Or, I fought Renfe, and Renfe won.
Getting to Bilbao was supposed to be fairly simple, but a series of late trains led to missed connections everywhere, and I found myself stranded in dusty Miranda de Ebro for about five hours. Never one to miss an opportunity to explore a new town, I went awanderin’ (with my pack), only to discover that the most exciting thing to have happened in recent history in Miranda de Ebro was a visitation by the blood donation van, and I’d missed that by a day. It didn’t help that I was there in the height of siesta, but I think I’d covered most of the town in about fifteen minutes. I found an internet cafe without any computers, too. Neat.
Bilbao was a little different. Colourful, very multicultural, and modern. It was a little disconcerting to arrive at Albando train station (the signage gives no indiction that Albando is in Bilbao), but I reasoned that as we were at the end of the line, I was probably in the right place. I treated myself to a little apartment for the night, fully intending to cook myself a decent dinner, but as it was situated in the middle of an immigrant neighbourhood, I went out for a pretty good falafel instead.
I mostly came to Bilbao for the Guggenheim. The building itself is incredible, and I also greatly enjoyed most of the exhibitions, particularly the works of Juan Muñoz. I also finally got to see paintings and sketches by Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico “in the flesh”, as it were. Most of all, the museum filled me with ideas for installation art – just imagining what I could do with a modern space, some motion detectors, Pd and a MIDI interface.