New Year's Eve

Quiet at home with the man, the kids and my parents.

 And Chuck who did not approve.

See.

Kites? I know the perfect place

We headed off to San Sebastian today.....the perfect place to fly a kite on a blustery day.  We were lucky, the tide was way out, the wind was onshore,

and the kite was brilliant, it just popped up and stayed up there, like walking a dog, but it doesn't want to stop and sniff anything.

Youngest was gleeful.

So now you know.....

There were SWIMMERS!!!! BRRRrrrrr!!!!!!

Down in one corner of the beach, where the mountains have stood on end, 

are these sculptures by Chillida was recommended by a friend and is great, though it is hard to look truly monumental in the setting, with the Atlantic pounding in on the cliffs.  Sadly his museum is closed due to the current economic climate, but......these we could see.

And now you can get a glimpse too!

Hope you're having a great one.

O

Guggenheim

Today was another Bilbao day, and we went into the Guggenheim museum to see what there was to see.  The very very very best was a group of sculptures by Richard Serra, some of you may have seen one of his works in Terminal 3 at the Toronto airport....big steel job you can walk through.

Here's some videos of the work at the Guggenheim:  one and two....very long with an interview with Serra.  That second one is half an hour and includes some great footage of the installation process, which must have been astonishing.  The second half of the video shows the feel of the work a little more, with Serra's explanations.  By the way, his father was a Catalan who moved to the US....

Though, even if you watch through all of the video, it will give you no idea of the impact of them, of running through them, getting tipped by them, echoing in them....amplified by them.  It is dizzying and amazing and would be incredibly to do with a pair of beat boxers.....

As Youngest said, probably the best exhibit she's ever been to.  She also said that they feel bigger from inside than from outside, which is pretty cool too.

Amazing.

Truly, if you ever get the chance to go....go.  No, make a chance to go.

Astonishing.

Outside of the Guggenheim there was this puppy dog:

And in the window of a restaurant, we saw this.... I have NO idea what they mean, but they're pretty fun to read aloud
:

Oh, and it seems I can speak Spanish!

Spent the day so far walking in the hills and napping.  Not all bad by any stretch!

Since we have arrived in the Països Basques, near Bilbao, and I've gone off shopping and made our way around town and village, I have, to my astonishment, discovered that I can speak Spanish!  The man and the kids have both expressed astonishment at my abilities.

Nice little Christmas present to myself there!  Going to have to study more.  What a wonderful mass of inspiring feedback!

Not kidding myself that it is anywhere near as good as my Catalan, but I can go into stores and mostly succeed, and not get anyone too terribly confused.  It is fun.....

If I spend a little more time on this, I'd get better and better and better.

Vitoria-Gasteiz

We were off to visit another city today, Vitoria-Gasteiz, which architecturally was BEAUTIFUL!  We had a grand lunch as well.......here's some pics:

A kind of creepy alligator:

Very cool covered escalators in town:

Someone's entry:

Garbage disposal containers that, as N put it, look like they are ready to rise up and defend the town:

Almost looks like a Banksy this one...

A very cool museum....

Love this balcony:

There is a card museum, this one talks about Canadians...click on it for more detail:

A view over Vitoria in the evening:

Another lovely day!

well, maybe not.

Well, I took a video for you on the hike today, but blogger doesn't seem to want to put it up.  It was a lovely walk too.....we discovered that in this neck of the woods, gates don't mean that you have to stop, only that you have to do them up again so the animals don't get loose.

So, instead here's a picture of an Anish Kapoor scultpture from behind the Guggenheim.......

Happy present day

if that's what you're up to!  We are.

Here's a few photos from the day.  I have to say that where we are is exquisite.  Tomorrow I am hoping to push up high enough to get into the woods......

Here's a few photos.  I was stupid enough to forget my battery charger for the camera (duuuuh) so I'll be searching for new ones in Bilboa!

Below is Chuck opening his present, he's a most enthusiastic present opener!

Especially when he present is cheese!

There's no shortage of water here.....rivers and streams EVERYWHERE!

The dog in the house we are staying in, Luna.  She doesn't get walked much normally, so she's having a pretty gleeful time with us, in fact is pretty wildly excited the entire time we're walking.

Lovely bit of countryside around here.

Some more.  Looks almost Swiss to me.

See!

They're all wearing bells too, I'll take a recording of it for tomorrow.

I am DYING to go hiking up into those woods.

All those white dots are sheep....lots and lots and lots of sheep!

And long views....

Then there's some donkeys....burros in Catalan, no idea in Basque...an astoa!

And ponies and horses....

As Eldest put it, a vacation just by being here!

Hope your day s turning out well!  Ours certainly is.

O

well this was calmer

And we SCORED A TURKEY!!!!!

There were Pavos and Pavitos, turkeys and little turkeys...and we scored the last turkey there.....YEAAAAH!

We went for lunch in town, a most unpromising looking bar, but it was OK in fact and the food was fine.  Fairly typical fair honestly.  We took a walk around the town and I wondered why I hadn't brought my camera.  Still not sure why I managed to do that, but there it is.

Got back to the house and took Chuck for a walk alongside the local dog, Luna, who lives chained outside, but who loves a good walk.  She doesn't have Chuck's stamina though, Eldest tried to get her to run with her and ended up dragging her along the road as opposed to being dragged herself.  Chuck, once you get him going, is not too sympathetic to our slower pace.

Some wrapping, some reading, some napping and things are looking pretty good indeed!

Happy Christmas eve to you all!

O

Good cops. Bad guy.(s?)

We're off on vacation again...YEAH!  My dad rolled in last night and we've driven over to the Basque region near Bilbao for a bit more than a week.  The countryside through the drive was stunning, Spain really is an amazing country and the drive was fine, if squishy.

The downside?

The extremely professional and efficient pick-pocket who made off with my Dad's wallet in the bathroom at a one of those highway rest stops.

D*mn.

There was a very scary moment when we weren't sure if he'd gotten the car keys and the car too, which would have REALLY been a drag rather than a remarkable pain in the *ss.

The cops eventually came, the cards are easily cancelled, the biggest immediate hassle is the lack of a driver's license, so we had to wait around to fill in some forms so that we had something to show any subsequent cops.

They were very nice.  They didn't make us go to downtown Lleida to fill in the forms, they apologized many times and were generally quite civilised.

Poopy, but not major damage.  Fairly major irritation for my Dad, but we're all here and well, and that's what counts.  The guy was most impressive.

Linguistics

It is something we do really naturally here in this house, and something that I do at work...which seems more obvious as a language teacher.  You see, my Dad arrived this evening, and it made me realise the amount of time that we spend discussing language and accent and pronunciation and syntax etc etc etc....

In an average evening of conversation we will, at least Youngest and I will, easily have 4+ conversations that circle around language use, and if she is reading something to me, as she was this evening, this may well include several minor pronunciation corrections as well....some typical for her age group, for instance the pronunciation of 'Ella Fitzgerald', and some less typical for her age group but relevant to her life experience.

We'll typically range through 2 − 3 languages, both in discussion and use: English, Catalan and sometimes Spanish, but as Youngest is very keen to learn French and will be starting lessons in the new year, to her glee, we did get to that this evening, and even touched on Latin which Eldest is studying and which my dad has also learned something about.  So tonight?  We got to 5 different languages.  English is, however, dominant. Hands down.

It is neat and fascinating that we can have these conversations at all, and even neater that we are all so fascinated by them.