The past week has been incredible for many many reasons but mainly because I was able to re-connect with an old friend. After Madrid I took a train to visit Ana, my friend from high school who lives in Alicante. Alicante is a beautiful beach town on the Mediterranean and Ana has been living there for a few years now. She owns her own Internet startup (guiomatic.com) and lives a great life in Spain with her dog Browni. Ana and I hadn't seen each other in over 15 yrs but kept in touch through Facebook. We were in Alicante for the weekend before we headed off to Barcelona on Monday for a big meeting she had with a client who was interested in her business. While in Alicante we saw the beautiful and historic Castillo de Santa Barbara, lounged on the beach, and got to know some of her friends.
On Monday Ana, her business partner Jose Luis, and I drove 7 hours to Barcelona. It was a beautiful drive (for me at least since I just lounged in the back) and I was very impressed with how efficient Spanish highways were. My first reaction entering the bustling city of Barcelona was 'I have never seen so many motorcycles and/or scooters in one place at one time.' They are everywhere. The other thing was the language. Catalan is very different from spanish and is surprisingly very different from Spanish. One thing that did NOT surprise me was the heat. Just like Madrid, Barcelona was scorching hot...in the 90s easily. Further into the city I immediately started seeing recognizable buildings and monuments.
We were only going to be in Barcelona for a short time but there was one site I wanted to at least see from the outside. One that has been under construction since the late 1800's and that's Sagrada Familia (google it for more info...or at least some fascinating pics).
We went to the fantastic Picasso museum and it quickly became one of the most interesting museums I've been to. The way he transformed his style throughout the years into what it's mainly known for is fascinating and the way he worked with famous painters such as Van Gogh shows what an influential period the early 1900's was for art. Looking forward to seeing the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam in a few weeks.
Amongst other things we did in Barcelona was go to a futbol match to see Barcelona play A/C Milan. It ended up in a tie and it was a great atmosphere. I did lose my credit card our last night and I'm still not sure if I dropped it somewhere or if I got pick-pocketed. Barcelona is infamous for pick-pocketings. No biggie though, I cancelled it and a new one is on its way.
After Barcelona we took a high speed train to San Sebastian in the Basque part of Spain. Yes of course, on the days we would be there it would still be unusually blazing hot. The North of Spain is known to be the wealthier part of Spain and it showed right away. Manicured streets, BMW's and Mercedez galore, and high- end shopping ruled the streets. I have to say to date San Sebastian is my favorite town thus far. It probably has to do with the fact that we got some pretty good surf there. I rented a 6'4" epoxy and Ana got a bodyboard. We were out in the water for a good while and in typical tourist fashion we were the only ones without 'neoprenes' (that's wetsuit in Spanish) even though the water was over 70 degrees! Felt great to me. We befriended the locals next to our hostel, had some beers with them, they beat us at foosball, we beat them at darts and just like that we were on a bus to Bilbao the next day to see my favorite group 'Mana' in concert. Bilbao, also in the north part of Spain is just as posh as San Sebastian. Our highlights there were the Guggenheim museum which sounds cooler than it actually was, a tapas tour around the city which included sushi (oh btw every meal in Spain is served with bread...even sushi), and finally...FINALLY we got some cool weather and a little bit of rain!
But the reason we were ther was the concert. It was all I expected and more. Mana (a Mexican band) has always been very patriotic and they did a very good job tributing Bilbao. The music was great, the venue was perfect, and it was cool seeing them in another country since I had only seen them in SD and LA. Ana and I said our goodbyes at the airport and she went back to Alicante and I now go south to Sevilla. This past week would never be as exciting, adventurous, eye-opening, and fun had it not been for Ana. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. Nos vemos pronto!
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