The whole Bilbao adventure started being fun before it even begun...
While Daniel and I were waiting at Santander bus station I've noticed my AEGEE-Poznan friends coming back from Oviedo in one of the buses. It turned out that we're taking the same bus and we went one stop, until Santander airport together exchanging stories about previous evening.
Everything would be pretty normal if not the same situation one week before!
As soon as we got to Bilbao, the biggest city in the Basque country,
the group of the best comic artists ever was already waiting for us.
Due to the fact that both Daniels -
Sangorrin and
Castello had twisted ankles, we took tranvia...
We've left the vehicle near the
Gugenheim Museum and took a walk to get closer to it...
After taking loads of pictures of ourselves, of the spider, of the bridge and obviously of the museum we went straight ahead to the restaurant coz it was high time to have lunch... Few more minutes and it could be too late for spanish people to eat!
The meal in
Tamaya was great! There were so many exotic dishes that I can't even recall all of them. Everybody was using the sticks very professionally hehe so I did my best at it as well.
Afterwards we've hanged around the Bilbao streets and got to
Twiggy where the artists took out their tools and went on drawing. The results were impressive...
Alberto, who was too tired of drawing all week long,
Vanessa and I kept on watching
Yvon,
Hugo, Olivier a.k.a. Conan and both Daniels drawing...
Most of the drawings were dedicated to Daniel, except two and one of which was a caricature of me drawn by Castello!
Visiting
Joker was the first time when I've seen so many comic books in the same time. I was shocked by few of them and found out that there is a true freedom of speech in comic.
At the evening after seeing exhibition of
Carlos Pacheco works at Fnac, we've hang out around the Casco Viejo - Bilbao Old Town and spent some time at Plaza Nueva having pinxos (pieces of bread+ sth typical for Spain like tortilla or jamon). Whole city was full of people not only because it was saturday night, but also because of the football game that was taking place then. It reminded me of the spirit of spanish cities at night, which no polish city has.
Plaza Nueva 9:30pmI will definetly keep on spreading the gossip that
Bilbao is the center of the Universe!According to a popular Bilbao joke: a Bilbaino walks into a store and asks for "a world map of Bilbao". The shop owner unflinchingly answers, "left bank or right?''.
This is The Basque History of the World because Basques at times think they are the world.
‘Hey Patxi, us Bilbainos are the dog’s b-------, aren’t we?’
‘Course we are. But what are you doing talking about Bilbao – you were born in Cuenca!’ ‘Sorry, Patxi, but us Bilbainos can be born wherever the hell we want, OK?’
After the longest weekend of her life, Iva went to the university on Monday and for the last time made an effort to find them. She asked the portier who obviosly didn't speak English if he havn't seen anything like what she lost... and the miracle happened! There they were. It turned out that she left them in the ladies room.
I've watched it last Thursday in the nearest cinema in Dolce Vita under the Portuguese title "Quem quer ser Bilionário?".
The cake looked like a giant muffin and I've fallen in love with it from the first sight.
It seemed that everybody enjoyed the crazy cake and I also hope they found the dinner that I've prepared tasty!
... and recently I also had a flight transfer which was a good possibility to meet my dearest friend Coral. She is the reason for writing this post. This lovely girl drove for 1,5h in the traffic jam to spend 1 hour with me in front of the airport entrance. We had a great time laughing and watching the police not to give her a ticket for parking where in not allowed area. The most surprising fact was that other friends of ours - Joanna and Maciek were about to arrive in 2 hours at the same airport.
As I started discovering the city more, I've figured out that it hasn't much to do with serious businessman in black suits. Instead of that it has a lot to do with the sea.
While watching the shore carefully a very interesting statue might be noticed. It's devoted to the story of little children jumping into the water to search for coins hidden on the bottom of the sea in the times of poverty after the war.
The biggest attraction of Santander is definetly Peninsula of Magdalene surounded by lovely beaches and dangerous rocky cliffs. The Bikini Beach, summer palace of the royal family and incredible open air zoo with penguins and sea lions make the place a great holiday or weekend destination.
It's a pity that I will not have any good excuses to visit this city again in the near future coz Daniel is going to Japan!
After taking loads of pictures of ourselves, of the spider, of the bridge and obviously of the museum we went straight ahead to the restaurant coz it was high time to have lunch... Few more minutes and it could be too late for spanish people to eat!
The meal in Tamaya was great! There were so many exotic dishes that I can't even recall all of them. Everybody was using the sticks very professionally hehe so I did my best at it as well.
Afterwards we've hanged around the Bilbao streets and got to Twiggy where the artists took out their tools and went on drawing. The results were impressive... 
Alberto, who was too tired of drawing all week long, Vanessa and I kept on watching Yvon, Hugo, Olivier a.k.a. Conan and both Daniels drawing...
Most of the drawings were dedicated to Daniel, except two and one of which was a caricature of me drawn by Castello!
Visiting Joker was the first time when I've seen so many comic books in the same time. I was shocked by few of them and found out that there is a true freedom of speech in comic.
Plaza Nueva 9:30pm
Most famous and characteristic monument is definetly the cathedral of San Salvador from 14th century. On the other hand, the most controversial gigant modern building looks like a space ship. It was designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava and will house a Congress Centre and the shopping mall Espacio Buenavista.
The whole city center is also filled with loads of interesting monuments presenting people living there in the past, pieces of modern art and even Woody Allen! The statue of Woody is proudly "walking" along one of the main streets of the city. However, the glasses were stolen recently.
Woody Allen, while reciving the Prize Prince of Asturias of the Arts in 2002, expressed:
Oviedo! I will never forget you.
