dinner. Everyone that we'd heard from said that the tapas resteraunts were incredible and really cheap. We headed out at about midnight to try to find some food. By the time we walked to the main part of the city, it was 12:30 and we were starving. We stopped at the first place that served food, grabbed a beer and some tapas, and then continued rolling on...tapas hopping. The next place wasn't a bar, more like a cafeteria styled place. All the food was out in front, you got a plate, picked up whatever and how much of it you wanted and just let the owner see what you had before you ate. It was really REALLY good food too! After we'd filled our stomachs we went out to check out the night life, checked out a couple pubs and a dance club.
I was up in time to catch the first rays of the new day, so I grabbed my camera and headed to the beach. I was able to get about 445 pictures before the sun rose and I headed back to bed. When I finally woke up, everyone was heading down to the beach, so I decided it seemed like a good idea. I went laid out for a bit and then we decided to hit the water which wasn't nearly as frigid as I would have thought. There was a floating platform in the middle of the bay, so Neil, Cerny and I decided we'd swim out to it. I got about 3/4 of the way there and then realized that it has been probably a decade since I'd been swimming like that. I also came to the quick realization that I was also WAY more out of shape that I'd thought! After I finally made it to the platform, I proceeded to collapse lifelessly for about 20 minutes, until I could muster the energy to sit up. I laid out there for a bit longer, getting some sun and resting up for the inevitable swim back to shore. It was actually a much easier swim that I thought it'd be because the wave while not huge, were definately helping push me towards the end result...dry land! I finally was able to feel my feet touch the sand still under about 5 feet of water and don't think I'd ever been so happy! The rest of my day consisted of laying on the beach! At about 6, we decided to go back, get showered and get some more tapas. Bloom, Sam, Neil and I walked around a few places close to the hotel, popping our heads in, grabbing 2 or 3 items finsihing and then heading to the next place. By the time we made it back to the hotel, all I wanted to do was lay in bed and sleep. The rest of the guys grabbed a couple drinks and decided they were going to get more food and drinks. Since I knew that I had to drive first thing in the morning (and I was still recovering from that swim!) I decided to stay in, get a good night's sleep and pop in "Big Trouble in Little China".
Woke up at about 11:15 the next morning, packed up and Cerny, Sam, and I took a car and headed back to Barcelona! It was pretty cool to drive in another country. We drove past Pamplona (where the running of the bulls started today) and Zaragoaz (where there is an international expo going on based on water...we didn't stop everyone said it wasn't worth the money). Somewhere just about an hour past Zaragoza, I drove from the Western hemisphere to the Eastern as we crossed the Grand Meridian line. It was kinda cool to be able to say that. We finally arrived into Barcelona at about 6pm, and dropped the rental car back off at the airport. A successful Euro-roadtrip without getting lost, losing anyone, or having anything really bad happen. I'd call that a success! ...now unfortunately, I'm faced with the realization that I only have 2.5 weeks of the semester left!
I then smoothly (if I do say so myself) asked her to spend the rest of her life with me. Suprisingly she said yes! :) This picture is really amazing primarily due to the fact that about one one hundredth of a second after this picture she had the "super suprised face" Let's just say THAT would have made for an interesting picture!
The beaches of Sitges
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