País Vasco!

This past weekend Holly and I went to the Basque region (país vasco) of españa. We spent one night in Bilbao and the other two in San Sebastian. Bilbao was a great city, so modern! Tapas there are called pinxho's and they are little pieces of bread with toppings (essentially). Many have a mixture of sea food, meats, cheeses, vegetables and sauces on top and they are great ways to snack or you can make a meal out of it! In Bilbao we went to the Guggenheim which was the coolest museum I've ever been to. They had really interesting artists from all around Europe. My favorite was Francisco Torres, from Barcelona. His exhibit featured 6 slides of what he considered to be the most influential/groundbreaking political moments in the 20th century. On top of this, there was a small TV in the corner of the room with a live stream of today's news (CNN Live). The other corner featured a chimpanzee sitting on a chair turning at a 120 degree angle observing everything that was going on within the room. The beauty of art is how it is interpreted differently by everyone, but what I gathered from it was how the chimpanzee (the most pure and original form of mankind) looks over how far humanity has come. Also, Torres tries to demonstrate how much these 6 groundbreaking moments have influenced our world today. The viewer can see this as you simultaneously are absorbing history and watching CNN. This really blew me away, I had never seen anything like it. The Guggenheim was definitely the highlight of my trip to Bilbao.

In San Sebastian, Holly and I covered a lot of ground. First we went to the famous Aquarium which was beautiful! A lot of the Aquarium was dedicated to the history of the fishing port that was once the biggest in all of northern Spain. They had a great aquarium, lots of sharks and local fish/sea critters that could be found in the nearby ocean. Later that day we hiked up to "Jesus" as the locals call it, to see a panoramic view of the city. Breathtaking view, definitely worth the hike! We spent the rest of our time eating pinxhos and walking around, I can see why so many people fall in love with this city. Today we walked to the other side of the city to see the caves/modern sculptures built into the rocks along the water. Took a lot of cool pictures, even though it was freezing!

This was Holly and I's last trip together..hard to believe how fast time has flown by!