¡Viva, España!

The crowds that assembled around the singers

Even when traveling, sometimes “real life” just insists on getting in the way, which is totally annoying. But you suck it up and you carry on, and maybe you curse under your breath a few times.

The day started simply enough. I got up and spent a little time with one of Maite’s private English students. The plan was then that I would stay home for a few hours to catch up on some things, then take the bus to meet Maite at her afternoon classes. And that was where the day hit a few slight hiccups.

The washing machine that should have taken half an hour was still going two hours later when I was supposed to be leaving and, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off nor to open the door. All of the travel plans for the coming week that I’d been counting on suddenly fell apart completely and I had to come up with a totally new (and very different) plan. And even though I arrived in the town where Maite was teaching without incident, once I got there it seemed that no one there had ever heard of the street I was looking for. I asked at least ten people and ten people told me ten different things, pointing me in ten very different directions. Cue me walking around lost in the rain for over 45 minutes and arriving an hour late to Maite’s classes.

The two Maites

But, alas, I made it and shook it off and really enjoyed the classes. I mean, really, if this is what constitutes a “bad” day of travel, I’ll still take it over real life any time! Actually, none of these things would normally have even phased me had I not been working on a COMBINED total of 8 hours of sleep over the previous two nights. Huh. Is it possible I’m not as young as I used to be?? Naaaah.

After classes, we made a quick pit stop at home for Maite to work her magic on the washing machine (where my clothes were still sitting in a big pool of water) and then we headed out to meet up with Maite the Dos in the old part of downtown Bilbao. Look at me, coming from the other side of the world and introducing two people who live in the same town to each other!

 
Tomorrow is a holiday here in Spain, which means that even more people than normal were out on the streets at night. For this holiday, in this particular town, there is a tradition of groups of men just randomly gathering spontaneously in the streets and belting out traditional old songs. Inevitably, a crowd forms and joins in and suddenly the narrow streets and alleys are completely impassable and you can’t help but get caught up in it and join in. Maite said there would be hundreds of them all over town at any given point during the day/evening. It was a pretty cool thing to see. There’s so much tradition and history here, which I totally dig.

Mmmm, snails. My first and likely my last.

We then spent a very Spanish evening, which basically involves moving from place to place, rarely staying in any one spot for very long. You have a drink and a tapa at one, then move on to the next and do the same. Repeat ad finitum. At the last place we ended up, one of their special tapas was snails and somehow the conversation turned to the fact that I just had to try them. They didn’t look too horrible until we pulled its’ slimy little body out of the shell, at which point I tried to rescind my willingness to give it a go. But by that point there was a small crowd of Spaniards watching the Americana try her first snail so there was really no going back. Let’s just say that I survived the experience but that it’s not very likely to be something I add to my list of favorite things about Spain. Good thing the country has so many other good qualities!