We arrived by bus in Bilbao around 12:00pm super excited to see the Guggenheim and to wander around the city. We had booked our hostel, and we thought we had all our ducks in a row... 3 hours later (after we had taken a lovely tour of the highways on the outskirts of Bilbao on foot) we finally found where we were supposed to be. 15 minutes after that we realized that there was a metro stop at the bus station that had a line that ran directly to our hostel. This would've cut our travel time down to around 10 minutes, but at least we got a good little stroll in.
Fortunately the hostel was as nice as it looked online and the receptionist was absolutely the most friendly woman I have encountered in the hospitality field, so it made up for the misunderstanding at the bus station that walking through the old city to get there was "un buen idea." After checking in, we decided to rest for a little while before heading to the Guggenheim for some more walking around and standing up.
I was absolutely floored by the architecture of the Guggenheim! It's impressive in pictures, but in real life it is astounding. I have to be honest, I wasn't super impressed with the temporary collections. I am not progressive enough nor have I studied enough to appreciate modern art, but I was very impressed by the permanent exhibit by Richard Serra. It's called The Matter of Time, and it is rather big. It's hard to describe the feeling that the gigantic metal structures give a viewer, but when I was walking through them I felt like I could feel the gravitational pull of them on me. Their shapes influenced the way I moved and how I held myself while I meandered around and through them. I think it is fair to say that it was everyone's favorite part about el museo.
After we had had enough of art for the evening, we decided to wander through Casco Viejo to find some dinner. As for that experience--at least the food was good.
Included with our stay in BBK Bilbao Good Hostel was a ticket to a discoteca called Fever. We decided why not, and the 8 of us meandered around in a relatively sketchy set of warehouses in the general direction that the man at the front desk had pointed us in. We found it and were relatively impressed by the interior. As we were attempting to "travel light" none of us had the right type of clothes for this venture, but we made the most of it and had a blast dancing inside the cushiony airspace that surrounded and separated us underdressed Americans from the rest of the dancing crowd. We danced until 2am and just when the party was really getting started decided that we should leave since we had to catch an 8:40 bus to San Sebastían the next morning. We slept hard and woke up bright and early to hit the metro and arrived just in time to board the bus.
After a not long enough nap on the bus we arrived in San Sebastían ready for some beach-napping (don't worry mom--I put on sunscreen!). Once we had rested a little more we headed into the Casco Antiguo to find lunch. San Sebastián was overall a much more enjoyable experience than Bilbao because we were just a little more prepared...
After lunch some of us climbed the mountain to Jesus (large satue of the Sacred Heart) and others returned to the beach for nap time round two. Can't say I blame them, but climbing was super fun and a cool experience that I'm glad I didn't forego. We reunited with the whole group for dinner and then decided to walk the streets a bit more before our late bus back to Pamplona.
What an interesting weekend it was! But we learned a lot and are already planning next weekend's excursion to Zaragoza. This time we have a little experience and I think that will help a whole awful lot. ¡Hasta luego!
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