Reykjavik

*sigh*

Bilboa

Laguardia

Logroño

Barcelona

Bilbao, Birthdays, and Last Meals

So after my 24 hours + of birthday, celebrated with a considerable amount of beer, cider, and other things liquid and intoxicating, we took the morning bus to Bilboa, a city that reminded me in so many ways of Seattle, if Seattle was 1000 years old or so. Both are rainy, grey, surrounded by mountians, formerly industrial and reinvented as centers of cuisine and cutting edge culture. Both have a collection of strange architecture, an old town dominated by punk shops, head shops, hippy shops, and fliers plastered damn near everywhere. Both have thier own independence movements.

I loved it.

and the pintxos!!!! the food people! grrrrraaawwwrrrrrrrrrr......

Sorry, bit of a foodgasm there...

This morning I went out with Iñaki and bought a steak the size of my head, along with good cider and other ingrediants for my last home-cooked meal in Spain. Seriously you should see this thing. bigger than my head...I'll take pictures.

I've loved Spain, for the most part. It took some getting used to though. A few things that stuck with me, in no particular order:

In the US, walking down a dark narrow alley is a good way to get mugged. In Spain, its where you find all the best food.

WTF is up with the Spanish mullets!?!!?! Especially the ones that consist of a couple of waistlong nappy dreads?!?!?! I mean ¿Pór fucking qué?

As soon as you leave the coast, finding someone who speaks English is friggin' golden.

In Iceland, the vast majority of the graffiti is some spoiled teenager tagging to feel like their pathetic lives mean something. In Spain, the graffiti really does mean something, a kind of social code crying out for revolution or evolution or just joyous absurdity. Icelandic yuppy spawn needs to learn!

Any place where you can buy a litre of cold beer at a candy store is alright in my book!

El Gringo Tinto

I'm going to move to Spain. The village of Laguardia in fact. An old walled stone village, commanding a high hill overlooking rolling vineyards and rugged mountains, with a lazy river snaking through the valley below.

I'll work part time through the crisp fall days as an English teacher, spending my afternoons drinking local wine in a cozy tavern, eating my pintxos for lunch with a well-worn book in hand. I'll go for walks through the fields, puffing away on a pipe, walking stick in hand and a shaggy dog running ahead of me. Spend my nights in a small stone house within the village walls, cooking for freinds and the buxom peasant girl who adores me.

She'll have long black hair and dark brown eyes, and a smile like an angel.

I'll become an expert on local mushrooms and wines, spend my summers picking grapes or leading tours around the wineries. I'll hunt wild boar in the mountains, fish in the river, spend my holidays in a little stone cottage miles from anywhere.

I'll let my beard grow long and start wearing white shirts and a black beret, learn a smattering of Basque, make my own cider in the fall.

I'll drink so much wine the locals will shake thier heads and call me "El Gringo Tinto".

Yep. That's the plan...