Why you shouldn’t go to Bilbao, Spain on a Monday:
*travels{abroad}, Spain, camino de santiago Add comments
I wake up with a headache to the sound of a jackhammer chopping up the street below me. There are seven cigarette butts in the ashtray on my bedside table. One is standing straight up. I cross the drab and empty room and enter the bathroom to release my full bladder. There is a streak in the bowl from my violent reaction to a whole round of camembert cheese I crammed into a baguette, my final meal in France and proof that I am incredibly intolerant of lactose. There are curly black hairs stuck to the still damp bathtub and my clothes are laid out on the dresser next to some brochures for the Guggenheim museum, an architectural gem I’ve been waiting to see for years. It was an off start to my first day ‘home’, to say the least. To say the most, I felt pretty damn lonely; and I couldn’t understand why.As I collected my things, I trotted down the stairs half-heartedly and half-awake. Perhaps my loneliness came from the empty room I was in, I rationalized. I entered the bar below and ordered a coffee. As the words were leaving my mouth, I realized they came slower and less confidently than than they had in the past. Like my hotel room, the bed seemed inviting at first and the independence of having my own space was great, but soon that empty feeling kicked in. I felt very little in this foreign city as I sat munching on a croissant and admiring the towering mountains shrouded in fog. It was an initial very uncomfortable feeling I didn’t expect to experience. As I wandered toward the museum along buildings crammed together at all angles in order to fit, I questioned where exactly I fit or if there was even any room left for me in this place. So much for my long-awaited homecoming… I arrived at the Guggenheim and I admired its slick silver exterior before walking down to the door.
I was locked out. Cursing myself for forgetting museums are closed Mondays, I turned around, and climbed back up the stairs. There was a couple on a nearby bench I wandered towards, searching for some human interaction. “My only day in Bilbao and I come on a Monday!” Chuckling with me, I felt a little better. At least someone understood where I was coming from. It didn’t have to be my only day in Bilbao, of course. I was in no real rush, and as I pondered the decision while wandering around absentmindedly, I arrived at the bus station. In the end, I figured I might as well keep on moving. Bilbao seemed to be pushing me out the door, but its beauty and unusual lack of rain seemed to be saying: “Hey, at least your dry and had a coffee. But if you want to stop by my place next time, pick any rainy day Tuesday-Sunday.”
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