Basqueland travels
[02:04] friend: I heard you saw Anne and Chris in Paris
[02:04] friend: I want to hear all about your trip in France
[02:04] Me: yeah, stayed with them Sunday night
[02:04] friend: that must have been so nice!
[02:04] Me: it was
[02:05] friend: 정의 was so jealous when I saw him yesterday
[02:05] Me: :-/ I got over there around 8, we had a nice dinner, talked about our tour, Avignon, technical difficulties, the students they've had stay at their place
[02:05] Me: it was really nice
[02:06] Me: should write them a thank-you note...
[02:06] friend: they are the nicest people!
[02:07] Me: yeah
[02:07] Me: the trip was nice too
[02:08] Me: after spending the day in Paris after dropping everyone else off, I took the night train to Biarriz
[02:08] Me: spent the morning wandering around there, then took a bus to Bilbao
[02:08] friend: oh nice! did you go to the Guggenheim?
[02:08] Me: yes
[02:08] Me: it was cool
[02:09] Me: some interesting exhibits...
[02:09] friend: the building is the best bit though
[02:09] friend: I thought
[02:09] Me: yeah, it is pretty cool
[02:10] Me: I liked the room with all the Serra pieces, but hate that they're simplified to "visual art"
[02:10] Me: they create such interesting spaces that it's a shame you can't do any more than look at them
[02:11] Me: and you can get lots of different resonant frequencies out of the spaces, it was fun humming there
[02:12] Me: then on the second floor was an exhibition by a Chinese artist who does most of his work with gunpowder, either using it in controlled explosions to make drawings, or using it to blow stuff up in interesting ways...
[02:12] Me: he designed the fireworks for the opening ceremonies in Beijing...
[02:13] Me: and on the one hand, it's kind of cool, and on the other he's getting paid large amounts of money to blow stuff up...
[02:13] Me: I would gladly do that
[02:13] friend: hehe
[02:13] friend: I can imagine
[02:13] friend: did you stay overnight in Bilbao?
[02:14] Me: well, I couchsurfed with someone who lived in a village about 30 km SW of Bilbao
[02:15] Me: I stayed with her Monday night, we went into Bilbao on Tuesday and walked around the old city, ate lunch by going to 4 or 5 different bars and having pinxos (which are small things of food, usually an extremely tasty assortment of things on top of a small slice of bread)
[02:16] Me: then she went home, I went to the Guggenheim, and then caught a bus down to Vitoria-Gasteiz, where I couchsurfed with someone else
[02:17] Me: she was originally German, but met her husband, who is Spanish, in Mexico, where they did theater together for a while
[02:17] Me: he's a clown
[02:17] friend: wow - they sound really interesting. What's that city like? I've never been there
[02:18] Me: that was a really nice visit
[02:18] Me: we went to the city on Wednesday, and it's a bit more Spanish feeling...
[02:18] Me: drier, looks more like what I imagined Spain to look like...
[02:19] Me: very nice old city, and it has the most green space per person of anywhere in Spain
[02:19] friend: is it on the coast?
[02:19] Me: the new city is planned, and nice, but really it's pretty bland
[02:19] Me: no, it's south, towards the center of Spain
[02:20] Me: not at all central, just more in that direction
[02:20] Me: other side of the mountains that ring Bilbao
[02:20] Me: the old city was pretty cool
[02:20] Me: and we did a tour of the cathedral, which was very interesting
[02:21] Me: it was redesigned and added on to by successive kings, with the result that it was structurally unsound
[02:21] Me: so, around ten years ago they started a serious restoration to make it useable
[02:21] friend: sounds really interesting! are you going to post photos on your blog?
[02:21] friend: do you still write your blog?
[02:21] Me: and have turned the restoration into a tourist thing
[02:21] Me: sort of
[02:22] Me: I will post photos, I do intend to write this up as a blog post
[02:22] friend: great - the old city must have been wonderful, I was disappointed by Bilbao, other than the Guggenheim, os it must have been great to see seomthing more authentic
[02:23] friend: what did you do after that?
[02:23] Me: let's see...
[02:23] Me: that evening I went back to Bilbao, and stayed with person I was with on Monday
[02:23] Me: then Thursday I spent the afternoon in San Sebastian
[02:24] Me: it was a perfect day, and so it was particularly beautiful
[02:24] Me: except for the (well-deserved) over-abundance of college-age tourists
[02:25] friend: Oh I've been to San Sebastian too - I liked it
[02:25] Me: yeah, it was really nice, especially after I found somewhere to leave my bags
[02:25] Me: and delicious pinxos
[02:26] Me: that evening I headed up towards Bayonne, in France
[02:26] Me: arrived around 9:30 or 10
[02:27] Me: I hadn't made any plans there, although I was planning to meet up with a group of couchsurfers from Madrid who were supposed to be going up that night
[02:27] Me: so I spent the first hour or so trying to find somewhere with wifi
[02:28] Me: eventually I gave up and just opened my computer, and amazingly found an open, good signal
[02:28] Me: but the group had pushed back their arrival to the next day
[02:28] Me: I tried to find some other CSers in the area, but they were all coming the next day too
[02:29] Me: (there was a big Basque festival, an annual thing, in Bayonne from the 29th to the 2nd)
[02:29] Me: so that was interesting...
[02:30] Me: did I tell you about that before?
[02:30] friend: a little. I used to spend all my summers in St Jean de Luz, which is quite close to Bayonne and Biarritz, so I remember those Basque festivals very well.
[02:31] Me: oh, cool
[02:31] Me: yeah...
[02:32] Me: by the time I got there it was mostly drunken revelry, with a few concerts scattered around
[02:33] Me: sort of wanted to find a group to hang out with, then join and crash with, but couldn't find people who seemed like I would mesh with very well
[02:33] Me: so I wandered around for 4 hours or so
[02:33] Me: all the hotels were full, of course
[02:34] friend: so what did you do?
[02:34] Me: eventually, around 2am, I saw a place that I'd missed the first time around, a bar/cafe being run by people from a little fair trade shop
[02:35] Me: and thought, these are probably people who would accept me
[02:35] Me: so, after a little dithering, I went up and ordered a glass of wine
[02:36] Me: and then stayed at the bar and eventually started talking to one of the people who was there, a very attractive woman who had studied some English, although we mostly spoke French, but I think she was married and had kids...
[02:36] Me: anyway, we started talking, then she introduced me to some of the other people there, and we all hung out until they had to shut down at 3
[02:37] Me: then I helped them pack up and said good night and as I was walking away one guy came up and asked if I had someplace to stay
[02:37] Me: and I said no, so he invited me over to his place
[02:37] friend: lucky
[02:37] friend: fantastic
[02:37] Me: yeah
[02:38] Me: I knew I'd found the right people once I saw them
[02:38] Me: anyway, we went back to his place, with his roommate and a few other people, and then we woke up a friend and we all stayed up drinking and talking until 5
[02:39] Me: then people left and I went to sleep
[02:40] friend: you're so lucky, that's the perfect travel experience
[02:40] Me: my host had to wake up at 9:30 the next morning to clean up the house, so I did too, but that was ok
[02:40] Me: it really was
[02:40] friend: so how long did you stay in Bayonne for?
[02:40] Me: I spent the next day splitting my time between volunteering at the cafe and going out to see performances and stuff
[02:40] Me: and then I left on the night train for Paris
[02:41] Me: so the next morning I showed up on the doorstep of my friend who I'd stayed with 2 years ago, after Edinburgh
[02:42] Me: she was expecting me, sort of
[02:42] Me: but she hadn't checked her text messages for a few days, and so hadn't realized that I'd be arriving around 9 on Saturday morning
[02:43] Me: it worked out fine though
[02:43] friend: oh I remember you talking about her - the american who marreid a french guy, right?
[02:43] Me: um...
[02:43] Me: no...
[02:43] Me: who would that be?...
[02:43] Me: this was a couchsurfer
[02:44] Me: that sounds familiar, but I can't think who that would be...
[02:44] friend: oh okay - I thought you had a friend who met a french guy at unviersity and then moved to paris and studied theatre there
[02:45] Me: oh, right
[02:45] Me: Natalie
[02:45] Me: she's in DC now
[02:45] friend: ah okay
[02:45] Me: but they'll probably be moving to Maine in the next year or so
[02:45] friend: who was the girl who showed 강연 round Paris?
[02:45] Me: that was Natalie
[02:46] Me: Laure, who I stayed with on Saturday, I met through couchsurfing after it turned out that I could only stay with Natalie for a couple days
[02:47] friend: ah okay
[02:47] friend: did you have a good time in Paris?
[02:47] Me: and then I introduced her to Paula, from C venues, last year, when Paula was doing a class in Paris
[02:47] Me: yeah...
[02:47] Me: mostly just relaxed
[02:47] Me: Saturday afternoon we went to a nearby town which had lots of horses...
[02:47] Me: but mostly just relaxed
[02:48] Me: and caught up on e-mail and stuff
[02:48] Me: and called Anne and Jean-Christophe
[02:49] Me: because originally Laure had thought she could host me until I left, but she was leaving on holiday (to Hungary and Serbia) on the 2nd, and I wasn't leaving until the 3rd
[02:49] Me: so on Sunday I went to the Marais, she went to the airport
[02:50] Me: I spent most of my afternoon looking through the Musee Carnavalet
[02:50] Me: then realized I was running late, grabbed a quick lunch, and got to Notre Dame for the organ concert they have every week at 4:30
[02:51] Me: it was played by one of the professors from Indiana University, so I'd gotten to know her some there back in June
[02:53] friend: oh wow - what a coincidence, did you know she was going to be there?
[02:53] Me: after that I went out with Jeanette (the organist) and her husband (also an organist) and some of their friends
[02:53] Me: yes
[02:54] friend: col - it sounds like you had the perfect trip
[02:54] friend: I'm so jealous
[02:54] Me: and a couple other people she knew all went out for a beer
[02:55] Me: then I went to Anne and Jean-Christophe's
[02:55] Me: yeah
[02:55] Me: it was a pretty awesome trip
[02:55] Me: pushed my immune system a little hard, but it was worth it
[02:04] friend: I want to hear all about your trip in France
[02:04] Me: yeah, stayed with them Sunday night
[02:04] friend: that must have been so nice!
[02:04] Me: it was
[02:05] friend: 정의 was so jealous when I saw him yesterday
[02:05] Me: :-/ I got over there around 8, we had a nice dinner, talked about our tour, Avignon, technical difficulties, the students they've had stay at their place
[02:05] Me: it was really nice
[02:06] Me: should write them a thank-you note...
[02:06] friend: they are the nicest people!
[02:07] Me: yeah
[02:07] Me: the trip was nice too
[02:08] Me: after spending the day in Paris after dropping everyone else off, I took the night train to Biarriz
[02:08] Me: spent the morning wandering around there, then took a bus to Bilbao
[02:08] friend: oh nice! did you go to the Guggenheim?
[02:08] Me: yes
[02:08] Me: it was cool
[02:09] Me: some interesting exhibits...
[02:09] friend: the building is the best bit though
[02:09] friend: I thought
[02:09] Me: yeah, it is pretty cool
[02:10] Me: I liked the room with all the Serra pieces, but hate that they're simplified to "visual art"
[02:10] Me: they create such interesting spaces that it's a shame you can't do any more than look at them
[02:11] Me: and you can get lots of different resonant frequencies out of the spaces, it was fun humming there
[02:12] Me: then on the second floor was an exhibition by a Chinese artist who does most of his work with gunpowder, either using it in controlled explosions to make drawings, or using it to blow stuff up in interesting ways...
[02:12] Me: he designed the fireworks for the opening ceremonies in Beijing...
[02:13] Me: and on the one hand, it's kind of cool, and on the other he's getting paid large amounts of money to blow stuff up...
[02:13] Me: I would gladly do that
[02:13] friend: hehe
[02:13] friend: I can imagine
[02:13] friend: did you stay overnight in Bilbao?
[02:14] Me: well, I couchsurfed with someone who lived in a village about 30 km SW of Bilbao
[02:15] Me: I stayed with her Monday night, we went into Bilbao on Tuesday and walked around the old city, ate lunch by going to 4 or 5 different bars and having pinxos (which are small things of food, usually an extremely tasty assortment of things on top of a small slice of bread)
[02:16] Me: then she went home, I went to the Guggenheim, and then caught a bus down to Vitoria-Gasteiz, where I couchsurfed with someone else
[02:17] Me: she was originally German, but met her husband, who is Spanish, in Mexico, where they did theater together for a while
[02:17] Me: he's a clown
[02:17] friend: wow - they sound really interesting. What's that city like? I've never been there
[02:18] Me: that was a really nice visit
[02:18] Me: we went to the city on Wednesday, and it's a bit more Spanish feeling...
[02:18] Me: drier, looks more like what I imagined Spain to look like...
[02:19] Me: very nice old city, and it has the most green space per person of anywhere in Spain
[02:19] friend: is it on the coast?
[02:19] Me: the new city is planned, and nice, but really it's pretty bland
[02:19] Me: no, it's south, towards the center of Spain
[02:20] Me: not at all central, just more in that direction
[02:20] Me: other side of the mountains that ring Bilbao
[02:20] Me: the old city was pretty cool
[02:20] Me: and we did a tour of the cathedral, which was very interesting
[02:21] Me: it was redesigned and added on to by successive kings, with the result that it was structurally unsound
[02:21] Me: so, around ten years ago they started a serious restoration to make it useable
[02:21] friend: sounds really interesting! are you going to post photos on your blog?
[02:21] friend: do you still write your blog?
[02:21] Me: and have turned the restoration into a tourist thing
[02:21] Me: sort of
[02:22] Me: I will post photos, I do intend to write this up as a blog post
[02:22] friend: great - the old city must have been wonderful, I was disappointed by Bilbao, other than the Guggenheim, os it must have been great to see seomthing more authentic
[02:23] friend: what did you do after that?
[02:23] Me: let's see...
[02:23] Me: that evening I went back to Bilbao, and stayed with person I was with on Monday
[02:23] Me: then Thursday I spent the afternoon in San Sebastian
[02:24] Me: it was a perfect day, and so it was particularly beautiful
[02:24] Me: except for the (well-deserved) over-abundance of college-age tourists
[02:25] friend: Oh I've been to San Sebastian too - I liked it
[02:25] Me: yeah, it was really nice, especially after I found somewhere to leave my bags
[02:25] Me: and delicious pinxos
[02:26] Me: that evening I headed up towards Bayonne, in France
[02:26] Me: arrived around 9:30 or 10
[02:27] Me: I hadn't made any plans there, although I was planning to meet up with a group of couchsurfers from Madrid who were supposed to be going up that night
[02:27] Me: so I spent the first hour or so trying to find somewhere with wifi
[02:28] Me: eventually I gave up and just opened my computer, and amazingly found an open, good signal
[02:28] Me: but the group had pushed back their arrival to the next day
[02:28] Me: I tried to find some other CSers in the area, but they were all coming the next day too
[02:29] Me: (there was a big Basque festival, an annual thing, in Bayonne from the 29th to the 2nd)
[02:29] Me: so that was interesting...
[02:30] Me: did I tell you about that before?
[02:30] friend: a little. I used to spend all my summers in St Jean de Luz, which is quite close to Bayonne and Biarritz, so I remember those Basque festivals very well.
[02:31] Me: oh, cool
[02:31] Me: yeah...
[02:32] Me: by the time I got there it was mostly drunken revelry, with a few concerts scattered around
[02:33] Me: sort of wanted to find a group to hang out with, then join and crash with, but couldn't find people who seemed like I would mesh with very well
[02:33] Me: so I wandered around for 4 hours or so
[02:33] Me: all the hotels were full, of course
[02:34] friend: so what did you do?
[02:34] Me: eventually, around 2am, I saw a place that I'd missed the first time around, a bar/cafe being run by people from a little fair trade shop
[02:35] Me: and thought, these are probably people who would accept me
[02:35] Me: so, after a little dithering, I went up and ordered a glass of wine
[02:36] Me: and then stayed at the bar and eventually started talking to one of the people who was there, a very attractive woman who had studied some English, although we mostly spoke French, but I think she was married and had kids...
[02:36] Me: anyway, we started talking, then she introduced me to some of the other people there, and we all hung out until they had to shut down at 3
[02:37] Me: then I helped them pack up and said good night and as I was walking away one guy came up and asked if I had someplace to stay
[02:37] Me: and I said no, so he invited me over to his place
[02:37] friend:
lucky [02:37] friend: fantastic
[02:37] Me: yeah
[02:38] Me: I knew I'd found the right people once I saw them
[02:38] Me: anyway, we went back to his place, with his roommate and a few other people, and then we woke up a friend and we all stayed up drinking and talking until 5
[02:39] Me: then people left and I went to sleep
[02:40] friend: you're so lucky, that's the perfect travel experience
[02:40] Me: my host had to wake up at 9:30 the next morning to clean up the house, so I did too, but that was ok
[02:40] Me: it really was
[02:40] friend: so how long did you stay in Bayonne for?
[02:40] Me: I spent the next day splitting my time between volunteering at the cafe and going out to see performances and stuff
[02:40] Me: and then I left on the night train for Paris
[02:41] Me: so the next morning I showed up on the doorstep of my friend who I'd stayed with 2 years ago, after Edinburgh
[02:42] Me: she was expecting me, sort of
[02:42] Me: but she hadn't checked her text messages for a few days, and so hadn't realized that I'd be arriving around 9 on Saturday morning
[02:43] Me: it worked out fine though
[02:43] friend: oh I remember you talking about her - the american who marreid a french guy, right?
[02:43] Me: um...
[02:43] Me: no...
[02:43] Me: who would that be?...
[02:43] Me: this was a couchsurfer
[02:44] Me: that sounds familiar, but I can't think who that would be...
[02:44] friend: oh okay - I thought you had a friend who met a french guy at unviersity and then moved to paris and studied theatre there
[02:45] Me: oh, right
[02:45] Me: Natalie
[02:45] Me: she's in DC now
[02:45] friend: ah okay
[02:45] Me: but they'll probably be moving to Maine in the next year or so
[02:45] friend: who was the girl who showed 강연 round Paris?
[02:45] Me: that was Natalie
[02:46] Me: Laure, who I stayed with on Saturday, I met through couchsurfing after it turned out that I could only stay with Natalie for a couple days
[02:47] friend: ah okay
[02:47] friend: did you have a good time in Paris?
[02:47] Me: and then I introduced her to Paula, from C venues, last year, when Paula was doing a class in Paris
[02:47] Me: yeah...
[02:47] Me: mostly just relaxed
[02:47] Me: Saturday afternoon we went to a nearby town which had lots of horses...
[02:47] Me: but mostly just relaxed
[02:48] Me: and caught up on e-mail and stuff
[02:48] Me: and called Anne and Jean-Christophe
[02:49] Me: because originally Laure had thought she could host me until I left, but she was leaving on holiday (to Hungary and Serbia) on the 2nd, and I wasn't leaving until the 3rd
[02:49] Me: so on Sunday I went to the Marais, she went to the airport
[02:50] Me: I spent most of my afternoon looking through the Musee Carnavalet
[02:50] Me: then realized I was running late, grabbed a quick lunch, and got to Notre Dame for the organ concert they have every week at 4:30
[02:51] Me: it was played by one of the professors from Indiana University, so I'd gotten to know her some there back in June
[02:53] friend: oh wow - what a coincidence, did you know she was going to be there?
[02:53] Me: after that I went out with Jeanette (the organist) and her husband (also an organist) and some of their friends
[02:53] Me: yes
[02:54] friend: col - it sounds like you had the perfect trip
[02:54] friend: I'm so jealous
[02:54] Me: and a couple other people she knew all went out for a beer
[02:55] Me: then I went to Anne and Jean-Christophe's
[02:55] Me: yeah
[02:55] Me: it was a pretty awesome trip
[02:55] Me: pushed my immune system a little hard, but it was worth it
posted by Colin at 1:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home