After 26 hours door to door from San Sebastian Spain to LA, a three hour nap and then a drive to Palm Springs, we finally were able to pick up our car and head north to Seattle. We made a stop in the Bay Area to see our daughter Megan, husband Matt and Athena and Ricky. They are all doing great with Megan back to work, Matt teaching a Latin course for HS seniors at Cal this summer, Athena and Ricky both with birthdays in June. They are amazing children and a credit to their parents who could write a book on proper parenting. After a shopping spree in which Athena got to purchase her own birthday gifts with her self proclaimed budget of $14.99. She was actually pretty close until we let her do some deficit spending:) It was wonderful to see them all and we are planning a summer visit for a week or so. Our trip back to Seattle took about 13 hours with Deanne and I driving in 2 hour shifts.
We had our last In & Out burger in Redding Ca. knowing that healthy diets begin the following day. We arrived at 10 pm on a surreal, misty, rainy Seattle night ( we have a lot of these) Our great tenants had left our home in pristine condition for which we are grateful. We unloaded the car, and just let the sounds of Seattle sink in, the late night boaters, the water lapping against the logs, the creaking of the struts on the dock and the wind coming from the Southwest bringing with it the familiar rains we are famous for here in the Emerald City. The foghorns, the sightseeing vessels making their last trip back to harbor, the Mariners flag flying on the home across the channel and finally the sight of the Space Needle along with the city lights illuminating a the lake and Queen Anne hill across the way. What a sight, with the clean fresh air and the familiarity of being home and a sense of completion we look forward to having Caitie home tonight, Mike and Dana, Matt and Jonny home on Sunday for a long awaited reunion. We woke up to the sound of the UW crew team practicing as they do each morning, making a pot of Peet's coffee and planning the day which will include taking all of our stuff out of the storage closet and resuming our normal daily activities. We will be on the road again in a number of months but for now we will enjoy the summer with friends and family re-telling the many adventures we were so fortunate to experience. Stay tuned!!
Ciao for Now
Mike
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Inside the Guggenheim
Apparently there are no city buses to get us to the museum, so after our breakfast (more on that in a minute) we trekked down to the waterfront (about a mile each way) to the Guggenheim. Inside it is a three story building. You stand in line to pay your admission on a set of steps going downhill. Once inside we had the pleasant surprise of reduced admission. Instead of the normal 12.50 Euros (think $20) they had reduced the admission to 7.50 Euros because one of the exhibits was closed and we could not visit the middle floor. It felt like our cruise where we got rebates for missed stops.
Included in the admission was a personal sound device that played recordings when you programed the number of the art piece you were standing in front of. We were particularly fascinated with the architecture of the building and spent about half our visit time listening to how the building was conceived and built. The art itself was modern, some of which was great and other parts were strange. It was the only art museum we visited in ten months on the road (heathens that we are) so now we can say we visited at least one of the famous art museums of Europe.
Breakfast was included in our 60 Euro hotel room. For those you you who have been to Europe recently will know, 60 Euros is a cheap rate for a hotel, particularly on a holiday weekend in a tourist city like Bilbao. Expectations for breakfast were low, and largely met. Croissants seem to be the staple breakfast food of Spain and Italy, along with a cup of very strong coffee. In Italy the croissants are called cornettos and they are breadier in the center than the flaky ones you associate with France. In Spain they are flaky on the inside, but they coat the outside with a sugar glaze so it is a cross between a croissant and a glazed donut. Because the glaze is sticky the Spanish eat them with a knife and fork on a plate or napkin. Typically the included breakfasts have breads, yogurt (I love the natural unsweetened yogurt they serve here) and jam. At the better places you also get cheeses and ham, but not here. That's okay as we are getting kind of burned out on that stuff anyway.
Based on our last trip to Spain we expected to encounter waiters, hotel clerks and salesclerks that spoke English, but it is not necessarily so in the central parts of Spain. In the Catalonia province where Barcelona resides the people speak Catalan and Spanish, with only a portion of the people we met speaking English. Here in Bilbao the people speak Basque and Spanish, with English a distant third language. Although most are not overly friendly, the people are not rude and seem to try to understand us. As an example, we were trying to decipher our map on the walk back from the hotel and an English speaking Spaniard with his family stopped to provide directions.
Our hotel has free internet (remember when I said the cheap hotels are the most likely place to get internet?) so we are both taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up on our e-mail and blog. We leave tomorrow, so if anyone has anything to communicate do it today while we have communication.
No word from Caitie yet on Sylvania, but when we hear how the visit went we will pass it along so you can all consider your future trips to this destination hot spot.
Ciao,
Deanne
Included in the admission was a personal sound device that played recordings when you programed the number of the art piece you were standing in front of. We were particularly fascinated with the architecture of the building and spent about half our visit time listening to how the building was conceived and built. The art itself was modern, some of which was great and other parts were strange. It was the only art museum we visited in ten months on the road (heathens that we are) so now we can say we visited at least one of the famous art museums of Europe.
Breakfast was included in our 60 Euro hotel room. For those you you who have been to Europe recently will know, 60 Euros is a cheap rate for a hotel, particularly on a holiday weekend in a tourist city like Bilbao. Expectations for breakfast were low, and largely met. Croissants seem to be the staple breakfast food of Spain and Italy, along with a cup of very strong coffee. In Italy the croissants are called cornettos and they are breadier in the center than the flaky ones you associate with France. In Spain they are flaky on the inside, but they coat the outside with a sugar glaze so it is a cross between a croissant and a glazed donut. Because the glaze is sticky the Spanish eat them with a knife and fork on a plate or napkin. Typically the included breakfasts have breads, yogurt (I love the natural unsweetened yogurt they serve here) and jam. At the better places you also get cheeses and ham, but not here. That's okay as we are getting kind of burned out on that stuff anyway.
Based on our last trip to Spain we expected to encounter waiters, hotel clerks and salesclerks that spoke English, but it is not necessarily so in the central parts of Spain. In the Catalonia province where Barcelona resides the people speak Catalan and Spanish, with only a portion of the people we met speaking English. Here in Bilbao the people speak Basque and Spanish, with English a distant third language. Although most are not overly friendly, the people are not rude and seem to try to understand us. As an example, we were trying to decipher our map on the walk back from the hotel and an English speaking Spaniard with his family stopped to provide directions.
Our hotel has free internet (remember when I said the cheap hotels are the most likely place to get internet?) so we are both taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up on our e-mail and blog. We leave tomorrow, so if anyone has anything to communicate do it today while we have communication.
No word from Caitie yet on Sylvania, but when we hear how the visit went we will pass it along so you can all consider your future trips to this destination hot spot.
Ciao,
Deanne
Friday, May 2, 2008
Bilbao- another wacky Gehry building
Seattle has the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum about two miles from our home. It sits at the bottom of the tall Space Needle, the top of which is easily seen from our deck. The EMP building is hard to explain- it is a wild, multicolored curved building that looks like someone smashed a giant guitar on the pavement. Built less than ten years ago, it is a landmark in Seattle. The EMP architect, Frank Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum here in Bilbao, Spain at about the same time as he worked on our music museum. This museum is larger and sits along the edge of the water in what was apparently old port industrial. It is really a gorgeous site today. Tomorrow we will tour the insides and see about all of the fancy art work it houses.
Last night's dinner in Tudela was in a very nice restaurant. We ate Spanish style, with a shared ensalata mixta (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, white asparagus and canned tuna with olive oil and wine vinegar on top), a shared plate of green beans and ham bits, a shared appetizer of grilled shrimp complete with heads, etc. then individual mains of steak. Combined with bottled water (after all, the locals think drinking tap water is akin to drinking from the toilet), wine and coffee this meal set us back about the same price as a night in our hotel. What a splurge for the cheapo Handrons. It was very nice. Our hotel desk clerk made the reservations, obviously assuming that Americans can afford a dinner of that price range. Dinner was served at 10:00 PM, and we were back to our room at the early hour of midnight (yes, Leanne, you heard correctly).
We were up at the Spanish wake up hour of 9:00 when all of our hotel neighbors started their showering and shouting, and by 10:00 we were on the road again. Our intention was to find a hotel in a small town in the wine country. Never happened. The towns were either too small to sport a hotel or too big to feel like a small town. Eventually we gave up the search and headed to Bilbao, our intended hotel for the following night and decided to spend two nights here. We had no idea that this was a bank holiday, with four days off for all good people of Spain, so hotel reservations are not easy to come by. After parking near the aforementioned Guggenheim museum and walking around to nearby hotels and the information office, we eventually hit the phones where we started dialing for hotels, starting with the most expensive and working our way down the list to the two star hotel where we now have the last room available. As we made our way here through the maze of one way streets our opinion of beautiful Bilbao changed a bit. We got to see its seamier side. Not that it is horrible here or anything. We have the "Fantasy sex shop" directly across the street, so it is an entertaining neighborhood.
It took us half an hour to find the hotel after missing a few of the tiny turns that would have made it the reportedly ten minute drive from the museum. We parked in front and checked in. Our friendly English speaking desk clerk advised us to bring the bags in here because it is easier than carrying them to the parking lot in the car and trekking them back. That should have been a clue that the parking lot was not an easy walk. Nor was taking the bags up three flights of stars. Thankfully we have been traveling light (leaving the heavy bags we are carrying for Caitie in the car). After stowing the bags in our room (two twin beds, pergo floor, Ozzie and Harriet bedspreads, etc.) we caught our breath and went downstairs for instructions on stowing the car. He pulled out a two page instruction sheet and map to tell us how to unlock the garage door, and how to illegally back up on our one way street to the previous corner in order to get to the street behind the hotel where the parking was. He failed to tell us that the parking lot entrance wasn't directly on the street behind, but required another turn and lots more illegal backing to get our car to the entrance. Then, a few tight, tight turns inside the lot and three floors down and we were parked in our prescribed spot. It sure is nice we aren't driving a car of our own.
We ate a picnic dinner in our room tonight with supplies from the deli and bakery on the corner near the sex shop. It beats another expensive late night. Tomorrow we have the entire day to visit the museum and the city, as we don't leave for San Sebastian until Sunday. Thankfully we have reservations there, so we have no trouble locating a room on this holiday weekend, although who knows how hard it may be to find.
Our discount room is only 65 Euros, so we are saving money. I will let you know tomorrow whether we listen to cat fights all night.
Peace,
Deanne
Last night's dinner in Tudela was in a very nice restaurant. We ate Spanish style, with a shared ensalata mixta (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, white asparagus and canned tuna with olive oil and wine vinegar on top), a shared plate of green beans and ham bits, a shared appetizer of grilled shrimp complete with heads, etc. then individual mains of steak. Combined with bottled water (after all, the locals think drinking tap water is akin to drinking from the toilet), wine and coffee this meal set us back about the same price as a night in our hotel. What a splurge for the cheapo Handrons. It was very nice. Our hotel desk clerk made the reservations, obviously assuming that Americans can afford a dinner of that price range. Dinner was served at 10:00 PM, and we were back to our room at the early hour of midnight (yes, Leanne, you heard correctly).
We were up at the Spanish wake up hour of 9:00 when all of our hotel neighbors started their showering and shouting, and by 10:00 we were on the road again. Our intention was to find a hotel in a small town in the wine country. Never happened. The towns were either too small to sport a hotel or too big to feel like a small town. Eventually we gave up the search and headed to Bilbao, our intended hotel for the following night and decided to spend two nights here. We had no idea that this was a bank holiday, with four days off for all good people of Spain, so hotel reservations are not easy to come by. After parking near the aforementioned Guggenheim museum and walking around to nearby hotels and the information office, we eventually hit the phones where we started dialing for hotels, starting with the most expensive and working our way down the list to the two star hotel where we now have the last room available. As we made our way here through the maze of one way streets our opinion of beautiful Bilbao changed a bit. We got to see its seamier side. Not that it is horrible here or anything. We have the "Fantasy sex shop" directly across the street, so it is an entertaining neighborhood.
It took us half an hour to find the hotel after missing a few of the tiny turns that would have made it the reportedly ten minute drive from the museum. We parked in front and checked in. Our friendly English speaking desk clerk advised us to bring the bags in here because it is easier than carrying them to the parking lot in the car and trekking them back. That should have been a clue that the parking lot was not an easy walk. Nor was taking the bags up three flights of stars. Thankfully we have been traveling light (leaving the heavy bags we are carrying for Caitie in the car). After stowing the bags in our room (two twin beds, pergo floor, Ozzie and Harriet bedspreads, etc.) we caught our breath and went downstairs for instructions on stowing the car. He pulled out a two page instruction sheet and map to tell us how to unlock the garage door, and how to illegally back up on our one way street to the previous corner in order to get to the street behind the hotel where the parking was. He failed to tell us that the parking lot entrance wasn't directly on the street behind, but required another turn and lots more illegal backing to get our car to the entrance. Then, a few tight, tight turns inside the lot and three floors down and we were parked in our prescribed spot. It sure is nice we aren't driving a car of our own.
We ate a picnic dinner in our room tonight with supplies from the deli and bakery on the corner near the sex shop. It beats another expensive late night. Tomorrow we have the entire day to visit the museum and the city, as we don't leave for San Sebastian until Sunday. Thankfully we have reservations there, so we have no trouble locating a room on this holiday weekend, although who knows how hard it may be to find.
Our discount room is only 65 Euros, so we are saving money. I will let you know tomorrow whether we listen to cat fights all night.
Peace,
Deanne
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Spain again after nine months
IT has been 19 years since I last delivered a child but one of the things I remember is that when you get to the nine month deadline you are READY for it to be over. We are at almost ten months of time away from home, and although we are still having a great time there are signs of being READY to go home.
Sign #1: We got to the Barcelona airport after traveling by train from Florence to Rome at 7:52 am then taking a 12:40 bumpy flight. We picked up our car, a diesel Opel station wagon that we have unaffectionately named the Russian wagon. We were on the highway thinking that we were being tailed by a hovering aircraft before we figured out that the loud noise canceling out the full blast radio was our engine. What a tank this vehicle is! It is stick shift with the weird arrangement of six gears with the move from five to six always grinding badly. The navigator and the pilot of the Russian tank had a few tense moments finding our way to a road out of town, but eventually we were on the road. In our nine months on the road there have been few tense moments between us, but this tank probably doubled the number.
Sign #2: Jonny called tonight about car problems. We wanted to keep him on the phone as long as possible. There is no doubt about it- we miss our kids. We had a fantastic visit with Caitie, who left for Sylvania when we left for Spain. We need to look up on a map to see where she went because our geographically challenged selves have no idea where this new Eastern European country is, but she traveled there by train for a four day visit with friends. I think she was sorry to see us go, just as we were sorry to say goodbye. She finishes finals at the end of next week, then spends a week in Boston on her way home to being picked up at the airport by us on May 15 when we all meet back in Seattle.
Sign #3: We are getting lazy about our laundry. After nine months of doing our laundry in the bathroom sink every night we are now gauging whether we can make it until the end with the remaining clean clothes. Our laundry is now on a need to wear basis rather than, "this is dirty so I need to wash it".
Sign #4: We have no idea when to sleep anymore. It started on the ship...sleeping in late than not being able to sleep the next night. That required a nap, which then caused us to be awake at night. We were on opposite schedules. The one of us that could sleep did so soundly while the other counted sheep. We had that largely sorted out until we hit Spain again. Tonight's dinner reservation, made by the hotel clerk on our behalf, called for dinner at 10:00PM. How is the world can you go to sleep at midnight when you get back to your hotel? This morning, when we went in search of coffee at 9:00 AM when we were up and showered, was a real search as most places did not open until 11:00 AM. We are ready to have our meals at the times our bodies crave food. And to sleep at normal bedtimes.
I am sounding like this is not fun, but that is not the case. Tonight we are in a town that did not fit the guide book's description, Tudela. It is dirty and crowded, but yesterday we were in Montblanc, not too far outside Barcelona and it was spectacular. The town was clean, the people friendly, and the hotel inexpensive. The guide book only had a sentence on Montblanc. Go figure.
It is 12:30, so I'm off to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Until tomorrow...
Deanne
Sign #1: We got to the Barcelona airport after traveling by train from Florence to Rome at 7:52 am then taking a 12:40 bumpy flight. We picked up our car, a diesel Opel station wagon that we have unaffectionately named the Russian wagon. We were on the highway thinking that we were being tailed by a hovering aircraft before we figured out that the loud noise canceling out the full blast radio was our engine. What a tank this vehicle is! It is stick shift with the weird arrangement of six gears with the move from five to six always grinding badly. The navigator and the pilot of the Russian tank had a few tense moments finding our way to a road out of town, but eventually we were on the road. In our nine months on the road there have been few tense moments between us, but this tank probably doubled the number.
Sign #2: Jonny called tonight about car problems. We wanted to keep him on the phone as long as possible. There is no doubt about it- we miss our kids. We had a fantastic visit with Caitie, who left for Sylvania when we left for Spain. We need to look up on a map to see where she went because our geographically challenged selves have no idea where this new Eastern European country is, but she traveled there by train for a four day visit with friends. I think she was sorry to see us go, just as we were sorry to say goodbye. She finishes finals at the end of next week, then spends a week in Boston on her way home to being picked up at the airport by us on May 15 when we all meet back in Seattle.
Sign #3: We are getting lazy about our laundry. After nine months of doing our laundry in the bathroom sink every night we are now gauging whether we can make it until the end with the remaining clean clothes. Our laundry is now on a need to wear basis rather than, "this is dirty so I need to wash it".
Sign #4: We have no idea when to sleep anymore. It started on the ship...sleeping in late than not being able to sleep the next night. That required a nap, which then caused us to be awake at night. We were on opposite schedules. The one of us that could sleep did so soundly while the other counted sheep. We had that largely sorted out until we hit Spain again. Tonight's dinner reservation, made by the hotel clerk on our behalf, called for dinner at 10:00PM. How is the world can you go to sleep at midnight when you get back to your hotel? This morning, when we went in search of coffee at 9:00 AM when we were up and showered, was a real search as most places did not open until 11:00 AM. We are ready to have our meals at the times our bodies crave food. And to sleep at normal bedtimes.
I am sounding like this is not fun, but that is not the case. Tonight we are in a town that did not fit the guide book's description, Tudela. It is dirty and crowded, but yesterday we were in Montblanc, not too far outside Barcelona and it was spectacular. The town was clean, the people friendly, and the hotel inexpensive. The guide book only had a sentence on Montblanc. Go figure.
It is 12:30, so I'm off to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Until tomorrow...
Deanne
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
